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Raindance Farm - Our Story
We are introducing our first raw milk, organic, grass fed cheese. Our cheese recipe is inspired by the Italian asiago cheese which developed over the centuries during the Alpine grazing season when Italian cows were eating a diet of clovers and grasses similar to the diet of our cows in the summer. We make our cheese only during the grazing season because we think grass-fed products are healthy for our family and yours.
The food chain on our farm is nice and simple. The shimmering green pasture plants capture solar energy to nourish our cows. The cows are the only food chain step between the grass and the milk - thus the name "Sun Cheese". The synergy between the cow and her natural diet produces what I consider a health food - milk with at least twice the concentration of a cancer preventing fatty acid called CLA and also a better ratio of omega 3 to 6 than is found in milk from typical American farms that use a lot of corn silage and grain. We use a full fat recipe so you can take it in moderation and still garner the benefits of the healthy fatty acids. Research has also shown that CLA helps people from putting on weight as fat and can help prevent diabetes. Jo Robinson cites references to this research on her web site where more information about our farm can be found. The golden color of our cheese reflects the natural beta caratenoids our cows get directly from the grass.
In pursuit of our lofty goal to be carbon negative, we have installed two arrays for heating water on the barn roof. They preheat water for washing up at the dairy. The solar heated hot water is also pumped through the outside water jacket of our cheese vat to gently heat milk for cheese making. There is a lot of synergy in making cheese only during the grass growing season because that is when the sun provides the most energy for heating water. Although oil is relatively cheap right now and our solar system was expensive, we believe some day this reliance on solar energy will make us more competitive with fossil fuel dependent factory farms. We received no subsidies or government assistance for this project because the puny incentives available to relatively small projects like ours was not worth spending hours of time writing the grant proposal for money we may not even get. As a society, it is important that we not wait for government to mandate alternative energy because our world cannot wait.
In 1997, we became certified organic with NOFA-NY and the result of this natural way of farming plus grazing has resulted in cow health we never dreamed of and a cleaner and more pleasant life for us and our cows. We have repeatedly won quality awards for our milk and in 2008 we won the Gold award for Achievement, a National Dairy Quality Award. Super high quality milk is what gives our cheese its fresh pure flavor. Sun cheese reflects the subtle essence of clovers and grasses for a pleasant, mild nutty flavor that everyone in the family will find delicious.
Our Journey to net zero carbon emissions
Our goal at Raindance Farm is to produce food that is healthy for people in a way that does not harm the environment. We are striving for a zero net carbon footprint and hope to do it with the help of ruminants not despite them.Efficient production, renewable energy sources, and carbon sequestration are the three legs of the Zero carbon program. Grazing our cows instead of confining them to the barn has built in efficiencies. Our grazing program has saved thousands of gallons of fuel on Raindance Farm. Instead of cutting grass with tractor drawn machines and trucking it to the cows in the barn we let the cows do most of the harvesting naturally. This practice also saves on the fuel we would have needed to move manure back out to the fields by machine because the cows take care of that while they are out there.
The solar hot water system we installed in 2009 helps make cleaning and cheese making greener as well. In the fall of 2011 we purchased a 13 Kilowatt photovoltaic system to provide electricity for the farm from the sun. Currently the system is saving us 27% on the electric bill but our future goal is to have the system cover all our electric needs with a combination of conservation and downsizing.
Cows produce methane during digestion and methane is twenty one times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon. To offset these emissions we are managing our grazing and crop program to maximize organic matter levels in our soils which has the net effect of removing CO 2 from the air and stabilizing it in the soil. Organic matter is what makes the soil in the woods so spongy and black. We graze in such a way that the tilth or organic matter in the soil gets built up.
From the soil tests we have taken on our pastures we estimate that1.13 tons of carbon per acre per year are being captured as a stable part of the soil humus. If all 250 acres of pastures see similar improvement in organic matter we can sequester 283 tons of carbon per year to offset our emissions. We have also planted over 100 trees all over the farm and have allowed some acres of crop land to become reforested (afforestation). Our journey towards net zero emissions has begun and we will keep you posted on what we learn along the way.