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The farm that provides my raw milk
The
raw milk available in the part of Connecticut
where I live is from Debra Tyler's farm in
Cornwall Bridge, called "Local Farm."
Debra has nine cows on fourteen acres. Eight
health food stores in central and northern
Connecticut pick up milk regularly at Local
Farm. There are about a dozen other certified
raw milk dairies among Connecticut's 210 dairy
farms.
Debra
has Jersey cows. Most farms have Holsteins,
which provide more milk, but with less protein,
fat, and calcium. Jerseys were originally
bred by the French to produce milk for cheese
making. The fat content of Debra's milk at
this time of year is about 4.8%, well above
the normal 3.5% for whole milk. Debra's cows
eat mostly grass in the spring, summer, and
fall, and mostly hay in the winter (each cow
consumes a forty pound bale a day!), with
a few pounds a day of ground corn and roasted
soybeans (five to one corn to soybeans ratio).
Local
Farm milk is certified organic. Certification
costs several hundred dollars a year in fees,
and considerable paperwork. It also means
that Debra must sometimes pay more for certified
feed from faraway places than for locally
produced feed she knows to be organic but
which is not certified. Which raises the question:
if you know and trust the local farmers who
produce your food, does it really have to
be certified?
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