Got Cheese?

B.C. cows give it up, organic style.

by Dag Falck

My fascination with cheese started when I was a child. In Norway, where I grew up, I visited farms where 30 to 40 goats would spend the summer being milked by milkmaids. The milk from several days’ milking would be separated into whey and curd. Norwegian goat cheese (gtetost: pronounced yet-oast) is made by slowly cooking the whey over a fire in a very large cauldron. The milkmaids would stir this all day (for days) with their big wooden paddles. The resulting cheese is brown and sweet; it has an acquired taste that, once appreciated, will always be loved. Sometimes it is mixed with cow’s whey for a milder taste.

Maybe this is what led me to seek an education in agriculture (I’m an agronomist) and later work for several farms as their “dairy herdsman.” The intimacy of leaning up against the flank of a warm cow while hand-milking her, smelling the barn smells while the cats stood and waited for their share, are fond memories. But unfortunately this is often not the modern picture of milking cows.

Needing to earn a living, I worked for conventional dairy barns with up to 350 cows, where I learned that farming is not “automatically” romantic. The cows in these operations rarely, if ever, see a pasture. They spend most of their existence being milked two or three times a day, eating hay, silage, and grains (some genetically modified) to produce the energy needed for milk production. They are confined to barns with concrete floors with a few stalls where they can sleep or lie down to chew the cud.

For me the logical option was “organic,” where the cows are required to have access to pasture and are treated with natural health aids instead of antibiotics. And consider this: an organic cow eats only certified organic feed. That’s much more organic than even the most committed human!

Of course, the organic cow’s health starts with the health of the soil. If their pasture is naturally fertilized and mineralized (with seaweed or volcanic ash, for instance), the health transfers to the cows (or goats), and that in turn transfers to the milk or cheese. Finally, it has a healthy effect on you when you eat it.

Luckily there are now several organic dairies in B.C. producing cheese. The scales are smaller than those of their non-organic commercial counterparts. Farms like Moonstruck Organic Cheese Inc. on Salt Spring Island have only a few cows and take exceptionally good care of each. They are known by names, not numbers; they have personalities and are valued as the key contributing members to the “farm business.”

From one simple main ingredient—milk—hundreds of different cheeses can be created. Cheesemaking is truly an art form, and cheeses can be as individual as the talented people (and cows!) who make them. Cheeses with names like Blossom’s Blue, White Moon, Baby Blue, and Ash-Ripened Camembert look and taste as individual as they sound. Mild or strong, soft or hard (or smelly)—there is a cheese for every taste.

Best of all, by supporting this “romantic” organic version of farming, you are getting a final product free of antibiotics, genetic engineering, food colouring, and unhappy confinement for the cows.

Dag Falck’s wish is to liberate all cows from factory farming and introduce them to the good (organic) life, where they can kick up their heels in non-GMO pastures.