18 CapitalPress.com
June 3, 2016
Farm looks to organic for higher prices
By MARGARETT WATERBURY
For the Capital Press
During the last 18
months, commodity milk
prices have dropped almost
45 percent.
Today, conventional milk
prices are nearly on par with
prices from the 1990s. That
volatility has forced dairy
farmers to get creative about
managing their cash flow
and operations.
Some have brought
breeding and feed produc-
tion totally in-house to exer-
cise better control over input
costs.
Others have moved to-
ward automation to reduce
their need for labor.
And others, like Mead-
owood Dairy in Turner, Ore.,
have begun to transition to
organic production in pursuit
of higher, more stable prices.
Brian Christiansen is the
manager at Meadowood
Dairy, and a fourth-genera-
tion dairy farmer. His fami-
ly moved to Turner in 1986,
purchasing a former pepper-
mint farm with no buildings,
no house, no driveway and
no electricity.
Since then, their herd has
grown from 115 cows to 270,
mostly registered Holsteins
as well as a few Brown Swiss.
Until recently, Mead-
owood Dairy sold primarily
to Safeway. But as of July 1
it’ll be selling exclusively to
Organic Valley.
“We were tired of the vi-
olent swings in the price of
conventional milk. The sta-
bility and profitability of or-
ganic was the only way we
could transition the dairy
from Mom and Dad’s gener-
ation to mine,” Christiansen
said.
While many of the re-
quirements for organic cer-
tification weren’t a major
change for Meadowood
Dairy, meeting the organic
feed requirements has been a
challenge.
“We’ve always pastured
the cows,” Christiansen said,
“but it takes 365 days of only
organic feed to transition,
and during that time you’re
being paid conventional milk
prices.”
The switch to organic
has also necessitated some
changes in pasture plantings.
Previously,
Meadowood
Dairy had grown field corn
for silage, but that crop is dif-
ficult to grow organically.
Now, Christiansen is
switching from field corn and
replacing it with a dwarf vari-
ety of Sorghum-Sudangrass,
which fares better in organic
conditions.
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Meadowood Dairy’s pas-
turing program is less in-
tensive than that of many
other farms. Instead of tight
rotations where cows fully
graze a single pasture before
moving onto the next, Mead-
owood’s cows rotate a little
more casually.
“We have nine-acre pas-
tures. One herd of cows goes
in for two days, and then they
move on to the next. The
other herd follows behind
through the same fields,”
Christiansen said. “Other
people probably get more
grass off of the ground than
we do, but we have as many
acres as we do cows, and
we’ve always pastured that
way. It’s a little unconven-
tional, but that’s how we do
it.”
Christiansen is hopeful
that Meadowood’s organ-
ic transition will lay the
groundwork for ongoing,
sustainable profitability for
his generation and those to
come.
“The best thing that’s
happened for dairy in the
West has been the growth
in organics. At 240 cows,
we don’t have the econo-
mies of scale that larger
dairies do,” he said. “The
ability of organics to get a
good price for farmers has
kept quite a few dairies in
business that might have
otherwise gone out. It’s a
huge economic undertaking
to get there, but hopefully
the reward will be worth
it.”
D16-4/#17
Courtesy of Meadowood Dairy
A Brown Swiss heifer relaxes on a sunny day at Meadowood Dairy
near Turner, Ore.