In continuing our Farmer-Grower series, where we celebrate those who engage in sustainable agriculture, we interviewed Albert Straus, a dairyman who is revolutionizing what it means to operate a sustainable dairy. In addition to the dairy, Albert operates Straus Family Creamery located in Marshall, CA. Straus Family Creamery is organic and Non-GMO Project Verified, dedicated to improving environmental practices and long-term sustainability of family farms throughout the area.
History of the Straus Creamery
My father started the farm in 1941 and ran it as a conventional farm for decades. Both my parents were very much environmentalists and concerned with preserving the land, the businesses that were on the land, and farming families. They each formed community groups that were trying to facilitate the conversation between farmers, environmentalists and government agencies in hopes to come up with a plan to keep the land open and to preserve the farming community. My mother started the first agricultural land trust in the nation in 1980, the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, which has now preserved nearly 50,000 acres and some 70 farms that won’t be developed in perpetuity.
In 1990, a Petaluma entrepreneur approached me about doing organic milk for ice cream. I had done my senior thesis at Cal Poly about building a processing plant and ice cream was already a passion of mine. After he gave up on the idea, I kept looking into it. It took me three and a half years to figure out what organic was and how to feed the cows, how to treat the cows, how to find funding to build a plant, how to market the products, and how to package the products. Beginning in 1994, we were the first certified organic dairy and creamery in the western United States.
We try to make our products the highest quality that we can, minimally processed and with no additives. From cream-top milk, which is pasteurized but not homogenized, in reusable glass bottles, to European style yogurt, to Greek yogurt to sour cream; the yogurts are all milk and cultures without additives, same with the sour cream. Our ice creams don’t use stabilizers other than egg yolk so it is all organic and super premium ice cream. We have a nutritional ice cream, it is called “NuScoop” that we have been marketing and are just about to re-launch. We have butter that has some of the highest butter fat and lowest moisture of any butter on the market in the world and it is all made in small batches. We make a barista milk that is partially homogenized for coffee shops, it foams better and is sweeter. It is used by Intelligensia in LA and a bunch of other coffee shops. We have an ice cream mix that Bi-Rite and other places use as a base to make their flavors. We also make a soft serve ice cream for their machines. We do a lot of different things.
Q: Transitioning to organic in part was a way to ensure your family farm’s financial security. What were the other key reasons, for you personally, in making that transition? How has that evolved over time?
A: The whole idea was first how do we survive as a family farm; with the conventional dairy system you never know month to month what your milk prices are going to be, it is a big roller coaster while your costs keep going up and up. We lose five percent of our farms every year in the United States: there were 4.6 million dairy farms in 1940 and today there are 49,000. So how do you change that model, how do you survive?
First it was building our own brand and controlling our own prices, creating an environmental and sustainable farming system for ourselves, and then over time our vision became how do we “create a thriving relationship between farms, food, people and earth?” We focus on how we can create a model that can sustain family farms, make them profitable, sustainable, and also help facilitate the revitalization of the farming community. Seventy-five percent of the dairy farms in Marin and Sonoma Counties are now certified organic, it is no longer the niche, it is the mainstream and the wave of the future.
Q: Considering emerging and pressing issues like climate change, increased use of pesticides and genetically modified seeds, and intensified agriculture – how is your relationship with food and farming changing?
A: Everything that I look at, in our farming system as well as in our creamery business, is about how do we minimize our impact on the environment, build soils, create enhanced animal welfare, as well as coming up with high-quality products that the consumer can be confident in. In 2010, we became the first verified non-GMO creamery in the United States. I had found GMO contamination in our certified organic corn in 2005, and so I started our own verification program and then became verified through the Non-GMO Project. Anytime there are threats to what I feel is organic we see how we can keep organic integrity so consumers can be confident in what organic is.
On the dairy side, for the last ten years we have been generating all of our own electricity and most of our heated water from the waste from cows; we have a methane digester that captures all of their waste as well as the creamery waste. We capture all of the methane gas, which is 23 times more detrimental than carbon dioxide, and use that as a fuel for creating electricity that we sell back to the public utility, and offset our own usage costs. We have several electric vehicles: a farm utility vehicle, an ATV, and Nissan Leaf that we charge off the methane system. (And at our offices in Petaluma we have several electric cars and we use solar power.) What we are trying to do is minimize our use and ultimately the goal is to have a carbon-neutral system. We are part of the Marin Carbon Project where we are measuring the amount of carbon that is being sequestered on our farm by applying compost and doing organic grazing methods; and we are actually showing that you can sequester about 2,000 pounds of carbon per year per hectare. It not only enhances the environment, we are making a system that is more productive for grass forage for the cows as well as having a global impact. Everything we look at is how we can minimize our impact or create a positive change.
We minimize our water consumption use by reusing water and reclaiming it. Our long-term goal is actually to take all our creamery’s wastewater back to potable; we have been doing all sorts of experiments with that to get rid of chemicals. Between the creamery and dairy we reuse almost 90 percent of our water. We have never had sufficient water at the creamery so we haul water in and all of our wastewater out. Water is a precious resource for us.
We are always looking at different types of packaging. Reusable glass bottles is part of that, we get almost 80% of them back. Deposits are paid when bottles of milk are purchased and then consumers bring them back; we get 4-6 uses out of each bottle. We have already reduced the plastic content of each yogurt container by 50 percent and are looking toward at least another 50 percent reduction. Ideally we will get out of plastics all together. We look at all of our resources, and look at how we can improve on those steadily. We are looking at moving our creamery into a new location and the idea is to build a zero-impact creamery. It would include everything from solar power, to highly efficient insulation, and take all these practices that we use for heating and cooling our products and try to make it zero impact, and get to a sustainable model.
Q: There is currently a major divide between organic and conventional dairy. What has been your experience in being a part of the inception of modern organic dairy? What do you think the future of organic dairy looks like?
A: I think dairy farming has been a challenge for farmers. What I have tried to encourage is that the only way to make farming viable and sustainable, to be able to pass on to next generations, and to get new farmers in, is to make a model where farmers pay themselves-- and most farmers don’t. It is important to look at farming as a business not a lifestyle. It can’t be a lifestyle where you either have jobs off the farm or have to use other monetary resources to make the farm go. The only way it can be sustainable for the long run is to make it where the next generation wants to be farmers because they are not going to be working seven days a week, 24-hour days for no money.
When you are looking at conventional and organic, I think organic is something that has a future because we look at all the different systems, how to balance them, make them sustainable and profitable, and look at people, planet and profit as a triple bottom line. It is not just one part; it can’t be profitable without taking care of the land and the animals. In conventional farming, people have been pushed to get big because they have no control over their pricing. You try and get bigger and bigger just to offset some costs, but it is not the answer. You have more problems with pollution and animal welfare because you are being pushed by economics and it is not a sustainable system.
A: As a successful organic dairyman, what advice would you give to others trying to transition to, or survive in, the organic dairy industry?
A: What we are trying to do is gather the resources and advice that farmers need in order to make good decisions. I think it is about getting mentors, consultants, and people that actually can help you move your business forward, and look at the whole picture and help you get the education and experience that you need. The average age of farmers is getting close to 60 years old, so how do you have succession planning? How do you help the next generation get started? Those are things that are challenges and we are trying to come up with solutions for them.
Q: What do you think is the most important thing for modern consumers to understand when it comes to dairy?
A: What I saw happen in the UK is that organic foods lost sales for the last 7 or 8 years because consumers didn’t understand what organic meant, about the farming practices and the system and they didn’t understand quality differences. I think the lesson to be learned is consumers need to understand what the farming practices are, how they are different, how they are sustainable, and how they produce high quality food. I think that to have that understanding and that connection to farming is important; when you have the big chain stores that have labels that don’t reflect actual farms or farming practices there is a disconnect. It is a danger when some retail companies think that sustainability still just means low prices, and that’s not sustainable, it just puts pressure on processors and farmers to produce things below the true costs of production.
Q: In terms of the Farm Bill, do you think there are federal incentives that could be in place and support organic dairy, and what do you think those could be?
A: I like the idea of a system that is not reliant on federal subsidies. I think there are consumers who want to buy organic food but can’t afford it; maybe that is where subsidies should be going. The food stamps and food programs which are a part of the Farm Bill could be expanded to a level that would allow families to afford organic products; I think that is something that has a place. A farmer should be able to get a price that they need and not rely on subsidies to do the basic business of farming. The problem is that a lot of times the government doesn’t understand what farming is.
This interview has been edited for length. All photos are courtesy of Straus Family Creamery.
Read about more Sustainable Agriculture Spotlights and organic farming stories at GreenAmerica.org.
