Dairy Production

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Okay, well, welcome everyone to our ongoing series on establishing rigorous consensus-driven standards for regenerative agriculture.
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I'm Christy Pettis, I'm the Food Standards Manager at Natural Grocers.
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I'm joined today by my co-hosts Alan Lewis and Elizabeth Bennett.
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Our goal with these work group meetings is to establish a trusted standard that retailers, brands, and producers can use to match consumer expectations.
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Specifically, we are focusing on creating an actionable set of guardrails, identifying the inputs and practices that prevent a brand from using a regenerative claim.
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So please remember that this initiative isn't about creating new seals or certifications.
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No one is trying to call out conventional producers.
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Our discussion is meant to focus and support those who are already committed to a verifiable regenerative path.
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So, with more about today's session, we have Alan Lewis.
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He is our vice president of advocacy at Natural Grocers, and he is an active member of various organizations, including iPhone North America, and he is the host of this series.
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I will pass the mic over to Alan.
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Thank you very much, Christy, for that nice introduction.
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Um, the engagement guidelines are on screen.
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We've uh opted not to read those through this time.
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They're pretty obvious to our community, but uh sometimes it helps uh for uh newbies perhaps to take a quick look.
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And now moving to uh the other part of the introduction is just how this is going to flow.
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I'm gonna read this because for the audio podcast, it's helpful.
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The session will be organized around the following topics to help stay focused, but also embrace the holistic complexity of dairy production.
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Part one is about who is the long-standing or what is the long-standing ancient and human relationship to milk animals.
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Part two, what are the current best practices in dairy in North America?
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And are they still similar to indigenous practices?
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Part three, we take a moment to describe conventional large-scale dairy's weaknesses, where the economic and ecological system built to support it often undermines some long-standing best organic and regenerative practices.
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Part four, describe this tension between the cost of higher quality, better production versus consumer demand and the all of the complexity of consumer decisions of the uh uh apart from the quality of the milk.
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Finally, we'll take a stab at comparing label claims and certification systems just to get an idea of the landscape and how we're using that.
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And then returning to part one is what is our right relationship with livestock, animals, the planet, and each other because ultimately a standard has to reflect all of the aspects or dimensions of human values.
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We have um a special thanks going out to a non-nonprofit International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements, also known as Organics International.
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They are sponsoring this series on the iFoam Northamerica.org website, as you know, and supporting the success and reach of these stakeholder sessions.
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iFoam Organics International is now celebrating its 50th anniversary and supports the global effort to produce nutritious food with health, fairness, ecology, and care using equitable regenerative methods.
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Through this voluntary cooperative initiative, we hope to facilitate a consensus among retailers, retail buyers, about what materials and practices should preclude the use of a regenerative claim.
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That's not a definition of regenerative.
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It's an actionable set of guardrails for retailers and shoppers to ensure transparency.
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Think of it as a negative definition that asks the question what inputs and practices might prevent the use of a regenerative claim on a retail product.
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We have to make sure that regenerative and organic mean distinct things.
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If everything means everything, then nothing means nothing.
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Okay.
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How about we get down to business here?
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The first part here is we're addressing a complex issue and and to make it easier to follow conversation, we have our guiding parts, but in the end we'll try to pull all these parts together.
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All these parts together.
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So our panelists today, Dr.
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Meg Cattell, doctor of veterinary medicine and a teacher at uh Colorado State University, former operator of Windsor Organic Dairy in Colorado.
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She studied animal health and its connection to human environmental health for decades.
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She brings a broad array of scientific skills and perspective to her work.
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WindsorDairy.com has uh information on the dairy, and in her bio online, there's links to her current work.
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Phil Forbes, Kelowna Farms.
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Phil Forbes is program director, small farms at Kelowna Farms and Creamery based in Kelowna, Iowa.
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Previously, Phil was director of supply chain at Kelowna Organics and also held positions at Seidel University.
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Farmers Creamery, Maryland Farms, Frontier Co-op, United States Army.
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And he is the boots in the dirt on the ground at Kelowna, making sure that standards are strong and well implemented.
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Kelowna Supernatural.com.
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And finally, literally with her boots in the dirt in her barn is Phyllis Van Armberg, Darmerle Dairy that is uh uh feeds into the Maple Hill Creamery business.
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Phyllis and her husband Paul operate Darmerle Dairy in upstate New York.
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They helped guide over 120 farm farms in making the grass, the leap to grass-fed.
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Today they mentor fellow farmers who want to build operations that are ecologically sound, financially viable, and deeply rooted in values.
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Okay.
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How about we get to the panel?
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1006, we're on time.
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So for the panel, we want to talk about what is the long-standing indigenous human relationship to milk animals.
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It's part and parcel of human civilization.
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But during this panel series, we challenge the audience to consider the 10,000 years of practices which proponents of modern regenerative agriculture claim to descend from.
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This helped us to have a baseline, a starting point to compare with.
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In this part, we're going to let each panelist share their vision for regenerative reorganization of the culture of agriculture.
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We will let one panelist kick off and we'll encourage others to amplify their thoughts, and everybody gets to take all the time that we need.
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Meaning, if you look into some of the works like uh Gary Nob Hunt's book, Why Some Like it talked, it talks about how people and plants co-evolve.
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Um there that's a time horizon where it can actually alter the genes.
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Hey, look at that.
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Where it can actually alter the gene uh distribution within populations.
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In other words, we're adapting to the food, and our culture literally co-evolves.
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So, in this, what I really wanted to talk about in is to guide you in the direction of thinking about the regenerative part or the soil building part of this.
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Um, one of my favorite books when I was a young pre-veterinarian was a UN publication called The Role of Ruminants and Support of Men, of Mankind.
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And it really focused on all the different ways that we benefit from our interaction with animals.
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And one of the biggest is the use of fibers, cellulose, for example, that are not digestible to humans to produce the highest quality protein and the most complete food there is.
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So uh the other of that though is the importance of uh the manure of ruminant animals for improving soil and for as a fuel source.
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And I can tell you I've been many places in the world where the manure was number one or number two as a byproduct from literally uh as a byproduct from the dairy animals.
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So, for example, there are gausalas in India where they um they were sanctuaries for dairy cows, and they would take retired dairy cows or animals they found on the street and feed them.
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And the gift that was given back was the manure which was used for cooking fuel and uh also obviously to increase soil fertility.
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Um, all over the North Atlantic, farmers um had systems with large numbers of animals actually.
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In the Viking age in Greenland, some of the farmers there had 80 to 100 cattles that were indoors all winter, but the fertility of their soil for producing their own home crops and for um increasing the fertility of the pastures was entirely dependent upon the manure that they spread in the near fields, and the far fields were used for harvest.
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So a pattern that you see all over the world.
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And most people don't know this, but the fertility of the loose soils in Europe was almost entirely formed by the relationship of humans and dairy cattle.
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But by using bedding and allowing the urine and manure to accumulate and then depositing it on the soil.
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And those are those soils are still alive today because of many generations of doing that.
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And one more comment.
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Um I'm gonna go straight to what organic is, and anyone who's read the uh early formative books that describe organic farming knows about Howard and Lady Eve Balfour and all those people who really formed the concept.
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And the first book that really started the organic movement was called The Farmers of 40 Centuries.
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How do you get to 40 centuries?
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By having good cows?
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No, you get to 40 centuries by recycling the nutrients in the farming system, it was probably the number one concept in the organic principle.
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And I just want to remind you all that even though some of the certifiers don't talk about the regenerative aspect and maybe don't do soil fertility management, the preamble actually the preamble to the National Organic Program from 2000, and I took it very, very seriously when we had our farm, um describes the requirements and the emphasis and the philosophy of biodiversity and ecosystem support in conserving the fertility of the soil, supporting biodiversity, and the production practices must maintain or improve the natural resources of the operation, including the soil and water quality, and crop rotation and nutrient management must maintain or improve soil organic matter content, well controlling erosion.
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And even though it doesn't say provide wildlife for habitat, it endorses habitat development, for example, natural pest control.
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So that kind of sums it up, doesn't it?
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Yeah, any organic farmer knows that and they have to write a farm plan and they have to manage their manure, even if they have a 120-day grazing season or if they have a year-round grazing season.
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And it's a very important concept, and it's actually critical to the success of uh an organic dairy farm.
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So, Phyllis, you just heard about 12,000 years of indigenous dairy practices and this symbiotic relationship we have.
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You're the end or the current moment in that history.
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Anything sound familiar?
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All of it.
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I love all of it.
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Um I would say that where one of the places that the organ that the definition went wrong is in simply stating organic matter, because it's it's the decay of the organic matter by microorganisms that they were really talking about.
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And you know, um sometimes if you don't say exactly what you mean, people are going to take it the way they will.
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And I think that's really one of the critical pieces, because that decay by microorganisms is the basis for regenerating, for organic production, for regenerative agriculture.
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That really is where the rubber meets the road is that microbiology in the soil.
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And the reason, one of the reasons that cattle have taken this top spot, is they basically walk around with soil microbiome on legs.
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So their ability to promote that decay cycle, which is the only thing that feeds the growth cycle and make it faster and mobile, is is the magic, right?
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That's the gestalt, in addition to taking all of that stuff that we can't decay in our own guts and turning it into the perfect food that is then storable and provides one of the key nutrients that Weston A.
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Price talked about as the X factor, which is vitamin K2.
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Now we understand that is only formed in the mammary glands of ruminant animals when they consume growing grass.
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And, you know, from here is a tangent into human health.
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But optimal human health is only achieved with the consumption of K2.
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It's in fermented foods as well.
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Um, but it's across climates.
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We can we can benefit from that with dairy cows.
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So butter, cheese, and for me, it was it was for my family, right?
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It was for my kids.
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So we started with a family cow, and that was the beginning of our journey because that's that's the ultimate is that that cow that helps you feed your family and complete that whole cycle, in addition to all of the other ecological benefits that that we can thrive within because of cows and their impact with the environment.
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We're gonna stay on this topic.
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You'll you'll be back, Phyllis and Meg.
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But Phil, again, in this historic context, your farmers in Iowa in particular have now been there for 120 years, and they brought over practices from Europe and they fine to fine-tuned it to a new environment in their particular the needs and organizations of their community, the big sea community.
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Um, tell us what that looks like on on the ground and how resilient it is.
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Uh yeah, that's that's actually a great lead-in.
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Um, not only in Kelowna, but I'm engaged with quite a few community, like-minded community, the Amish communities, um, in particular.
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And we're always struck here in Kelowna.
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Kelowna is a small town in Iowa.
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There's a lot of small towns, and there's a lot of them that are dying, but Kelowna is thriving.
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And I'll give you an example.
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Kelowna has two hardware stores, and everyone laughs and says, Ha, that's really funny.
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No, they're actually we have two of them, which is amazing for a town that's a thousand people.
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So two of them plus a brewery.
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So if you think about that, um reason that's there is because we have probably 45 to 50 Amish, small Amish farms that are buying and selling in the area.
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So the economics of uh what I would call a right-sized farm, and that is a that's Pandora's box to talk about.
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I could talk about that all day long.
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But what's a right-sized farm, dairy farm, that's gonna work financially but also benefit the community.
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So when these the the Amish community here, when they're out doing what they're doing, they're milking 30 to 40 cows.
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Um, and so when you think of some of the big conventional dairies that are out there right now milking 10,000 cows, uh to milk 40 to 50 cows and make a living and buy and sell and benefit the community, I think has is a good example of what it has been for quite some time.
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That kind of model has been replicated over and over.
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It's only recently where the bigger, the big get bigger and they keep getting bigger, but being able to create a product that somebody wants to buy using that model, I think is um uh exemplary and very beneficial not only to Kelowna, but other small you know towns around that have the same thing.
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Great.
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Um, Meg, you want to follow on on that?
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Because you had a small dairy with particular breed.
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I just want to meld that together.
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Okay.
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Yeah, my husband and I were dairy veterinarians that consulted all over the US to any size farm.
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And we actually started our dairy farm when our children were young, and at the standard, we wanted uh to feed the fruit to our children.
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Um
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Doing nutrition research, but uh also were the first members of Organic Valley Co-op in the Rocky Mountain region.
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And our farm um when we started was grew to several hundred cows, but we decided we wanted to change the entire model.
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And we became 100% grass-fed.
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We got a cheese making license, we helped pass the laws in the state of Colorado for uh cow share or farm share operations, which got around the regulations about pasteurization.
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So we offered many, many dairy products from starting with 20 cows to 2,000 subscribers, and we made all of the traditional dairy foods.
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And our it was a beautiful system, so I would say I understand Phil characterizing a family farm uh of that size as a very viable long-term operation, and it has a lot of benefits.
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So we could see, for example, that using our own manure, grazing 100%, uh processing our milk warm into cheese, that the entire microbe community actually became one thing and influenced the depth of the flavor of the cheeses.
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And it's um it's a family scale operation that is viable with the right market.
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I'm gonna kind of merge into this part too with some other questions.
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By the way, will Will Harris, legendary Will Harris, is uh listening in.
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And um, Phil, as you know, he resurrected Lufton, Georgia, and they actually have places to live and places to buy food now, which they didn't 20 years ago.
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Um in terms of the subsidiary value or core value actually of organic agriculture, it always includes this community vitality resilience uh component.
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And I'm glad all of you hit have have brought that in.
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I want to just talk about feed and forage.
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And um, Phyllis, you're doing, let's say, the most difficult, which is 100% grass-fed for Maple Hill, along with your compatriots there.
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Um, I'm gonna ask a nice dumb question.
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How hard is that?
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Uh it gets easier the better your soil gets, but it's not nearly as easy as people would um presume.
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And we pushed really hard in the beginning to have grass-fed dairy called grass-fed dairy and not no grain dairy because we weren't eliminating grain, we were re-replacing it with grass.
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And it it it affects everything down to the calves.
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You know, we we started raising calves on stuff other than milk so that we could sell the milk, not because it was better for calves.
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So even the calves now need to be returned back to milk um and for a significant amount of time.
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And it's very um cheap and convenient to buy, you know, 10% moisture grains that are highly concentrated energies, and and that's not a tiny thing.
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So in order to get the energy and mineral requirements to support a dairy cow, it takes a lot of work to get the ecology functioning, but once it does, it's the most beautiful thing that that you can do.
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And and then you start to look like you know, you're just playing.
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It starts to look easy.
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Um I'm gonna follow up on that, Phyllis.
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That there's a big organic certified dairy currently in Idaho that has had all of its pasturing rules suspended by the USTA, but they're still technically organic.
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Is there a and anyone can answer this, but what happens when you're in a drought and there is no native grass or local grass and hay's too expensive?
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Do we suspend the rules indefinitely?
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Um that's what we do in order, you know, that's uh there's two parts to that.
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There's the answer to the grazing question is uh producer-centered, and the other question is community-centered.
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And, you know, we need to decide whether or not we want to cut the heels of people and start to exclude people and weigh that.
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And I think that there is a point when we need to do that, but there's also um this industry is getting smaller and smaller.
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There are fewer and fewer dairy farmers all the time.
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And I don't, my personal opinion is don't do anybody any favors by cutting anybody out for any reason.
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And is there help needed?
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Absolutely.
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Can you graze through a drought?
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Absolutely.
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And on a personal level, I would answer that question, aside from the policy aspect of it.
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Um, I would say it's time for me to admit to myself I really don't know how to graze.
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Um there are people grazing through an entire 365-day year with less than three inches of rainfall.
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There's there, you know, there are ecological principles that apply.
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Um, and there are a lot of really common mistakes, and there are a lot of people not doing a good job teaching holistic land grazing.
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Really what southern Colorado uh standard density is one cal per three acres on average.
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That's nutrition is in that soil, and you're really managing herd size relative to available affordable dry matter.
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Yes.
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Bill, one other question.
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Sorry, go ahead.
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Finish completely.
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You're also managing, you know, we really need to say out loud that the cows create the grass.
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The the cows aren't just there to eat the grass that exists, the cows are there to create the grass.
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And I have on my on one farm, I have areas where I need two acres per cow, and I have areas where I only need maybe a fifth of an acre per cow all year.
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So, and the management has everything to do with it.
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Right.
00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:56.240
It's not something you get into and are successful the first year, it's a long building process.
00:28:56.559 --> 00:28:59.680
It is, and I would say that the right size farm is a function of that.
00:28:59.839 --> 00:29:01.599
There's a right size farm for right now.
00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:04.160
And is it a right size for the family?
00:29:04.319 --> 00:29:06.400
Is it a right size for the community?
00:29:06.640 --> 00:29:11.839
And we certainly need to manage the carrying capacity and strive to increase that.
00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:18.079
But that right size farm, we don't know what that is five years from now, ten years from now.
00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:20.160
We can only talk about what it is right now.
00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:21.119
Good point.
00:29:21.279 --> 00:29:22.319
Hey, Phil.
00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:32.640
Um, Natural Grocers, you know, carefully vets every product that we decide to bring in, but especially on dairy and eggs and meat.
00:29:32.880 --> 00:29:40.160
And Christy strikes terror into the dairy industry because her first question is, Phil, where are your cows right now?
00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:41.039
Right.
00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:45.759
Typically in the Kelowna operation, where are your cows right now?
00:29:46.799 --> 00:29:51.680
Um, well, I'm I'm really hoping they're not on pasture.
00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:54.799
So let me follow up with that.
00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:57.839
And Christy, don't you know, don't write that down.
00:29:58.319 --> 00:30:08.480
Um so so uh we're fairly pasture-based overall, and we have a hundred percent grass-fed program.
00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:14.000
Uh, Kelowna is in a zone of rain every day right now.
00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:22.960
So we're getting five inches of rain every day, and have been getting that for the last week and a half.
00:30:23.200 --> 00:30:29.680
So if somebody's putting cows on pasture right now, they're destroying their pasture completely and it's a mud hole.
00:30:29.920 --> 00:30:37.519
So then that's a question I would have to a producer or even a customer that would ask me that.
00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:39.680
They would say, Do you have cows on pasture?
00:30:39.759 --> 00:30:41.440
And I'd say, No, we don't.
00:30:41.759 --> 00:30:50.319
No, we don't put our cows on pasture because if we destroy our pasture, it's going to take a while and cost to get it back.
00:30:50.880 --> 00:31:07.680
So uh having said that, generally speaking, though, when we don't have these events, uh our cows would probably graze late in November and they would probably get out there.
00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:09.599
I wouldn't say March.
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:17.279
I've done that in March, always a bad idea because it freezes in April and then you're really set back.
00:31:17.920 --> 00:31:22.640
Uh I would say maybe the beginning of May, possibly.
00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:35.119
And because we've really pushed, and I think it's the same thing that Phyllis is doing, uh, regenerative ag under holistic management.
00:31:35.759 --> 00:31:49.039
We have seen uh these operations improve quite a bit as far as their ability to graze the diversity of the pastures.
00:31:49.839 --> 00:32:02.319
I think the biggest challenge that we have faced with this is the fact that we are regenerating pastures, but we're not putting more milk in the tank.
00:32:02.799 --> 00:32:12.000
So we're not pushing the cow, the cow's not being pushed, and in the way they're being grazed, they're not being pushed hard for milk.
00:32:12.720 --> 00:32:22.559
And when you're not putting milk in the tank, you're not creating products that can be put on a shelf at a store.
00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:29.119
And so if you don't put products on a shelf at a store, the store is not happy with that, they don't like that.
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:31.599
So, so what do we do about that?
00:32:31.680 --> 00:32:33.359
Is it more dairy farms?
00:32:33.519 --> 00:32:40.720
Uh, do we figure out how to you know help our farmers be able to do that?
00:32:41.039 --> 00:32:43.839
That is the tip of the spear, I think.
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:59.039
I think right there is where regenerative ag in dairy is facing that existential issue is how to create more milk because we've been short milk.
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:01.200
Milk has been short nationwide.
00:33:01.359 --> 00:33:02.960
What do you do about that?
00:33:03.599 --> 00:33:09.039
Uh do it, you know, it could cost them millions of dollars to put on a dairy farm.
00:33:09.359 --> 00:33:16.240
So I always thought, uh, boy, we just need to get more milk out of the existing farms that we have.
00:33:16.400 --> 00:33:24.160
However, if you go truly regenerative, it's going to be a challenge, I think, especially grass-fed, 100% grass-fed.
00:33:24.720 --> 00:33:30.319
So I don't know if I answered your question, but you spurred a lot of thoughts when you asked me.
00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:31.920
No, it was a good answer.
00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:35.440
Um, are you supplementing with grain during heavy lactation?
00:33:36.720 --> 00:33:44.559
Uh so we have some farm, we uh we probably about um, like I said, we have a uh 100% grass-fed product line.
00:33:44.640 --> 00:33:46.960
So we have 100% grass-fed farmers.
00:33:47.519 --> 00:33:55.599
Um, those farmers, here's what I would tell somebody, because we have folks that want to go 100% grass-fed, regenerative.
00:33:56.400 --> 00:34:02.160
What I always tell them, and I'll answer your question in a minute, but I'm just gonna say it this way.
00:34:02.400 --> 00:34:10.239
Um, to be successful in a hundred percent grass-fed program, my opinion is that you need to be a true believer.
00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:12.800
Don't do it for the price.
00:34:13.119 --> 00:34:15.920
Yeah, I many times you'll fail, I think.
00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:17.920
I think you will completely fail.
00:34:18.800 --> 00:34:21.760
Uh you need to have cows selected for that.
00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:28.639
You need to understand your pastures, you need to understand grazing more than the normal dairy person.
00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:45.519
But the folks that are organic in our system uh will feed grain to supplement their cows, and we're okay with that because we do have an organic dairy line that goes down that road.
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:57.519
And, you know, if you're gonna feed grain, it is something that can help you over times, like this Idaho farm that has to face that, that has to face that thing.
00:34:57.599 --> 00:35:02.320
Um, we've had drought here in Iowa where people didn't know what to do.
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:11.760
So, so yes, to your the answer to your question, there are folks that do feed grain, but uh primarily they don't feed a lot of grain.
00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:14.559
We're we're pretty focused on pasture here.
00:35:14.880 --> 00:35:16.559
Yeah, grain's expensive too.
00:35:16.719 --> 00:35:21.280
And of course, under an organic system, you'd be feeding organic grain, which helps.
00:35:22.079 --> 00:35:23.360
Miss Dr.
00:35:23.599 --> 00:35:30.400
Cattil, you're an expert in breeds for dairy, and we're just talking about cows, cows, cows.
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:33.519
We need the right cows for the right conditions.
00:35:33.679 --> 00:35:37.039
Can you just dig into that and let people know what's going on?
00:35:39.599 --> 00:35:40.719
It's a great question.
00:35:40.800 --> 00:35:42.320
I hadn't thought about it for a while.
00:35:42.480 --> 00:35:49.920
So I actually belong to the American Minor Breed Conservancy and Rare Breed Survival Trust before I became a veterinarian.
00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:57.440
So I'm I'm in love with traditional dairy breeds, and I think people co-evolved with them, and the foods we make co-evolved with them.
00:35:57.519 --> 00:36:04.639
You cannot make a beautiful camembert without you know milk from Normandy cattle, for example.
00:36:04.880 --> 00:36:11.599
Uh my friend Jerome Chateau, who sells uh traditional dairy semen.
00:36:14.559 --> 00:36:18.000
And I told him I was starting up my cheese making operation.
00:36:18.400 --> 00:36:22.400
Um he said, just do not do not use the jerseys.
00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:23.760
They're a butter cow.
00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:26.000
And he almost spit when he said it.
00:36:26.719 --> 00:36:36.960
Which is not just light jerseys, they were created for high fat production and for butter making specifically.
00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:45.119
Um but cheese making is done with high protein, and the protein to fat ratio makes a lot of difference in how your cheese turns out.
00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:49.679
Um so the whole system, is that a Vaugen there in the front?
00:36:49.840 --> 00:37:04.159
The whole system needs to include the breeds or at least selection within the breed in order to be adapted to the local environment and to the products that you're creating.
00:37:04.639 --> 00:37:14.079
And um our dairy, and I still have many lawn ornaments in my pasture, uh, was brownsmiths and terrantays.
00:37:14.400 --> 00:37:17.119
We actually had Beaugen for quite a while too, and I love them.
00:37:17.199 --> 00:37:24.320
They're mid-sized cattle that produce high milk solids that are very well adapted to grazing.
00:37:24.719 --> 00:37:34.719
Um for cheese making, I my absolute favorite is the Terrantais, and some of the most famous cheeses in the world come from Tarantase cows grazing in the Alps.
00:37:35.440 --> 00:37:46.159
Um, I do have friends and fellow dairy farmers who tried to take their commercial herds immediately to grass-fed.
00:37:46.320 --> 00:38:00.400
Most of them realized if they started with a herd of 2,000 cows, that if they selected for the good grazers, they had a core of maybe 30 or 40 cows that they could take to 100% grass-fed, and they had to continue to refine that selection.
00:38:00.639 --> 00:38:06.880
So that that's possible even with a modern Holstein freezing herd to go to a 100% grass-fed operation.
00:38:06.960 --> 00:38:21.119
It's a lot easier to do with dairy breeds that still haven't become selected for modern only milk production or milk component uh traits.
00:38:22.159 --> 00:38:32.800
And I, you know, I highly encourage people to select the cows that fit their their environmental conditions.
00:38:32.960 --> 00:38:35.199
That's one reason for the brown swiss and the terrante.
00:38:35.440 --> 00:38:39.920
They're mountain cows, and we're at 5,000 to 6,000 feet.
00:38:40.159 --> 00:38:46.000
Uh, they're tolerant of the weather conditions, the high variation of weather conditions.
00:38:46.480 --> 00:38:50.159
Um and they do different things.
00:38:50.320 --> 00:38:52.639
But there's some cheeses, they're just so nice.
00:38:52.800 --> 00:38:59.440
Um, the Terrante's cows actually put more copper into their cheeses, and you can visually see it and taste it, and into their meat.
00:38:59.599 --> 00:39:14.639
These are all really fascinating things, and they have to do with your whole system being integrated to your climate, to the forages you put in the field, which we have hardly talked about yet, but I'm sure these people with me understand the importance of that.
00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:22.559
You had to jump through a lot of hoops to bring the Swiss brown into the US, and it's still a very rare breed here, correct?
00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:25.519
Well, the terrantaes are even more rare.
00:39:25.760 --> 00:39:30.400
Um and they're in this country mostly used as beef animals.
00:39:30.480 --> 00:39:31.280
And this is interesting.
00:39:31.440 --> 00:39:41.679
So, going back in time again, um, when the early organic movement started, I have some books on selecting dairy breeds for your climate.
00:39:41.840 --> 00:39:47.599
And they characterize they were just starting to split in the 1920s into beef and dairy breeds.
00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:52.719
Most animals were dual or triple purpose if you include draft animals.
00:39:53.199 --> 00:40:02.480
Um, when they first started to separate the breeds, and you'd be surprised which animals fell under which category, they were called dairy, beef, or grazing.
00:40:04.079 --> 00:40:05.920
Those were the three categories.
00:40:06.159 --> 00:40:13.360
So the grazing animals are still alive, but only probably because of farmers like the ones you have here.
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:21.039
Um, I'm gonna move on to a different topic here, which is pooling and production and processing.
00:40:21.280 --> 00:40:25.760
Um, Phil and Kelowna, you have vertically integrated all of that.
00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:32.000
Uh and can you can you tell us how and a quick on quick why for why that was necessary?
00:40:32.559 --> 00:40:38.159
Uh do you mean, you know, from basically cow to product type of thing?
00:40:38.880 --> 00:40:43.519
Yeah, cow to product, yeah, including liquid milk to to yogurt to ice cream or butter.
00:40:43.679 --> 00:40:48.000
Yeah, just that whole remember what everyone listening may not understand.
00:40:48.079 --> 00:40:49.599
There's no easy button.
00:40:49.760 --> 00:40:59.360
You've got hot milk coming out of cows, and then you've got TikTok TikTok to turn it into something safe and nutritious and get it to retail.
00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:00.480
For sure.
00:41:00.639 --> 00:41:20.800
Um, I would say uh Kelowna's, you know, um fame to game has been minimally processed uh dairy nationwide, which is extremely challenging to have a product that's close to raw, and there's a customer base that loves it.
00:41:20.960 --> 00:41:21.840
They just do.
00:41:22.239 --> 00:41:26.239
Um, however, there's an incredible amount of pressure.
00:41:26.639 --> 00:41:28.719
Um, I'll give you an example.
00:41:29.039 --> 00:41:37.679
We uh send a truckload of dairy products to a large store in Atlanta, arrives on Tuesday uh at noon.
00:41:37.840 --> 00:41:40.559
It had taken off late Monday.
00:41:40.800 --> 00:41:48.320
Uh the customer pops the top, uh, starts drinking it uh probably late Tuesday afternoon.
00:41:48.480 --> 00:41:50.800
It was in the cow Monday morning.
00:41:51.119 --> 00:41:55.199
So that is moving very quickly through the chain.
00:41:55.360 --> 00:42:03.840
Um, and then so so what we've done to make that all happen is for instance, we started up a trucking over-the-road trucking firm.
00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:05.440
We can't rely on anyone else.
00:42:05.519 --> 00:42:09.280
We have to have our own haulers to get it there on time.
00:42:09.760 --> 00:42:17.280
Uh, if the product is in San Diego, Seattle, um, I saw it in Brunswick, Maine.
00:42:17.360 --> 00:42:20.880
I was shocked that it was there because I was there and I was like, what does it do?
00:42:21.039 --> 00:42:22.639
How did it even get here?
00:42:23.199 --> 00:42:31.360
Um, in order for that to happen, to go through distribution, um, we have to have everybody on board.
00:42:31.679 --> 00:42:39.760
And it's uh everything's just in time, um, which can be its own stress to have everything just in time.
00:42:40.079 --> 00:42:54.800
Um, but in order to make a product like we have, where it can't sit at distribution for weeks or months at on it at a time, we had to vertically integrate everything we're doing.
00:42:54.960 --> 00:43:17.360
So the farms know this, um, all of our um processors know this, all of our employees know this, how quickly this needs to move so that the customer has hopefully a week with it to appreciate it um and you know, not have a problem with uh going out of code or anything like that.
00:43:17.440 --> 00:43:19.199
So that's why we've done that.
00:43:19.679 --> 00:43:32.239
Bill is anything different in your system with with Maple Hill Creamery and now with the the um the uh horizon overlay, is that all getting better for you?
00:43:33.679 --> 00:43:45.199
Um the it's been very status quo for a number of years, but when Maple Hill Creamery started, that was a huge challenge.
00:43:45.519 --> 00:43:52.400
So milk is perishable, balancing milk is always in the background as a hurdle.
00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:58.320
And the development of the dairy industry as a whole and this.
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:02.480
The the structure of freight on board, right?
00:44:02.559 --> 00:44:10.480
What a produ whatever the producer produces is bought by the um by the marketer, by the company.
00:44:11.199 --> 00:44:14.800
We've tried to sort of put in quotas and things like that.
00:44:15.119 --> 00:44:16.559
That is a huge challenge.
00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:50.000
So what started as this great idea to provide huge volumes of milk so that we could have affordable nutrition for all Americans and try to promote huge volumes of dairy has had this trickle effect of having to deal with oversupply in the market, which just turns around and comes back to the producers in terms of frankly pay prices that aren't enough because somebody's got to absorb that and usually it falls back on the producers.
00:44:50.239 --> 00:45:08.239
So rather than being able to play in a market where supply and demand and quality and differentiation can play into your value to consumers, we are a commodity and what we get is reliability.
00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:21.599
So in the beginning, when Maple Hill Priamery was just starting and didn't have some of the bigger levers that the greater industry had, we we did have challenges with what are we going to do with milk.
00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:27.679
The producers are pretty much guaranteed they're gonna have their milk picked up every other day, and that's that.
00:45:27.760 --> 00:45:30.960
Um but as a company, Maple Hill Creamery had a lot of struggles.
00:45:31.519 --> 00:45:42.159
And now, you know, being part of Horizon Family brands, that I think has become less of a problem because they've had more experience and they they've got a lot of tools to help deal with that.
00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:43.280
Understood.
00:45:44.159 --> 00:45:54.639
It it does it, you know, it all comes back to effects on the market and your shoppers and consumers, it's kind of a moo point growing good quality food.
00:45:54.719 --> 00:45:54.960
Yeah.
00:45:55.199 --> 00:45:55.519
Exactly.
00:45:55.760 --> 00:46:21.679
I'm gonna make a transition to um talking about conventional practices by sagging on that because I did done deep dives into the dairy industry and the antitrust issues and the problem with the uh the way the law reads, it allows co-ops to compete without constraint, to the point now now in Colorado there's one pooler, DFA.
00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:24.800
There's only 87 dairies left.
00:46:25.039 --> 00:46:32.480
They're all within two hours of the DFA plant, and the rest of the state is ignored.
00:46:32.719 --> 00:46:36.800
Um, that anti-competitive issue and the consolidation.
00:46:36.960 --> 00:46:38.239
I know all of you are aware.
00:46:38.400 --> 00:46:41.360
I thought I would talk about it because maybe y'all didn't want to.
00:46:41.519 --> 00:46:43.679
Maybe Meg, she's fearless.
00:46:43.920 --> 00:46:54.400
Um, but it got so bad in Colorado that I actually convinced Lena Kahn at the FTC to open an antitrust investigation to Colorado Milk Marketing Board in DFA.
00:46:54.559 --> 00:47:03.519
Um, and then the uh administration changed and that kind of got uh put aside, maybe back burnered.
00:47:03.599 --> 00:47:10.159
Uh, but it's such a challenge, just all the production, and then do you have access to markets?
00:47:10.480 --> 00:47:12.400
Does anyone want to chime in on that?
00:47:12.559 --> 00:47:15.199
The problem of just finding people to shop.
00:47:15.360 --> 00:47:17.440
I know I'm gonna speak for you, Dr.
00:47:17.599 --> 00:47:18.320
Cattell.
00:47:18.480 --> 00:47:29.679
When I was at your dairies, like I bring it out, I cool it out, I send a test to the lab, and as soon as it's uh a test clean, I call my people, come get it.
00:47:29.920 --> 00:47:32.639
That was your business model, which was brilliant.
00:47:32.880 --> 00:47:34.480
If you want it, come get it.
00:47:34.719 --> 00:47:36.800
Um, anything you want to add to that?
00:47:39.119 --> 00:47:40.000
Oh boy.
00:47:40.159 --> 00:47:45.679
I mean, when you first started talking about it, I've worked with a lot of dairy co-ops around the country.
00:47:45.840 --> 00:47:52.960
Um, and the dairy co-ops are committed to cut the milk from their producers whether without a quota.
00:47:53.440 --> 00:48:21.280
I know for some of the pioneering organic dairy co-ops, it became a real issue where um where um they were going two extra hours with their milk trucks to pick up small farms, and sometimes they get there and there wasn't even enough milk to pump uh for various reasons.
00:48:21.519 --> 00:48:44.400
So that's a real problem for co-ops, and I can understand then why they want to add for milk balancing regionally larger producers, but if you have a commitment to sell the milk of your producers and you add more producers, then you have a commitment to use their milk and it penalizes the people who are regulating um their production to their system.
00:48:44.960 --> 00:48:48.480
And we saw that happened here in Colorado across time.
00:48:48.639 --> 00:48:58.320
I mean, there we had many processors, and I remember vividly when Meadow Gold went out of business and all of Wyoming dried up like that.
00:48:58.480 --> 00:49:01.360
Boom! No more market for anyone.
00:49:01.679 --> 00:49:02.639
It was gone.
00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:09.760
150-year-old dairy industry adapted to the region, and that's that's really a shame.
00:49:10.639 --> 00:49:20.960
I'll be at the uh Real Organic Project this weekend with Christy talking about these issues, and one of the stars there is Zephyr Teach out, the antitrust attorney and advocate.
00:49:21.280 --> 00:49:41.760
And I've got this slide up, you know, what's going on with conventional dairy, the concentration of ownership and the control over individual milk farmers, who they get to use as a vet, who is going to hold their milk, um, what standards they have to reach, what things they can't talk about.
00:49:42.079 --> 00:49:50.239
The suppression and control by the large dairy uh conglomerates is far worse than you can imagine.
00:49:50.719 --> 00:49:54.719
Um, I I've put up a couple of pictures here, neither here nor there.
00:49:54.880 --> 00:49:56.559
Often very good operations.
00:49:56.719 --> 00:50:02.559
We can scare consumers with a picture, which something natural grocers and Christie don't do.
00:50:02.880 --> 00:50:36.320
But the other things that happen in conventional dairy is a lot of reliance on grain feeding of indiscriminate source, typically um GMO corn, some soy and this ration, a lot of supplementation, um, not so much antibiotics in dairy, but I will say it's a big problem because when you look at the FDA um notices of noncompliance every week, dairies are the majority of them, which means um milk or meat has entered the supply chain.
00:50:36.400 --> 00:50:55.519
There's been surveillance testing and there's antibiotic residues um in the meat or the milk, in spite of it supposedly not passing through or a proper withdrawal period, um definitely have optimized the breeds here to do one thing, generate so much milk.
00:50:55.920 --> 00:51:15.280
And related to that, I'm gonna ask a softball question of you all, because I know you don't want to bash your compatriots here, but um uh what's the lifetime of your cows in a grass-fed system versus the expectations here in a conventional system?
00:51:15.920 --> 00:51:22.000
Um, I think there's a couple of pregnancies in the conventional system and off they go to hamburger.
00:51:22.320 --> 00:51:29.519
Is that part of the ethic in in a regenerative system to kind of honor those lifetimes in a different way?
00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:33.519
I can jump in here.
00:51:34.320 --> 00:51:49.920
Um our cows are are very old, and uh I don't even really know how old um you know we've got we still have a handful of 13, 15, 16-year-old cows that have every year without fail.
00:51:50.559 --> 00:52:11.840
And that's not entirely separate from the big scale dairy question because we would talk about we we need efficient cows, and you know the kids from the local college would say what's more efficient than a holstein?
00:52:12.239 --> 00:52:15.920
And it absolutely depends on your definition of efficiency.
00:52:16.079 --> 00:52:30.159
If you're talking about efficiency of square footage and the ability to take um dry matter and turn it into milk with seemingly no milk, no limit, then the the holstein is absolutely the most efficient animal.
00:52:30.400 --> 00:52:44.079
When you're talking about pounds of dry matter per pound of cow or per pound of uh fat or solid produced in relation to dry matter consumed, that's a very different um definition of efficiency.
00:52:44.400 --> 00:53:16.079
And it's that efficiency that's been driving the market, the that that first definition of efficiency and the the pretty much free nature of our ability to move things around, move milk around, has absolutely kept the dairy industry focused and drilled down on logistical efficiency, the ability to bring food to cows, get very high volumes of milk out, and then transport it to other places.
00:53:16.400 --> 00:53:20.079
And we don't we value capital, we don't value labor.
00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:49.280
And until we have a more balanced representation of the things that support ecological agriculture in our greater community, which is, you know, when we start to have a return to labor, when we can have people actually doing the work and we can have a lot of small processors instead of just one big one because moving things around is cheap.
00:53:49.360 --> 00:53:52.719
That's that's when we're gonna see see things change.
00:53:52.960 --> 00:54:03.039
But um our cows are little cows that are very efficient on grass and they live a long time, and that that is very different.
00:54:03.119 --> 00:54:05.039
They don't have to all milk the same speed.
00:54:05.119 --> 00:54:08.639
A lot of cows are culled because they're just too slow in the milk stream.
00:54:08.719 --> 00:54:23.280
Or, you know, it's not just that you know there's actual production reasons behind culling cows, but our we it's expensive to raise a grass-fed cow, so our cows live a long time, you know, easily 10, 12, 14 years.
00:54:24.559 --> 00:54:48.159
Yeah, I mean the I don't think it's an overstatement to say that in a typical conventional dairy, uh, the cows move between migrate between a feedlot where they're getting roughage and rain supplements and some medication, and then uh they go into the milk park or two or three times a day, whether it's voluntary or otherwise.
00:54:48.400 --> 00:55:00.000
And the idea of them seeing a pasture or eating grass off of pasture isn't even probably is looked down on by a hyper-efficient dairy operator.
00:55:00.159 --> 00:55:04.400
Now, I'm not asking for your agreement or not, but that's what I have seen.
00:55:04.559 --> 00:55:08.639
It's just back and forth between a feeding crop and the milking parlor.
00:55:08.960 --> 00:55:16.079
My not so tongue-in-cheek question is are are are the your regenerative cows in your experience happy?
00:55:16.159 --> 00:55:21.920
And do you think the a conventional cow that just eats the milks is less happy?
00:55:23.039 --> 00:55:24.559
I can tackle that if you want.
00:55:24.639 --> 00:55:25.440
This is Blake.
00:55:26.639 --> 00:55:30.320
Um I think the simple answer is yes.
00:55:30.719 --> 00:55:44.079
And um, I would kind of try to defend that by saying that our our cows, we've been we've been with grass-fed cows since about 2013, so 13 years, and um definitely they're living longer.
00:55:44.159 --> 00:55:52.159
Uh, I would say similar ages to what Phyllis was just talking about, you know, that 10-year-old cow is quite common.
00:55:52.400 --> 00:56:10.400
And um I think that you know, number of lactations is somewhere around four or five as an average, which means um you know that they're probably double the the length of a conventional farm, if that's how we're you know looking, or benchmarking this.
00:56:11.119 --> 00:56:28.960
And um, you know, certainly healthier, more athletic, uh smaller framed, and you know, they I tend to say they work for a living as opposed to uh just bringing them food and sitting them in a lounge chair.
00:56:30.559 --> 00:56:33.119
Um I gotta ask, who just was speaking?
00:56:33.199 --> 00:56:35.039
Who is uh Blake.
00:56:35.440 --> 00:56:36.480
Oh, okay, Blake.
00:56:36.639 --> 00:56:40.239
Sorry, you're not on screen, but I'm chimed in.
00:56:40.639 --> 00:56:41.360
I don't know why.
00:56:41.440 --> 00:56:43.119
I'm on someone else's computer.
00:56:43.360 --> 00:56:44.079
Oh, okay.
00:56:44.239 --> 00:56:44.719
No worries.
00:56:45.360 --> 00:56:48.480
Some people are very happy not going outdoors and just staying.
00:56:49.039 --> 00:56:49.519
There we are.
00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:54.159
They they uh go to the wall, they go to the mall to to walk.
00:56:54.320 --> 00:56:58.880
So, you know, I'm gonna reserve a little bit of judgment on whether they're happier or not.
00:56:59.039 --> 00:57:02.639
I mean, I would think that things won't live a long time and get outside.
00:57:03.119 --> 00:57:06.639
But you know, to Blake's point, they do work for a living, they walk around moving.
00:57:07.280 --> 00:57:08.719
So let's flip that around.
00:57:08.800 --> 00:57:20.079
Do you think that the human managers of a big conventional dairy are happier or less happy than uh your regenerative, you're you yourselves and your regenerative families?
00:57:20.480 --> 00:57:23.199
I think they would be happier managing this way.
00:57:23.280 --> 00:57:27.599
They may not know it yet, but they definitely would be happier if they came over to the other side.
00:57:28.880 --> 00:57:30.719
Yeah, it's such a different world.
00:57:30.800 --> 00:57:33.119
It's it's hard, hard to imagine.
00:57:33.519 --> 00:57:43.760
Um, is there anything else that in in the framework of organic and regenerative and practices and resilience and sustainability?
00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:51.599
Is there anything particularly worrisome about the conventional dairy sector that you guys are brave enough to bring up here?
00:57:54.880 --> 00:57:59.760
I have I think some perspective builders.
00:57:59.920 --> 00:58:26.159
Um, the reason there are so many big dairies in the west in a semi-arid climate is because it is a semi-arid climate, and that's actually good for cattle if they have adequate feed, because and the forage grain ratio is managed because it exposes them to potentially less pathogens that cause that can cause lameness or to less mastitis pathogens.
00:58:26.239 --> 00:58:28.239
And that's why it's been a successful model.
00:58:28.800 --> 00:58:37.039
But uh, and I guess I should say the USDA requires a KFO operation to have a nutrient management plan.
00:58:37.199 --> 00:58:52.000
And so soiling again, early organic movement, sometimes they actually made paved areas in order to capture the urine and the manure to apply it to the soil, and it was beneficial to the ground around it.
00:58:52.079 --> 00:58:57.360
So I don't think we should have a just clear, like one is bad and one is good.
00:58:57.840 --> 00:59:02.719
In the wintertime, we're capturing the nutrients and making sure we apply them well.
00:59:02.880 --> 00:59:11.760
One of the biggest problems with a large operation is access to land to apply the manure and the phosphorus levels from high grain feeding.
00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:19.760
And when I did some work on um nutrient management consulting and putting together plans, that was always an issue.
00:59:21.119 --> 00:59:48.000
And it was an issue, it could become an issue to local waterways, but it can be managed by feeding more forage, which is one of my late husband's big specialties, also has a very, very big effect on the health of the animals if they don't develop ruminal acidosis and the laminitis and foot lamenesses that are associated with it, if uh their body condition score is managed by a slightly lower production level and a higher forage level.
00:59:48.159 --> 00:59:56.800
So all of those things have to be thought about in an organic operation, in a non-organic operation, in a grass-fed operation.
00:59:57.599 --> 01:00:04.320
And I know you asked the question in uh your list of questions about welfare and how we measure it in cows.
01:00:04.480 --> 01:00:20.880
It's a subject here and dear to my heart, and I've done quite a bit of work with Temple Grandin um on you know flight zones and stress of animals, and you know, she was very against working dogs and using hotshots, for example.
01:00:21.199 --> 01:00:32.400
But we were working on a standard for welfare for dairy cattle, and her top two priorities were measuring lameness incidence and measuring body condition score.
01:00:32.800 --> 01:00:52.079
My husband and I, and the herds that we consulted with, we would do monthly charting with our visits of not just milk components, which tell you something about the health of the rumen, but we'd also observe the cows and we'd look at percent of them that are chewing cud and the percent of them that are lying down, regardless of the housing system.
01:00:52.159 --> 01:00:57.920
And there can be hundred percent grass-fed operations where they're laying cows and they have to walk to pasture.
01:00:58.320 --> 01:01:04.000
We have to be very aware in any operation of the well-being of the animals.
01:01:04.159 --> 01:01:20.320
And for reference, I'll tell you we go to Rocky Mountain National Park all the time in elk uh, you know, bugling season, elk breeding season, and we count cud chewing and we count percent lying down, they get a hundred percent of the animals lying down.
01:01:20.480 --> 01:01:22.480
So that is now our goal, you know.
01:01:22.639 --> 01:01:33.119
If you could achieve 100% of your animals chewing their cud when they're not actually prepending forage, you have a healthy system, and those animals will live longer.
01:01:34.960 --> 01:01:48.400
I'm gonna jump into this complicated question of how do we convince consumers to pay more because they're not just buying clean milk, they're buying milk that's supporting communities, farmers, workers, animals, ecologies.
01:01:49.039 --> 01:01:50.559
What's your best strategy?
01:01:50.639 --> 01:01:53.840
And let's jump down to to Phyllis here and then go to Phil.
01:01:53.920 --> 01:01:59.199
But Phyllis, in your world, what what's bringing people back?
01:01:59.440 --> 01:02:02.800
We sell a lot of your product and a lot of Kelowna product.
01:02:03.119 --> 01:02:06.960
Meg wouldn't let us, but hey, but what's your experience?
01:02:07.119 --> 01:02:08.880
What's driving the the sale?
01:02:09.760 --> 01:02:12.639
Taste it's just really yummy.
01:02:12.880 --> 01:02:20.320
And I think that, you know, the reason that it's really yummy is because it comes from a functioning system.
01:02:20.480 --> 01:02:25.599
You know, there's energy flowing through the system, there are minerals flowing through the system.
01:02:26.000 --> 01:02:49.440
And it I think that it it um we can do ourselves a favor by talking about that and talking about the reasons why it's so yummy, and that those reasons are also tied to things like ecological health and community vibrancy and the number of people that are happy you know doing what they do on the land.
01:02:49.599 --> 01:02:58.320
Those are all very closely connected, and the result of a really happy, healthy system is a very yummy product.
01:02:58.719 --> 01:03:22.320
I think for the people that are cautious about animal agriculture in general and protective of animals in general, the idea that you have a fully functioning, productive, safe system for the animals gives them license to buy a product like Kelowna or or or Make Bull Hill, uh, whereas they wouldn't touch a conventional product.
01:03:22.559 --> 01:03:28.880
Uh right or wrong, they wouldn't, they're not convinced that conventional is doing its job.
01:03:29.199 --> 01:03:32.239
That's still the same same answer there for Kelowna.
01:03:32.480 --> 01:03:35.280
Uh I like the answer taste, but go ahead.
01:03:35.760 --> 01:03:49.039
No, um, no, that was Phyllis's answer, is the answer um for our customer taste and also the um minimal processing, so it's non-homogenized.
01:03:49.360 --> 01:03:52.960
They and that le lends itself to the taste.
01:03:53.199 --> 01:03:58.079
Um, I know that uh I'll just say this too.
01:03:58.239 --> 01:04:00.639
I was talking to some of our customers directly.
01:04:00.719 --> 01:04:09.519
And if our if our marketing department, you know, cringes that I was actually talking to customers, you know, I I have to apologize.
01:04:09.679 --> 01:04:17.840
But I was talking to customers and I asked them a couple of pricing questions because that's the big question.
01:04:18.000 --> 01:04:26.320
I said, Would you pay$25 for a half gallon of organic regenerative Kelowna milk?
01:04:26.400 --> 01:04:27.519
Would you do that?
01:04:27.840 --> 01:04:29.920
No, they would not.
01:04:30.239 --> 01:04:31.840
I said, okay,$20.
01:04:32.800 --> 01:04:46.400
No, would not fifteen, no, ten, no, but they waited, then it was like, okay, so now we're getting down to it.
01:04:46.480 --> 01:05:00.400
So nine, no, eight, seven, fifty, maybe, maybe you have to be a true believer.
01:05:00.480 --> 01:05:11.360
And if you have a gallon of conventional at 99 cents sitting a foot away, oh man, you really struggle there.
01:05:12.239 --> 01:05:33.519
So, with that, so with that, we have felt like anything that we can do to make that product perceived and actually healthy, tastes good, good for you, good for the land, all that stuff justifies a higher price because the farmer has to make a living.
01:05:33.760 --> 01:05:38.480
And so if we can't sell it over nine dollars, there it is.
01:05:38.639 --> 01:05:40.639
That's what it's that's what it is.
01:05:40.800 --> 01:05:44.800
And so now you've got to, everyone's got to make money within that system.
01:05:46.159 --> 01:05:56.960
And how we make that product the best possible is really what I know Maple Hill does it, and I know Kelowna does it.
01:05:57.039 --> 01:05:59.679
So what what turns the tide for us in that?
01:06:00.480 --> 01:06:04.079
Grocers is telling the story of the farmer, the animals in the communities.
01:06:04.239 --> 01:06:11.599
We spend a lot of time, Christy in particular, on site doing videos and sharing that with our customers.
01:06:11.840 --> 01:06:20.719
In addition to quality and yumminess, Dellis, there's this idea that I'm going to say this dead serious.
01:06:20.960 --> 01:06:28.400
There's the idea that that extra dollar or two that gets you to nine or ten is rebuilding rural America.
01:06:28.559 --> 01:06:28.880
Yeah.
01:06:29.039 --> 01:06:36.320
And um, and I could back that up, but people love that idea and they're willing to cut loose a little bit to make it happen.
01:06:36.559 --> 01:06:38.239
Does that ring a bell with anyone?
01:06:38.559 --> 01:06:39.280
Absolutely.
01:06:39.519 --> 01:06:39.920
Absolutely.
01:06:40.159 --> 01:06:42.559
And it can I be a little hardy for a minute?
01:06:42.960 --> 01:06:43.519
Sure.
01:06:46.079 --> 01:07:00.880
Um yeah, I once put together a talk for the Society of Nutrition Educators, Chuck Benbrook, and reviewed all the literature on omega-3 fatty acid levels and conjugated linoleic acid levels and grass-fed.
01:07:01.280 --> 01:07:09.119
At that point, it was organic versus conventional in different regions of the world, but there was some grass-fed data, for example, from Argentina.
01:07:09.280 --> 01:07:20.639
And those are real manageable, even claimable attributes that are attributed to especially fresh high-quality forage.
01:07:23.199 --> 01:07:24.239
And it makes sense.
01:07:24.719 --> 01:07:26.719
And people look for it, and they will pay for it.
01:07:26.960 --> 01:07:55.199
They will, and and the you know, the fact that Maple Hill is is just certified and labeled as grass-fed, it sets on this cascade of this intuitive, happy, beneficial lifestyle of people outside caring for their cows, you know, back to the beginning, more like that very intimate, special relationship between humans and cows and smaller herds, etc.
01:07:55.440 --> 01:07:55.679
etc.
01:07:56.000 --> 01:07:59.360
And which, you know, it doesn't take a lot of explaining.
01:07:59.440 --> 01:08:01.760
It just it's intuitive and it just feels good.
01:08:01.840 --> 01:08:09.440
And I think that that that is very much a part of the reason that people support this kind of very production.
01:08:11.840 --> 01:08:13.440
Yeah, well said.
01:08:14.079 --> 01:08:21.039
Um we're gonna move on to label claims and certifications, which he just touched on.
01:08:21.119 --> 01:08:23.199
So perfect segue, thanks.
01:08:23.680 --> 01:08:34.479
Um we have organic, which I kind of talked about being fairly narrow in terms of inputs and methods that are allowed.
01:08:34.800 --> 01:08:50.319
We have big organic, which is what all of you described, especially Meg, as a human activity that's intimately linked with civilization, the nutrition and cognitive function and community.
01:08:50.880 --> 01:08:56.239
Um, then we have this idea of regenerative.
01:08:57.279 --> 01:09:17.840
And I'm gonna make this I'm gonna share the claim that we hear a lot from regenerative certifications, which is oh, we're measuring soil outcome, which organic at USDA doesn't do, therefore, we're better than organic, and nothing else matters.
01:09:18.079 --> 01:09:22.960
Nothing else matters but the soil health measurement of some kind.
01:09:24.479 --> 01:09:31.439
Anyone else find that to be concerning to our uh economic well-being?
01:09:31.600 --> 01:09:33.520
Phil, you're shaking your head.
01:09:33.840 --> 01:09:36.720
Uh yeah, I would say that just more than that.
01:09:36.880 --> 01:09:40.560
I would say ecological health, um, more than just soil.
01:09:40.720 --> 01:09:42.159
Soil's a part of it.
01:09:42.399 --> 01:10:03.119
Um there's an overall, there can be, there is, and an overall assessment of um progress made in an operation that's making a regenerative claim that can be verified, I believe.
01:10:03.359 --> 01:10:12.800
Um, but if if if folks are saying that just the soil is the only thing, I would I would disagree with that.
01:10:17.920 --> 01:10:33.760
The difficulty comes in that um I think that soil health, and again, meaning healthy living soil, right?
01:10:34.079 --> 01:10:36.479
Soil health also means different things to different people.
01:10:36.560 --> 01:10:40.720
There's a chemical definition of soil health, which means we've got all the macros balanced out.
01:10:40.800 --> 01:10:46.079
We have soil health, but it's a purely chemical rather than biological metric.
01:10:46.239 --> 01:10:56.640
I think if we're going to measure basically biodiversity, it absolutely does need to include below the soil surface in addition to above.
01:10:56.720 --> 01:11:04.000
And biodiversity, unity dynamics, that's gonna be the window that tells the story.
01:11:04.159 --> 01:11:13.840
So if we're gonna do any measurement from any particular window, it makes sense to do it through observing the community that is at play.
01:11:14.079 --> 01:11:46.319
Um, the difficulty, the the problem that I have with um regenerative certification is that I see two different extremes, which is we are measuring a journey um that often doesn't necessarily account for meeting someone at their place and present a reasonable timeline um that can accurately portray progress.
01:11:46.960 --> 01:12:03.680
And then another extreme of you know meeting people where they're at and acknowledging, you know, sort of stamping people regenerative because well they're trying, but there really isn't any um defined or evident real progress in a correction.
01:12:04.000 --> 01:12:08.319
So in my perspective, we haven't really landed anyway in South Yet.
01:12:11.680 --> 01:12:12.079
Dr.
01:12:12.239 --> 01:12:14.640
Cattell, I know you got some thoughts.
01:12:15.119 --> 01:12:35.359
Let's call it what it is, but if we if we call it regenerative and we're still allowing the use of the three prohibitive classes of substances in the organic world, antibiotics, GMO grain, and pesticides, it is not equivalent in any way to organic and herbicides.
01:12:37.920 --> 01:12:44.880
Yeah, herbicides and general Christy, any thoughts on this that you want to tie together?
01:12:45.359 --> 01:12:47.199
No, this is really, really good.
01:12:47.279 --> 01:12:49.439
I appreciate everybody's perspective.
01:12:49.600 --> 01:13:00.319
I was gonna ask, you know, we keep coming back to this idea of minimum standards in a retail setting for what is a legitimate claim.
01:13:00.479 --> 01:13:23.119
And so I vet products with our buyers, and I'm curious if you have any questions that you think a retailer should be asking to a brand who submits a product with a non-certified organic regenerative claim.
01:13:23.359 --> 01:13:25.680
What is a follow-up question?
01:13:25.920 --> 01:13:35.199
Um, and and I think, you know, the follow-up questions I would ask would be herbicides, pesticides, synthetics, of course, antibiotics, that's part of our standard.
01:13:35.680 --> 01:13:47.680
Um but is there any other, there's other ways I, you know, people are could technically pass a standard, but they're maybe not meeting the spirit of the standard.
01:13:47.760 --> 01:13:52.800
They might meet the letter of the law of you know, our pasture-based dairy standard.
01:13:52.960 --> 01:14:02.319
But it what what would you say is a follow-up, any of you say is a follow-up question that we we as a retailer would have the responsibility to ask of a brand.
01:14:03.039 --> 01:14:12.880
I would ask whether the brand, what's the brand's part or is all of this farming and all of this landing on the producer to to carry the weight of this?
01:14:13.279 --> 01:14:15.920
You mean the cost of the the certification?
01:14:16.319 --> 01:14:25.600
Everything is this so just are we hands off and we're just you know, it's up to our producers, we're measuring our producers, we're asking this of our producers.
01:14:25.760 --> 01:14:27.279
What's your engagement?
01:14:27.920 --> 01:14:30.960
Yeah, Bill or Meg?
01:14:31.119 --> 01:14:37.920
Any uh if it was me asking that question, and this is an animal-based product.
01:14:38.399 --> 01:14:39.760
Yeah, we'll just say it's milk.
01:14:40.000 --> 01:14:40.399
Yeah, okay.
01:14:40.479 --> 01:14:43.439
Say it's milk, immediately ask, are they on pasture?
01:14:43.680 --> 01:14:46.560
So if they're not organic, are you on pasture?
01:14:46.640 --> 01:14:48.479
And tell me what that means to you.
01:14:48.640 --> 01:14:50.399
I would ask it that way.
01:14:50.880 --> 01:14:55.840
And from there, then you'll get a pretty good picture of what they're saying.
01:14:55.920 --> 01:14:59.439
And then then the follow-up is how do you know?
01:14:59.600 --> 01:15:01.840
How can you how can you prove it to me?
01:15:02.079 --> 01:15:05.680
Maybe not that direct, but but I'd say it like that.
01:15:06.159 --> 01:15:09.119
And that would tell a lot of story.
01:15:09.439 --> 01:15:15.359
I think the animals have to be on pasture, and then there's a list of questions from there that you could go down.
01:15:15.680 --> 01:15:17.119
Yeah, I like that a lot.
01:15:17.439 --> 01:15:18.640
Albert Howard, right?
01:15:19.600 --> 01:15:21.840
Nature doesn't farm without animals.
01:15:22.079 --> 01:15:31.199
And from my perspective, and it hadn't come up yet, but it doesn't matter the size of the dairy, you can have animals on pasture.
01:15:31.439 --> 01:15:42.720
And I can hear that your dairy cows logistically can't have access to pasture for whatever reason, but you you've got heifers and dry cows associated with your operation, guaranteed.
01:15:43.039 --> 01:15:54.479
And you should be utilizing those, and those should be those should be interacting with the the environment in some way as much as possible, at least as a baby stuff.
01:15:54.720 --> 01:15:55.680
I like that.
01:15:56.079 --> 01:15:56.640
Yeah.
01:15:57.279 --> 01:15:59.279
And we do ask the pasture question.
01:15:59.439 --> 01:16:05.039
We have a pasture-based minimum standard, so we do get into that, um, which is great.
01:16:05.119 --> 01:16:10.720
I'm glad to hear you say that because we're already doing it, and I feel great about hearing your feedback on that.
01:16:10.880 --> 01:16:16.159
So you ask um how many animals and then how many acres of pasture?
01:16:16.560 --> 01:16:16.960
Correct.
01:16:17.119 --> 01:16:26.800
Yeah, we ask if they're essentially meeting, you know, during the grazing season, are you 120 days non-consecutive, you know, weather permitting?
01:16:27.039 --> 01:16:31.039
And then in the non-grazing season, what are you feeding your animals?
01:16:31.199 --> 01:16:31.760
Where are they?
01:16:31.920 --> 01:16:37.039
If they if they if you I'm from Minnesota, my grandparents were dairy farmers in Wisconsin.
01:16:37.520 --> 01:16:40.720
I understand there's sometimes a lot of snow on the ground.
01:16:40.880 --> 01:16:46.880
So what you know, I I there are other realities that you know you need to play in there.
01:16:47.039 --> 01:16:49.520
So um, yeah, we we do get into that.
01:16:49.680 --> 01:16:52.159
So I'm feeling great here about our standards.
01:16:52.560 --> 01:16:53.840
Meg, go ahead.
01:16:54.960 --> 01:17:05.840
I think the animal sourcing is something we talked a lot about in the organic rule and modifying it, not just the pasture rule, which we helped create, but also the uh animal sourcing.
01:17:06.079 --> 01:17:18.640
And whereas I do think it is responsible if you have an organic herd to have uh another operation where you take your antibiotic-treated cows, that's fine.
01:17:18.960 --> 01:17:41.279
But moving animals back and forth between operations, or in just if your only goal was to improve soil fertility in the soil microbial community, you can have an operation, let's say a beef operation, where you buy in feeders and you put the from an unknown source and you put them on your field, and they do improve your soil fertility and they leave.
01:17:41.760 --> 01:17:55.920
Um, but that's not part of an integrated system that never gets you to the point of what we are talking about as the ideal or the healthy, wholesome long-term system where the animals are part of the ecosystem.
01:17:58.159 --> 01:17:59.279
You raise your own yellow.
01:17:59.439 --> 01:18:03.920
Elizabeth, Christy, do we have questions that we want to bring up?
01:18:06.640 --> 01:18:08.399
I do, I know that too.
01:18:08.560 --> 01:18:09.600
I know that too.
01:18:10.399 --> 01:18:12.399
Well, you got you got a bad echo.
01:18:12.560 --> 01:18:14.560
Might want to put that in the chat for us.
01:18:14.800 --> 01:18:18.640
Um, I have one last question that I never fail to ask.
01:18:18.880 --> 01:18:20.720
It's related to bioengineering.
01:18:20.800 --> 01:18:30.000
And currently, they are bioengineering hogs to survive confinements without getting particular disease, especially respiratory diseases.
01:18:30.239 --> 01:18:33.760
Um, that's not being commercialized in the U.S.
01:18:33.920 --> 01:18:34.399
yet.
01:18:34.560 --> 01:18:40.720
They're literally waiting for their consumer propaganda campaign to be successful.
01:18:40.960 --> 01:18:51.920
However, completely allowed in Canada, and we are importing bioengineered pig pigs and pig meat, pork into the United States.
01:18:52.239 --> 01:19:00.159
Is there a place for changing animal genetics with bioengineering in a regenerative system?
01:19:00.560 --> 01:19:02.319
Hard no, right here.
01:19:04.159 --> 01:19:14.479
Hard no, everybody, hard no, like fit the environment to the animal, don't fit the animal to whatever environment's convenient.
01:19:15.199 --> 01:19:16.159
Correct.
01:19:17.760 --> 01:19:32.079
I mean, the example we can use, and I have used in animal welfare discussions, is modern Cornish uh pet uh chickens for broiler production, for meat production.
01:19:32.319 --> 01:20:01.520
If you take those birds, which I have only done once and never again, and try to raise them in a more wholesome outdoor environment, they are so unaware of their surroundings a hawk could be on a fence beside them and they wouldn't know it, and they will die because they have been selected, not bioengineered per se with genetic engineering, for only seeing the food in front of them and their water supply and ideally not killing their neighbors while they do it.
01:20:01.680 --> 01:20:04.800
So you can do it even without modern technology.
01:20:04.960 --> 01:20:19.520
You can create an animal that, yes, in a way it's mercifully adapted because if you took a more cognizant traditional breed and tried to raise it in the conditions which most of those birds are raised in, they would suffer terribly.
01:20:19.680 --> 01:20:23.199
So, in a way, it's merciful, but why have the system to begin with?
01:20:24.079 --> 01:20:24.960
Understood.
01:20:25.199 --> 01:20:25.760
All right.
01:20:26.000 --> 01:20:30.079
Um Elizabeth, give us a question here.
01:20:30.159 --> 01:20:31.760
We've got 10 minutes left.
01:20:33.279 --> 01:20:48.000
Um, I know that uh Neil had asked if the group could comment on the issues of dairy records and their record associations that assist the leverage of animal history, milk qualities, and related issues of data loads.
01:20:52.159 --> 01:20:54.399
I gotta admit I don't understand the question.
01:20:54.560 --> 01:20:55.119
Records?
01:20:55.279 --> 01:20:56.720
Did I mishear it?
01:20:58.560 --> 01:20:59.920
Can you restate it a little bit?
01:21:04.560 --> 01:21:06.880
You can put it in the chat too if you want.
01:21:26.079 --> 01:21:27.920
Somebody know what he's referring to?
01:21:28.159 --> 01:21:30.479
Um, I should, but I don't.
01:21:31.359 --> 01:21:35.760
Well, I mean, I could take a stab at it just from my understanding.
01:21:36.000 --> 01:21:38.239
Um are there records kept?
01:21:38.479 --> 01:21:39.039
Yes.
01:21:39.359 --> 01:21:43.359
A lot of records, especially at the processor level.
01:21:43.600 --> 01:21:45.920
Um, there's lab reports.
01:21:46.319 --> 01:21:57.119
Um each producer, so just in just so people understand, uh every time a dairy farm is picked up, a sample is taken.
01:21:57.439 --> 01:22:01.600
Sample of milk, many times two samples are taken, possibly three.
01:22:01.840 --> 01:22:03.680
Those samples go to a lab.
01:22:03.840 --> 01:22:09.840
They are analyzed for components, butter fat, protein, other solids, et cetera, et cetera.
01:22:10.159 --> 01:22:16.800
Um, and then somatic cell and quality markers, for instance, bacteria levels, et cetera.
01:22:16.880 --> 01:22:17.680
That's history.
01:22:17.840 --> 01:22:20.319
There's lab history, it goes back a long way.
01:22:20.720 --> 01:22:26.560
Then it gets put on, the milk is commingled, and loads are tested.
01:22:26.720 --> 01:22:29.760
And all of that um goes into history.
01:22:30.000 --> 01:22:44.479
When the milk goes through a plant, it is tested, and there's lots of data along the chain that's being kept so that, and I and I tell people this um dairy's moving very quickly through the chain.
01:22:44.800 --> 01:23:11.840
So somebody, if somebody gets sick because of an issue, um, you know, there's a recall FDAs all over that, and so we're backtracking through data, through loads, through tanks, through to the farm to see where the issue is, and all the data that's collected, which is they're just a mountain of data, um, will assist in identifying where the problem is.
01:23:12.239 --> 01:23:13.680
Hopefully that answers this question.
01:23:14.239 --> 01:23:27.439
I'd add to that that I did a deep dive on uh in the USDA ag census, and I'd recommend everybody go back to say the 1945 or 19, I think the first one is in the 30s sometime.
01:23:27.680 --> 01:23:55.920
Look at the number of dairies, the number of dairy cattle, and which counties that they were in uh since World War II, and understand that how much the country has lost, how much our rural communities have lost, how few processors are left, and sure, and how people in a in a yacht on their island in the Caribbean are making the decisions about what you see on the shelf.
01:23:56.159 --> 01:23:58.479
There's my manifesto right there.
01:24:01.439 --> 01:24:02.880
Anybody else?
01:24:03.920 --> 01:24:05.520
They're like$40,000.
01:24:06.239 --> 01:24:12.720
A lot of a year is contributed to the economy for every dairy cow in a community.
01:24:12.880 --> 01:24:18.239
So, you know, it's it's a tenth of that back to the farmer right then minus expenses.
01:24:18.319 --> 01:24:31.680
But all of the activities that happen as a result of the dairy cow producing milk is is a just huge phenomenal benefit to the entire country and community.
01:24:32.479 --> 01:24:33.199
Understood.
01:24:33.600 --> 01:24:39.039
Um Elizabeth, any other questions from the audience before we give our little wrap-up here?
01:24:39.600 --> 01:24:40.239
Yes, sir.
01:24:40.319 --> 01:24:41.279
I have one more.
01:24:41.439 --> 01:24:43.439
I'm gonna pop in the chat.
01:24:44.079 --> 01:24:55.680
It says, what structural changes uh could regenerative dairy collectively pursue to see itself in a stronger position next year and a stronger position the year after that?
01:25:00.159 --> 01:25:11.600
Well, we want state and local government to re-establish community embedded dairies, and we want those communities to buy that local dairy and cheese.
01:25:12.479 --> 01:25:14.399
This isn't the rocket science.
01:25:14.479 --> 01:25:18.000
If I can think of this, anybody else want to chime in?
01:25:20.640 --> 01:25:22.720
No, I mean I would say that too.
01:25:22.800 --> 01:25:42.319
Uh if you so when local communities support the local businesses like that, it it just um it establishes it um much more resilient uh in a more resilient fashion, but policy at state level very helpful.
01:25:42.800 --> 01:25:49.520
Um and to value it, just to understand what Phyllis said, that's exactly right.
01:25:49.920 --> 01:25:58.319
Small dairies who are operating and and making a living, but not just existing, they can't just exist.
01:25:58.479 --> 01:26:00.560
Farms, they can't do that.
01:26:01.279 --> 01:26:07.439
The price, like I said, the price on the shelf also has to be so that the customer will buy it.
01:26:07.600 --> 01:26:18.000
I think the state and local governments can be very helpful in creating an environment that encourages new dairies to come on.
01:26:18.159 --> 01:26:24.079
So, you know, a young person right now, do they want to spend five million dollars putting on a farm?
01:26:24.239 --> 01:26:25.279
No, they don't.
01:26:25.439 --> 01:26:29.760
But if they had help, if they had help to do that, maybe they would.
01:26:30.000 --> 01:26:32.159
So that would be my two cents.
01:26:32.640 --> 01:26:38.960
We also need to challenge retailers to open up shelf space to artisanal and local products.
01:26:39.119 --> 01:26:42.640
They're a little bit more expensive, they're also more valuable.
01:26:42.960 --> 01:26:51.279
And typically the the big brands with their fake artisanal lines are getting the spotlight.
01:26:51.600 --> 01:26:54.479
Um, very, very important to reverse that.
01:26:55.760 --> 01:27:00.479
All right, guys, give me I'm gonna give each a wrap up here, maybe start with you, Phyllis.
01:27:00.640 --> 01:27:13.439
Just a minute or so of this idea of where dairy fits in our world and and what comes next, and um are we headed towards a right relationship uh with this?
01:27:16.479 --> 01:27:17.840
Big question, Phyllis.
01:27:17.920 --> 01:27:18.479
You're on.
01:27:18.800 --> 01:27:19.600
I'm on.
01:27:19.840 --> 01:27:22.640
We're absolutely headed toward the right relationship.
01:27:22.720 --> 01:27:36.079
And I really believe that um every dairy farmer, no matter conventional huge production all the way down, dairy farmers are gonna make it happen.
01:27:36.239 --> 01:27:41.359
It's it absolutely has to do with asking what we want of them.
01:27:41.600 --> 01:27:59.600
And as more and more of us ask for having cows out there interacting with the land and co benefiting the grasslands around them and providing some, you know, this beautiful milk that that everybody really likes, you know, we're all we're all going to get.
01:28:00.159 --> 01:28:00.319
There.
01:28:00.560 --> 01:28:08.720
You know, if we if we had nobody would have imagined that we had cows making what I don't even know, 130,000 pounds milk.
01:28:09.279 --> 01:28:14.479
You know, I mean, nobody could have imagined that what we are achieving could have been achieved.
01:28:14.640 --> 01:28:18.399
And it doesn't, it's not specific to what we're achieving right now.
01:28:18.640 --> 01:28:19.840
Just imagine it.
01:28:20.079 --> 01:28:22.319
And these are the people that will make it happen.
01:28:22.479 --> 01:28:34.159
So as long as we just keep imagining this better, you know, this really beautiful ecological way to produce dairy, and we keep asking for it, we'll figure out how to get it done.
01:28:34.479 --> 01:28:35.359
You're up, Megan.
01:28:35.520 --> 01:28:37.520
Now you're jumping at the proverbial bit.
01:28:37.760 --> 01:28:39.760
What's your last big thought?
01:28:44.079 --> 01:28:48.079
My last big thought was an answer to your last question.
01:28:48.319 --> 01:28:55.760
What are we missing and what do we need to um improve the position of sustainable dairies?
01:28:56.000 --> 01:28:58.319
And it's probably always my answer.
01:28:58.479 --> 01:28:59.840
We need education.
01:29:00.159 --> 01:29:20.079
We need our children's generation is so disconnected from absolutely everything from natural systems, from natural foods, from healthy eating, from healthy lifestyles, and farming, all of agriculture is in jeopardy, honestly.
01:29:20.640 --> 01:29:36.720
Um, we need people, our future consumers, and our fellow participants on the earth to understand how important it is that humans have a healthy interface with the entire ecosystem.
01:29:37.359 --> 01:29:41.680
Bill, you're you work at Kelowna, which is just a shining star for the industry.
01:29:41.840 --> 01:29:43.039
Can you land this for us?
01:29:43.119 --> 01:29:44.640
What's your last big thought?
01:29:44.960 --> 01:29:46.000
Yeah, absolutely.
01:29:46.159 --> 01:29:48.000
Um, I love what Phyllis said.
01:29:48.079 --> 01:29:51.279
Uh, I think we're on the right track moving down the line.
01:29:51.600 --> 01:29:56.159
And I also um believe education is very important.
01:29:56.239 --> 01:30:01.600
I'll give one example of education back in the day when I took uh customer calls.
01:30:01.680 --> 01:30:02.560
I got a call.
01:30:02.800 --> 01:30:05.680
Somebody said, Hey, your milk's bad.
01:30:05.760 --> 01:30:07.600
There's this thing at the top.
01:30:07.760 --> 01:30:09.600
What's this thing at the top?
01:30:09.840 --> 01:30:13.439
And I said, Oh, you mean the cream line?
01:30:13.680 --> 01:30:15.439
And he said, Yeah, this is terrible.
01:30:15.600 --> 01:30:18.399
And I said, No, no, that's great.
01:30:18.720 --> 01:30:19.840
This is great.
01:30:20.079 --> 01:30:21.840
Milk fat is so good.
01:30:22.000 --> 01:30:23.600
You're gonna love this.
01:30:23.760 --> 01:30:36.960
And we were on the phone for 30 minutes, but I realized the Gen Z, we'll say Gen Z, they need to know something, and we need to help them get there.
01:30:37.119 --> 01:30:40.079
And that would be my big thought for the dairy industry.
01:30:40.159 --> 01:30:42.239
We need to help Gen Z get there.
01:30:42.880 --> 01:30:44.079
We're doing our best.
01:30:44.239 --> 01:30:51.359
That's you know, we have so many people working on curricula and educational materials and just face-to-face training.
01:30:51.520 --> 01:30:54.399
So uh I like that alignment here.
01:30:54.560 --> 01:30:56.399
I got to put my admin ad on.
01:30:56.479 --> 01:31:02.880
Our next uh uh session in three weeks, it's gonna be rocking GMOs and new genetic techniques.
01:31:03.039 --> 01:31:08.399
We're gonna go two hours because the last hour is given over to Mercedes Lopez Martinez.
01:31:08.560 --> 01:31:17.359
She is the indigenous woman who uh was the driver behind the uh uh ban on GMO porn and GMO genetics in in Mexico.
01:31:17.600 --> 01:31:20.560
So that's gonna be a really fascinating discussion.
01:31:20.720 --> 01:31:23.439
Um, thank all of you for coming.
01:31:23.600 --> 01:31:25.279
It's a big investment of time.
01:31:25.520 --> 01:31:29.600
Sometimes uh you know, with dairy, people are like, nope, can't do it.
01:31:29.680 --> 01:31:30.720
Cows come first.
01:31:30.880 --> 01:31:32.399
Get in line, Alan.
01:31:32.800 --> 01:31:34.720
Christy, any last words?
01:31:35.600 --> 01:31:36.880
No, this was just great.
01:31:37.039 --> 01:31:40.079
Thank you, everyone, for what you said and brought today.
01:31:40.239 --> 01:31:43.279
It was just a really amazing conversation.
01:31:44.079 --> 01:31:44.960
All right, thank you.
01:31:45.039 --> 01:31:45.840
We're gonna sign off.
01:31:45.920 --> 01:31:46.800
Take care.