Going the organic route
Published 9:00 pm Sunday, May 15, 2005
GRANDVIEW – Say the word “dairy” to most people, and they’ll likely picture black and white cows grazing in a green pasture. However, at many of the large-scale dairies that have come to dominate the industry in the Yakima Valley, cows loll about in enclosed pens, chewing carefully formulated rations that usually don’t include grass.
Harry Van Boven and his son, Dan, third- and fourth-generation dairymen, had the former image in mind when they began transforming the land around their milking barn near Grandview from a patchwork of tired vineyards, weed patches and old buildings into a simple green field.
That was seven years ago.
In March, they earned certification from the state to produce organic milk, one of the first two dairies in Yakima County to do so. The other is Pride &Joy Dairy near Granger, owned by Allen Voortman. They’re small players in the $1.4 billion organic dairy category, which has seen double-digit growth in each of the past five years.
The demand for certified organic dairies is on the rise. So much so that the state Department of Agriculture’s organic program is hiring a new staff member just to handle applications from dairies and livestock producers.
Miles McEvoy, manager of the state program, says most of the growth so far has occurred in Oregon, but organic milk producers have “run out of farms to convert” there. Now they’re looking to Washington’s 1,200 dairy farms, which generated more than $675 million in 2003, second only to apples in terms of agricultural production value.
“The organic dairy business is the fastest-growing part of the organic industry now in our state,” McEvoy said.
The process of converting a dairy from conventional to organic, as the Van Bovens will tell you, is not easy.
They were thinking of the bottom line when they switched from traditional confined feeding to pasture, but going all the way to organic was a decision they wouldn’t make until years later.
The key to profitability on a dairy, the 61-year-old Harry Van Boven said, is keeping feed costs low. By feeding their herd of 300 cows a pasture-heavy diet, they don’t have to buy as much hay and grain to keep the animals producing milk.
In addition to withholding artificial fertilizers, organic dairies can’t use chemicals in the feed. All of an animal’s feed must be organic.
Once the Van Bovens cleared the land, planted the grass, piped in water and put up electric fences to become a pasture-based dairy, “it almost was like a natural transition into organic,” said Dan Van Boven, 40.
