Albert Straus is the founder of Straus Organic Creamery, the first organic creamery in the nation. We talk about agriculture, local food, and the Point Reyes ranchers.
Just sad all people think about is what money the land is worth...these ranches, have been in one family for generations. And the families just want to be in the family business & stay that way. Land isn't worth actual cash until sold. These families are being forced out of their legacy & lifestyle by both high taxes which are outragous, corporations & government using excuses to break the beautiful land expanse apart for another agenda. We cannot depend on other nations, for all our food. Milk products & beef are part of the American heritage. And are very healthy in moderation.
Wilder Ranch in Santa Cruz is still a working ranch, that people can go hiking and cycling on. Is that ranch in similar danger? Why wasn't that considered a sustainable solution for Point Reyes? Is there a foundation, similar to the Nature Conservancy, but that works to support regenerative, family farms, instead of just 'rewilding open space'?
Having traveled to the north of England, where sheep and cattle still graze on National Trust and Heritage sites, they add not only a bucolic, picturesque quality to those site, but also a clean, well kept frame of grassy hillsides for these historic places. After returning, when going to state and even federal parks, I felt their absence quite strongly. Humans and farming are part of the environment. We are part of the wild.
To pretend that we are not is to continue the Us/Them divide that permeates modern life. My neighbor and I are told we must be Us/Them, because of so many supposedly intersectional identities, which serve only to divide us into separate, superficial categories, instead of the one category we all share, our humanity.
And with the wild and the domestic animals, we have a shared connection to that which we call Nature, which is all around us, everywhere, in our backyards and even on the highway medians and in our shopping malls. Nature is not just sequestered in open space parks that sit in an artificial state, supposedly sanitized of human existence. That's the lie we have been told by groups like the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy.
That is why our new National Park Service needs a new direction, one that accepts all aspects of life, including us, as part of the greater landscape we call earth. We can't sanitize the world from our cultural footprint, not without ourselves going extinct. To think we can is a fantasy, and a sad one at that.
The assault on farmers, whether in Marin or in France, is insane. Farming is food. Food is culture. Farming is the separation point between the start of civilization and wandering bands of humans.
Can you point me to your source for the number of dairy farms 1940 to now? This is not a challenge to that number, serious question and so that I can cite the source for academics who need that.
Just sad all people think about is what money the land is worth...these ranches, have been in one family for generations. And the families just want to be in the family business & stay that way. Land isn't worth actual cash until sold. These families are being forced out of their legacy & lifestyle by both high taxes which are outragous, corporations & government using excuses to break the beautiful land expanse apart for another agenda. We cannot depend on other nations, for all our food. Milk products & beef are part of the American heritage. And are very healthy in moderation.
Wilder Ranch in Santa Cruz is still a working ranch, that people can go hiking and cycling on. Is that ranch in similar danger? Why wasn't that considered a sustainable solution for Point Reyes? Is there a foundation, similar to the Nature Conservancy, but that works to support regenerative, family farms, instead of just 'rewilding open space'?
Having traveled to the north of England, where sheep and cattle still graze on National Trust and Heritage sites, they add not only a bucolic, picturesque quality to those site, but also a clean, well kept frame of grassy hillsides for these historic places. After returning, when going to state and even federal parks, I felt their absence quite strongly. Humans and farming are part of the environment. We are part of the wild.
To pretend that we are not is to continue the Us/Them divide that permeates modern life. My neighbor and I are told we must be Us/Them, because of so many supposedly intersectional identities, which serve only to divide us into separate, superficial categories, instead of the one category we all share, our humanity.
And with the wild and the domestic animals, we have a shared connection to that which we call Nature, which is all around us, everywhere, in our backyards and even on the highway medians and in our shopping malls. Nature is not just sequestered in open space parks that sit in an artificial state, supposedly sanitized of human existence. That's the lie we have been told by groups like the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy.
That is why our new National Park Service needs a new direction, one that accepts all aspects of life, including us, as part of the greater landscape we call earth. We can't sanitize the world from our cultural footprint, not without ourselves going extinct. To think we can is a fantasy, and a sad one at that.
The assault on farmers, whether in Marin or in France, is insane. Farming is food. Food is culture. Farming is the separation point between the start of civilization and wandering bands of humans.
Lovely article!
Can you point me to your source for the number of dairy farms 1940 to now? This is not a challenge to that number, serious question and so that I can cite the source for academics who need that.
Is it from ag census data?
Thank you!