Simple, complex and raw: the amazing success of Organic Pastures Dairy

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FROM CALIFORNIA

Simple, complex and raw: the amazing success

of Organic Pastures Dairy

Third generation Fresno dairyman Mark McAfee has designed a " pro-cow "

environment that leads to pathogen-free raw milk.

 

By Lisa M. Hamilton

 

January 17, 2003: Something about this creamery is not quite right.

It's not the smell, in fact there's no odor to speak of. The

air is

good and cool, the lighting bright, all surfaces clean—that's

all

right. It's just so… empty. As owner Mark McAfee guides me

into the

first room, I wonder if there is machinery built into the walls or

behind a green curtain like in Oz. This is, after all, the processing

facility behind perhaps the most revolutionary dairy in the United

States, yet there's no technology—just a butter churn that

looks like

a solid chrome bingo cage and a bottling machine that could fit in the

back of my pick-up.

 

When I say this politely, Mark's delighted smile tells me

I've hit on

the very essence of his operation. He puts it plainly: " When you

don't

screw with Mother Nature, things stay simple. "

 

Organic Pastures Dairy is an unassuming cluster of buildings in

Kerman, California; a CCOF-certified organic blip on the Fresno County

radar. The creamery is built from two reefer vans outfitted with just

basics—sinks, counters, water, and uncomplicated machines. The

only

decoration is a picture window that frames the bordering pastures. The

milk and all its incarnations are raw, so there's no

pasteurization,

just a quick chill and filter then bottle and cap.

 

And that's the secret of Mark's operation, which is one of

only a few

California dairies that are growing instead of closing doors. By

keeping his technology simple, he allows natural complexity to

flourish. The milk is a perfect metaphor: by keeping it raw, Mark

encourages the beneficial bacteria that keep pathogens in check. Each

batch of milk is tested for bad guys like salmonella and E. coli, and

not once have they been found. He has even had researchers introduce

such bacteria to test samples, and the pathogens have been unable to

reproduce. In conventional milk they would be the dominant organisms

and proliferate, but in the varied ecosystem within Mark's milk,

the

competition stifles them.

 

It makes sense that Mark would run his dairy on the principle of

simple complexity, for he follows the same path as a person. A

third-generation Fresno dairyman, he is direct and intense, his

business run in perfect order. And this lays the ground for his ideas

to take off, which they do, as he talks with breathless enthusiasm to

anyone in earshot about everything from natural hoof disease

prevention and raw cheese recipes to nutrition-based cures for autism.

 

His face is bright and honest like a Corn Belt football coach, yet his

mind is intergalactic.

 

Because of the latter, he was able to recognize that a raw milk

creamery can't grow from a conventional format, that it needs

instead

to be part of a larger web as complex as itself. As we walk the few

feet from creamery to pasture, Mark explains the steps outward from

the milk: a healthy balance of bacteria comes from a healthy cow; a

healthy cow comes from a healthy farm. And so Mark has designed what

he calls a " pro-cow environment. "

 

To begin with, his herd rotates through pasture but never leaves it,

not even for twice-daily milking. Instead, the McAfee Pasture Parlor

goes to them, towed by a tractor. From afar the mobile barn looks like

a carnival ride, a white steel box with ramp leading up and along its

side to gated milking slots then back down into the grass. The floors

are grated steel or padded with rubber, so the cows' joints get

minimal shock. It accommodates 20 animals at once and milks them in 10

minutes, during which time the human on duty notes milking durations

and udder health, identifying the cows on paper by the number from

their right ear tag and the name—Gloria, Gladys, Golda—from

their

left. As cows dry up at the end of their cycle, they are put out of

rotation for 50 days. As they dry up for good, they are put out to

pasture, but never slaughtered.

 

While most dairies consider this kind of personal approach

uneconomical, for Mark it has tangible rewards. The cows experience

fewer health issues, as evidenced by the farm's cull rate of only

9

percent (conventional dairies hover around 30 to 40 percent).

That's

partially because the animals are less stressed. As we walk through

the fields, not one runs. Instead, one incredibly pregnant Jersey

waddles in our direction, takes a few good sniffs, then meets my

camera with her tongue.

 

" There are even bulls in here, " Mark says proudly. In fact,

there's

one a stone's throw away, lounging like Julius Caesar amidst his

harem. Apparently they are so, well, satisfied (the ratio is 40:1)

there's no call for aggression. The dairy keeps only young bulls,

so

the cows don't incur back trouble, but other than that breeding is

uninterrupted by humans.

 

" Production breeding is geared toward making a cow that eats more

and

makes more milk, " Mark says. " No one pays attention to making

a

healthy cow with strong joints and good hooves. Most dairy cows never

even see a bull, and end up so inbred they don't last more than

three

years. " But here, Jerseys, Ayrshires, and Holsteins cross genes,

each

lending their better characteristics and canceling out the lesser

traits of the others. It will take years for the breed to be markedly

improved, but the simple strategy sets the groundwork.

 

Solidly challenging the skeptics

 

Lauding this return to natural systems can be dangerous in places like

Fresno, where convention is so skeptical of the " green "

approach. Yet

who can argue with the fact that Organic Pastures just doesn't

have

the classic dairy woes?

 

Take manure: Organic Pastures has no expensive, hazardous lagoon for

dealing with waste because it has almost no waste to deal with. With a

barn that moves weekly, there is no concrete floor where manure builds

up, no permanently muddy patch that must be sluiced off. And because

the cows aren't lying in their own manure as in confinement

operations, they don't need to be washed before milking. (In fact,

Mark believes that this only transports bacteria from the rest of the

cow down the udder and into the milk.) The total wastewater for the

herd of 350 is under 700 gallons per day, all of which channels back

through the irrigation lines onto the fields.

 

Further, the barn's mobility means the land that would otherwise

be

paved over can remain in pasture, some of which grows alfalfa for the

herd. And the cows' mobility means their manure goes back into the

soil, negating the need for applied fertilizer.

 

Success off the beaten path – beyond organic

 

Of course, the best proof of the system's success is the bottom

line.

Organic Pastures' products are now sold in 231 stores in

California,

and the product line is about to expand to include raw Colby and Jack

cheeses. Mark attributes the success to leaving the well-beaten

industry path and starting a dialogue with consumers.

 

Before last year, the dairy was a faceless member of the Organic

Valley cooperative. But the innovations (especially the mobile milking

parlor) drew press and then customers out to the farm, where Mark was

always available for a tour. (He has had 4,300 people to the farm over

the past two years.) As a result, consumers asked to buy his milk

specifically. After enough had asked, in January, 2002, he went

independent and started the Organic Pastures brand, which remains

solely the product of his herd.

 

The dairy's production per cow is far lower than

average—about 40

pounds a day (50 max.), compared to nearly 100 at a big commercial

operation that uses antibiotics and high-protein feed. Those seemingly

sour economics are compounded by expensive choices such as keeping dry

cows rather than slaughtering them and buying supplementary alfalfa

that's organic. But here's the trick: because Organic

Pastures is

responding to specific demand rather than pouring product into an

overflowing marketplace, it gets a worthwhile return.

 

Mark's is the only business in the country offering raw, organic

cow's

milk, and people are willing to pay for it. What's more, they

even do

his marketing for him—rather than solicit stores himself, Mark

relies

on visitors to his web site to ask their local markets to carry his

product.

 

So while the average dairyman gets $9-11 per hundredweight for his

milk, and the average organic dairyman $15-20, Organic Pastures gets

what works out to $55-60. That's $1.50 a quart (up to $2.50 for

the 20

percent they deliver themselves), compared to conventional's

$1.03 a

gallon when it leaves the farm.

 

People-centered marketing

 

People are willing to pay more because Mark has proven that his

product is different, and better. " Normally the farmer is just on

the

farm, " he says. " But with this kind of business, you have no

choice

but to be out there educating and getting involved in the

marketplace. " He spreads the gospel at trade shows, in radio

interviews and letters to editors, on his delivery routes, and on the

constant tours he gives when at the farm. This mobility is possible

because of a web of committed employees, and one in particular: his

son, Aaron.

 

At the far side of the mobile milking parlor, we encounter the

19-year-old redhead on his way to deliver hay to the herd. Aaron is

tall, his body just on the verge of becoming a powerful machine.

Dressed in denim, plaid, and a rigid white cowboy hat, he looks far

more like a farmer than his father.

 

Mark tries not to embarrass the boy with introductions, but still lets

slip that Aaron gets all A's at Fresno State, that he sets the

curve

in calculus class. Dad beams while reporting that his son has done all

the jobs on the farm—from marketing at dozens of Whole Foods

stores to

milking the herd solo. Aaron toes the ground with sincere humility,

politely waiting out the pleasantries so he can get back to the field.

 

When released, he walks briskly to the nearby tractor and starts it

up. One breath and Mark picks a new subject—growing alfalfa, I

believe—and revs back up to a-mile-a-minute.

 

As we return to the creamery, I glance west and see the promise of

this dairy: with the sun setting through a thin Central Valley haze,

Aaron is already in the middle of the pasture, pulling a trailer of

alfalfa to the herd. A few impatient cows run just behind, biting off

a mouthful of hay whenever a bump slows the tractor, and Aaron laughs

at them.

 

It's a simple moment, sure, but the very thing that builds a

complex

future.

 

Lisa Hamilton is a freelance ag writer from Mill Valley, CA.