"dairy farms" news and stories

This is an exciting time in the U.S. for cheese production due to the growing number of dairies creating artisanal cheeses. While Europeans have mastered the skill for many of their world renowned cheeses, like Brie and Gruyère, Americans are still learning. There is a tremendous amount of innovation occurring in American dairies. In her blog, Cheese monger Anne Saxelby points out that mixed milk cheeses are much more American than European since they are discouraged by AOC and DOC regulations.

Saxelby describes the development of mixed milk cheeses in the U.S. as an art. The craft lies in adding milk from the animals during a specific moment in the lactation cycle. The flavor of the milk is richer towards the end of the cycle. Accordingly, cheesemakers will use late season goat and sheeps' milk with some cows' milk. The proportions of each milk create the final taste of the cheese. And, the key is to balance out the fat content and decrease unpleasant flavors.

The following cheeses are mixed milk cheeses Saxelby recommends, and of course you can find them at her stall in the Essex Street Market in NY:
Battenkill Tomme - This raw sheep and cows' milk cheese comes from Three Corner Field Farm, NY.
Humble Pie - This pasteurized cow and sheeps' milk cheese comes from Woodcock Farm, VT.
Seal Cove Tomme - This pasteurized goat and cows' cheese milk comes from Seal Cove Farm, ME.
Capriola - This pasteurized goat and cows' milk cheese comes from Lazy Lady Farm, VT.
Timberdoodle - This raw sheep and cows' cheese milk comes from Woodcock Farm, VT.

Many professionals are changing careers to head back to the land and to become small scale dairy farmers. I tried this myself four years ago when I went to work and live on a brand new dairy farm. I was the assistant to an ex-computer engineer who had become a full time artisinal cheese maker. Herding and milking the cows, brewing beer, making cheese, baking bread, feeding the chickens, haying, and driving a tractor. You're outside in the hot summer sun and five degree wintry days, building things and tearing down others, up at dawn and working past dusk. At least you have the fringe benefits of making fine food products; eating all you make, trading your goods with others in the food community, and going to fun and fancy food events. It's a tough life where you never stop moving, but one that is becoming more rewarding than just a few years ago.

Small dairy farms are located all over the country, many in places you would think like Wisconsin and California, but also all over New England, the Mid-West, and the Pacific Northwest. Anywhere you can find a decent piece of farm land where your milk producing, four legged friends can thrive. The farm where I lived and worked for a few months straddled the NY/NJ border, just a half hour from NYC, and in the middle of a bedroom community for many of those professionals who are thinking about second careers.

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Farmers that were about to see their business go under have found a little salvation, thanks to organic milk.

Several farmers, like the ones profiled in this Boston Globe story about Vermont farmers, have switched to organic, and many are able to pay their bills or make a profit for the first time in decades. One man, Peter Decker, actually sold his auto body shop in Florida and, with half a mil, started his own organic dairy farm in Barton, Vermont.

I've never tried organic milk. I don't drink whole milk anymore, and any milk that I have is either 1% or skim. How does it taste?