Holy Cow, it's a co-op?
24 July 2016Hello wonderful friends of Holy Cow. Thank you for your continued support. Please see below letter from Merrall and Alex. Everyone is welcome to the Ravensbourne Hall on Sunday 7th of August at 6pm for a shared meal (please bring a plate) and discussion, to be followed by live music and dancing.
Dear Friends of Holy Cow,
In 1985, Alex and I met with Jan Van der Tuem, a visitor from the Netherlands. He asked if we wanted to be part of a new farm venture – The first community supported agriculture initiative in the US.
We thought he was a bit crazy (he planned to deliver vegetables by bicycle from the NY Stateline to Boston), but, after living through the last 6 weeks, we have survived entirely through a spontaneously erupted Dunedin community supported agriculture venture. Many individual acts of kindness, bales of hay, a lovely bingo night and the culmination of a grand banquet leads to my conclusion, that all of this TB mess will ultimately actually be a catalyst for the best. Thank you all, you have collectively, and literally “saved our skins”.
In retrospect, we had become quite complacent – barley enough milk, more than enough traffic on Reynoldstown Road, enough money to squeak along year to year. The life was golden and we miss seeing you all coming through the barn. In the short term, we are still on track for the end of August milk sales.
I would like to begin a discussion on a co-operative structure for Holy Cow.
Firstly, shares in Holy Cow should be distributed to all who have made contributions since May, working towards a new Dunedin glass-bottle, small farm milk supply. (There were until quite recently 66 dairy farms in the Dunedin town supply).
I am talking to two other dairymen now with optimism. We are in ongoing talks with a neighbour with two points in consideration – one to move the milking and shop to the other side of Blueskin Road, as we have outgrown Reynoldstown, and two, to expand the cow numbers in a modest way (I now have 30 tied up in a 28 stall barn).
To be clear, adding farms and extra cows has one goal in mind, to supply and support an alternative milk treatment. Either an electric pulse system or cold compression treatment method will be expensive to purchase and to clear regulatory hurdles.
There are lots of related ideas to explore:
True animal welfare; conservation of fertility through manure composting, cows providing not just bottled milk but a range of foods to the community, energy conservation, off-grid farming, draft horses, electric delivery vehicles, truly the list is almost endless.
Can we get together and flesh some of this out?
Love, Merrall & Alex.
P.S. 3 new bells from Nepal for Sarah, Cocoa & Lorna!
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This is wonderful news, and I know of many many people who would support this next generation of farming. I saw co-operative ownership of local organic supermarkets and farming in Brooklyn and Portland, and completely and utterly support its start here in Dunedin. Great to see the discussion about these innovative systems coming out of the challenging situations - there are hidden blessings behind the tough times after all! The last few lines really are what this is all about, they give me a huge amount of faith and hope in the future, so thank you for starting the discussion - "True animal welfare; conservation of fertility through manure composting, cows providing not just bottled milk but a range of foods to the community, energy conservation, off-grid farming, draft horses, electric delivery vehicles"
All the best, we will see you August 6th!
