The RegenNarration Podcast
The RegenNarration podcast features the stories of a generation that is changing the story, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet. It’s ad-free, freely available and entirely listener-supported. You'll hear from high profile and grass-roots leaders from around Australia and the world, on how they're changing the stories we live by, and the systems we create in their mold. Along with often very personal tales of how they themselves are changing, in the places they call home. With award-winning host, Anthony James.
The RegenNarration Podcast
221. Restoring Dairy Farming with Family, Food & Festival: At Churchtown Dairy, with Judith Schwartz, Eric Vinson & Steffen Schneider
The extraordinary Churchtown Dairy in New York is restoring dairy farming in a context where such farms are still closing around them. They are doing it with nature, family, food and festival at its heart. With organic and biodynamic methods, they are keeping cattle together in their families to amazing benefit, cultivating myriad farm products including medicinal plants, restoring a diverse landscape, designing beautiful buildings including a store onsite, and hosting an extensive set of gatherings at their spectacular barn venue. That’s where we’d attended an event the night before, with guest-of-honour and friend, the globally renowned author of Cows Save the Planet, Water in Plain Sight, and The Reindeer Chronicles, Judith Schwartz. It’ll also host the Real Organic Project conference on September 28, amongst Shakespeare productions and varied concert events.
Today we meet Churchtown’s herd and farm managers – Eric Vinson and Steffen Schneider respectively. I already knew a bit about Steffen - Co-Founder of the Institute for Mindful Agriculture, and Director Emeritus of Farm Operations at Hawthorne Valley Farm, up the road from Churchtown (having spent 30 years there). And Eric? Well, this 36 year old former journalism major used to run a successful event hire company in the city. But when covid hit, the realisation hit that he needed to live out something more meaningful. He landed at Churchtown, prepared to do anything to get a start. And two years on, he’s managing the herd, with a big vision, and an appetite for sharing it with people.
Eric’s our main guide here, as Steffen just had a short time with us, and Judy is my esteemed unofficial co-host.
This episode has chapter markers and a transcript (available on most apps now too). The transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully provides greater access for those who need or like to read.
Recorded 29 August 2024.
Title slide: Judith Schwartz, Olivia Cheng & Eric Vinson (pic: Anthony James).
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Music:
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.
Intro music by Jeremiah Johnson.
The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).
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G'day Anthony James, here for The RegenNarration ad-free, freely available and entirely supported by listeners like you. So thanks a lot, Heather and Jim Phillipson, for becoming wonderfully generous subscribing members this week. My recent little experiment of a mail run episode reached you from the extraordinary Churchtown Dairy in New York. Today I'm upholding my promise to share more about this place and the powerful ways they're restoring kinship to dairy farming, food and festival, like keeping cattle together in their families, cultivating myriad farm products, including medicinal plants, restoring a diverse landscape, designing beautiful buildings, including a store on site, and hosting an extensive set of gatherings at their spectacular barn venue. That's where we'd attended an event the night before with guest of honour and friend, the globally renowned author of Cow Save the Planet, Water in in Plain Sight, and The Reindeer Chronicles, Judith Schwartz. The same venue will also host the Real Organic Project Conference on September 28th, amongst a program featuring everything from Shakespeare productions to varied concert events.
AJ:Anyway, soon after recording that morning, the beautiful farmhouse we were staying in became a hive of activity, with visitors coming and going, chatting and eating. Then Church town's herd and farm managers turned up, Eric Vinson and Steffen Schneider respectively. They offered to show us around and Judy, my wife Olivia and I jumped at the chance. With all the hubbub around I wasn't thinking about recording anything, but as we got ready and the story started to flow, I just had to pull out the phone, hope the wind would be friendly, press record and ask everyone for permission later if it happened to work. And thankfully, notwithstanding a few patches of wind, enough of it did, I reckon. So Eric's our main guide here, as Steffen just had a short time with us.
AJ:I already knew a bit about Stefan, co-founder of the Institute for Mindful Agriculture and director emeritus of farm operations at Hawthorne Valley Farm up the road from Churchtown, having spent 30 years there. And Eric? Well, this 36-year-old former journalism major used to run a successful event hire company in the city, but when COVID hit, the realisation hit that he needed to live out something more meaningful. He landed at Churchtown, prepared to do anything to get a start, and two years on he's managing the herd with a big vision and an appetite for helping to educate others like us about it. Here's Eric, with Judy as my co-host of sorts. Steffen's got the German accent and my wife Olivia is the other Aussie. Do you have a team with you? ERIC: managing this lot. AJ: How Yes, yes, yes. How many people are you talking?
Eric:about. There's like eight of us, eight or nine of us, and then we have three full-time milkers and then we have yeah, some of them are farm hands. You know, they're doing fencing and things like that. My main focus is on animal health, animal welfare and then milk quality and things like that, yeah, yeah. So one big difference that we do here is that we raise the calves on the moms. So it's a growing trend in dairy, but still a very rare one, and that comes with its own complications and management issues. But, um, what it does is it is, you know, it clearly raises the bar of emotional welfare for the calf and the cow, really, and just from like a ethical or spiritual point of view.
Eric:You know, these dairy cows, their main drive in life is is to raise their calf. I mean, it's the only reason we have milk right. Yeah, they produce it for their calf, and we've gotten into a situation. It's the only reason we have milk right. They produce it for their calf and we've gotten into a situation where it's more economical for a farmer to separate the calf at birth and then feed it milk replacer individually, house them. But this is just a more natural way, and you know it's even gone to the point now where you know you might ask some farmers, you know, why don't you keep calves on their moms?
Eric:And you'll get a lot of different answers. But one answer would be like well, cows aren't actually good mothers, because these Holsteins, you know the black and white cows which are sweet cows, but they've been bred over so long for milk production, for milk production, and you know they, you know the dairy industry would like to see. Dairy industry as a whole is like a would like to see a cow, just uh, birth a calf and then not even lick it. You know, turn around and walk away, um, because that would make it easier on the farmer, because the separation causes so much distress, right for the, for the cow and the calf. And so Holsteins aren't necessarily the most maternal cows.
Judith:So that has been bred out of them.
AJ:Yeah.
Judith:Gosh, how many generations would it take to breed that out?
Eric:Hard to say, but or back in.
Judith:Yeah.
Eric:I mean it's, it's, it's fascinating, considering that's their, that's their entire drive in life, you know.
AJ:Yeah Well, that that's a massive issue, isn't it? Cuttelling the primary instincts what a cruel thing to do and running the gambit with life's patterns as well. Obviously, this is beautiful sight, though, seeing it play out in front of us Now.
Eric:From an economical point of view, it's understandable why farmers separate because you are going to lose a certain percentage of milk, and when you're only paid $19 for every hundredweight?
Judith:Which is. How did it even get there?
Eric:Exactly. Then you know, not only does every dollar matter, every penny matters, um. So, and the fact that they're all, you know, it's all the milk is going into, you know, a tanker, that's then, you know, going to a processing plant. It'd be difficult to go to a farmer and say, hey, you should raise your calves on dams, you're're going to lose 40% of your milk, you know. But it's more ethical. They would just say you're crazy and I couldn't even blame them. But you know, if we were to switch, if we were to really switch to a more like localized food system, then this is something that would be more feasible because you could supply your local community with milk and it wouldn't all have to go to I mean some large plant.
Judith:I have a question. I mean, the last thing in the world that we need is more labels. But you know like, you know, like cage free. I mean, who knows eggs, who knows what that even means anymore?
Eric:but um, yeah, I completely agree with you, and if I, if I could do something in the future, it would start, even though I have my issues with certifications. Right, but you know, like a CCC cow-calf certified or something along those lines.
Judith:You know what? That would be a really interesting essay.
Eric:Yeah.
Judith:Like, let's consider.
Eric:And what the data shows is that most Americans are unaware that calf separation even exists.
Eric:That's what I'm saying, so they go to the supermarket and they buy milk and, who knows, the milk carton might even have like a cow and a calf on there and they don't even make the connection. But once they become aware of it and this is research that Nina von Kaisenlink has done done which is like the, the, the, the social license part of dairy um, once they become aware of it, maybe this is obvious then they become vehemently against it. But the first step is education that calf separation exists um.
Eric:I mean and I don't mean to uh put anybody down, but you know I give these tours every saturday and sometimes you. They need to make the connection that a cow needs to have a calf in order to produce milk. They're coming from a long way back yeah so you have to start right at the beginning, um with with with a lot of consumers I mean, there's a another colleague we're working with in new percy in india.
Steffen:He actually wants to do exactly that. He wants to form an ethical, interesting dairy label. I mean he goes even further.
Judith:He doesn't want to kill any animals yes, so once the cows are retired, he's just going to let them retire and die a natural death?
AJ:he's from india. Did you say he's from india? Well, that's part of that.
Steffen:Yeah, that's part of their existence but, um, but I think with this, uh, I think there's always a balance to be made, because right now the dairy industry is just struggling mightily, I mean organic dairies are basically disappearing. So I think to obviously promote this, I think one needs to promote it in the right, community-minded way, because I don't think the farmers are to blame.
Judith:No, we've pushed them into this corner that they have to make.
Steffen:well, they can't really make it, they're just hanging on. And then when they retire, they sell their land or they retire with nothing. I mean that's basically the reality of farming. So it's really I think it has to come in the right way from the consumer end.
Steffen:And then there has to be the right support because this is more expensive, right, and. And. There has to be the right support because this is more expensive, right. And then in some ways not accessible for some other people. You know, milk is such a staple. Anyways, it's a very complex issue.
Judith:Do you know if there are any operations like this in Massachusetts?
Steffen:You know I'm not off the top of my head, but I mean, like Eric says, there's more and more farms definitely experimenting or doing it.
Eric:You see it a lot more on the micro-dairy side, so people who have two cows or five cows and like that, because in a lot of ways it can make sense to leave the calf on the cow. In terms of the larger operations, it is very rare. There's Reverence Farm down in North Carolina. They milk 60 cows and they do it.
Eric:I'm a part of like a Facebook group of all different sizes, but you know we actually took a trip to Scotland to go to the ethical dairy David and Wilma Finley and they wrote a book about this and they were one of the I doubt they were the first, but they were the one of the one of the first ones to really put it out there and call themselves the ethical dairy in order to try to kind of shake things up a little bit. Um, because it's kind of quite a presumptuous name to give yourself, but I think that was with purpose and so we went there and to see their systems and how they make it work and they milk like a hundred cows right, because I was gonna say one of the biggest ones, I think. If you.
Steffen:If one does this, which is the right way to doing it, I think it also adds another component of determining scale, and you could do this with a thousand cow but you can't, I don't know I think what they did in Scotland with a hundred cows was already quite admirable and they had the herd split in like two herds.
Steffen:Basically, yeah, fall, and I mean a seasonal, two seasonal herd. I mean I mean I I tried this or I introduced it Halton Valley in 2017 and so it's back then. Tells, tells you how stupid I am. My main driver of doing it is that the mom passes on so much knowledge to the calf in the first six months of their life, or six weeks of their life, which, on an organic biodynamic farm, a herd that knows what it's doing, is kind of the end all and the be all of the whole operation. And by separating the calves from their mom.
Steffen:You interrupt this tremendous knowledge transfer portal. You know it's nuts.
AJ:It is nuts, isn't it? All the ways we make things harder for ourselves in the name of making it easier, Right?
Eric:yeah, I think I feel the same way about the individual calf hutches, right, that, you know, it's this idea that they can, um, you know that they can keep the calf isolated. Therefore, they can, you know, uh, give them the the vaccines that they need, and keep track of their health and all of that, yet they tend to have higher calf mortality rates.
Steffen:Right, our calf mortality rate is basically zero really yeah, yeah, I Even illness, I mean sickness with calves, is a no-show Is that right yeah.
Judith:So has this been written about much.
Steffen:Well, I wrote an article back in 17,. But I mean, really, I think it's a good point.
Judith:So the reason I'm asking about Massachusetts is okay. So you know, in journalism the biggest frustration and time waster is pitching.
Eric:Right.
Judith:Okay, and I'm in contact with the woman that does commentaries, although they haven't posted mine yet, but anyway, she really wants, she likes my work and wants to do something regularly at New England Public Media. So it's like western central Massachusetts and it's 300 words, so it's just kind of popping an idea out there, Like I wrote another one, but she's on vacation now so we haven't worked on it. The vining of New England of how vines I mean, you probably see, you know bittersweet, you know I saw even here the ivy is invasive.
Judith:It's not native Wisteria. Yeah.
Steffen:I mean. But like Eric said, when you give these tours? I started out by saying that the dark underbelly of the dairy industry is one the male calves usually survive, maybe one day, because they're just.
Eric:Nobody can use them but nature. For whatever reason, they're a waste product of the dairy industry.
Steffen:It's almost too high, and then the second talk on the belly is the separation of basically the mom and the calf within hours after birth.
Judith:And that's standard practice, right, but then I mean just what you're saying the knowledge imparted. I remember hearing Fred Provenza give a talk that you know opened it. Just it's not the way we think, but the knowledge embodied.
Steffen:Embodied yeah, I mean, in my mind at least talk about regenerative, and I'm a big proponent of biodynamic agriculture. You know, the other big crime that we've done in our landscapes is we've taken ruminants out of our landscapes. I mean this alone is a beautiful sight.
AJ:Yeah.
Steffen:I mean, maybe bring more ruminants back into the landscape and then bring them in would look like this, and I mean ideally, eventually there'll be a bull running with that herd as well, and then you'll have this picture again. That is really the appropriate way to regenerate and keep landscapes sustainable and healthy. What is the size of the herd?
Eric:here, we're milking 31. Our entire dairy herd is around a little over 40. And then young stock and our beef animals, so in total we have 100.
Judith:And what products do you?
Eric:Raw milk for bottling, and then cheese, as well as beef pork and then medicinal items from the garden.
Steffen:I think one of our cheeses just won first prize in the New York State Fair.
Judith:Which cheese?
Steffen:The copper, sweet the mold, what do you call it? Ripened the wash rind, wash rind, yeah, soft cheese.
Judith:Oh, I wonder if that's what they left for us. There's two soft cheeses.
Eric:There's a very buttery one called the Peggy, and then the one that's allowed to age for another 30 or 60 days something like that in the cave, and that develops like a funkier flavor.
Judith:So you have a cheesemaker too. Yes, a funkier flavor, so you have a cheesemaker too. Yes, or more than one Great cheesemaker.
Eric:Yeah, I had cheesemaker and then his help. Yeah, one other guy.
Steffen:I'm gonna run.
AJ:But I'm happy to stay with you, nice to meet you, you too, stephen.
Eric:So we do a kind of like typical rotational grazing. So they get a different, they get a. You know, we have the whole paddock and we split the paddock into four meals. It's about three acres per paddock and then, um, every 12 hours, they, they move. And then they, by the time they come back here, it's usually around 40 days or so.
AJ:12 hours eh, really frequently, yeah yeah, but then back sooner than some others. So I've heard of others that rotate less often, but then there's more of a gap. So I guess you just cut it the right way for your place.
Eric:Yeah, exactly, you know this was comprised of four farms conventional farms and so and I'm not sure if you've heard the history at all, but Peggy Rockefeller started buying up farmland in the hudson valley and the columbia county area. What time was that? Uh, in the 80s and she became because she was concerned with preserving farmland. But she leased it out but was still farmed conventionally, um, until she passed away, and then she divvied up the land to her children and and so her eldest daughter, abby Rockefeller, took this land on. So they broke ground, and she's very passionate about raw milk, so we broke ground here in 2012 and started milking cows in 2017. So the regenerating the land is still an ongoing process. Our pastures are strong, but we're not very drought resistant at the moment, so if a drought hits then it's pretty rough.
Judith:The past would never happen here.
Eric:In the distant past.
Judith:Oh yeah, I'm much older than you.
Eric:But it's gotten better over the past. Every year we see it get a little bit better. We start to see more clover come up. Better over the past, I mean. Every year we see it get a little bit better. We start to see more clover come up, and yeah, but you know these are still a lot of grasses that come from elsewhere. You know that were originally planted here here come the cows.
Judith:It's gorgeous, do cows calve every year?
Eric:Typically a cow calves every year.
Judith:Like if it's favourable condition. Yeah, oh, hello, hello, that's gorgeous.
AJ:I was just listening last night to a podcast on a guy who's just put a book out called Cow Puppy. Oh yeah, have you come across?
Eric:it yet? No I haven't.
AJ:Yeah, and he's a neuroscientist who studied dogs historically, yeah, but got a patch of farmland and then thought I've got to get some cows to keep the grass down. It was sort of that was the extent of his knowledge of cows, right, and then started to notice the sentience of cows and did a whole bunch of research, like applied his expertise to cows.
Eric:Wow, and and I'm sure he found that there was a lot of similarities similarities like to the extent of affection and relationship and memory and okay you're being crazy do you know all of them?
Judith:oh yeah, I mean their name. Yeah, yeah, this is tasahara liberty.
Eric:Uh, we got missus. Yeah, I can, I could name them all. Interestingly, this bloke found that yeah, this is Tassajara Liberty.
AJ:We've got Mrs. Yeah, I can name them all. Interestingly, this bloke found that dogs apparently can't recognise owners through a photo, but cows can. Oh, wow, even that. Yeah, yeah. That's incredible, but I guess it's some of what you're experiencing in your connection and in their connection with each other. You see, that stuff that we can so relate to as humans, and deep care and social instincts yeah.
Eric:Yeah, they're very curious.
Judith:Hello.
Eric:Yeah, very affectionate, very sweet. Oh that's so sweet this is Mrs.
Judith:This one looks like a fawn it does.
AJ:And you can see how that Indian tradition came up, eh? With regard to the sacred, oh yeah. I had a pastoralist very remote area of Northern Territory say that's how she feels Like the Indians got it. Got it right yeah.
Eric:I think beef has its place right. Yeah, especially in dairy. Because if, if I mean, the one reason why the male calves are typically discarded so early on is because they don't, there's not much of a market for them. You can sell a male calf for ten dollars, and so it's just easier just to kill them. Or, worst case scenario, they get loaded up into a tanker and sent to china and they go on this like heroin journey across the ocean where they mostly just a lot of them die, obviously.
Eric:So beef has this, has this role that you know in a closed system, right, that the dairy cow has a male calf and then you raise that calf and you have, and then you kill it for beef when it reaches a certain age, and then it's just whole, you know, and then you can keep things in a in a cyclical cycle. Um, because the problem with the ahisma issue is that it's a you have this exponential herd problem where, if you're a dairy, if you're a dairy farmer and you need to have your cow having a calf every year or every other year, if you really want to stretch it out, well then what happens in five, ten years when all of a sudden you have 300 animals and can your land sustain it.
Eric:You need to look at your land and say how many animals does it take to put fertility back on the land, and then how many animals need to leave in order for that to stay. And that's where beef no, I don't I mean. And then, of course, like just from a personal point of view, I think cows are able to take grass which is, you know, indigestible to us, and then they convert it into some of the most nutritious food on the planet, which is food, and beef.
Judith:There's a book that might interest you. Maybe you know of it Ilse Koehler-Rollefsen. She works with camels Hoofprints on the Land and she's written about livestock for a small planet, but about the function Anyway, she's all about herding right, that was her working title. Wow, for the book was just herding but hoof prints on the land yeah, which is important?
Eric:right, because they break up the hardened soil surfaces, you know, and they uh, yeah, yeah, I mean I don't need to tell you guys how it works but you know, I did need to be told.
AJ:I mean, I wasn't as ignorant as not knowing where milk comes from, but I was pretty ignorant when you talk about even really giving conscious value to the fact that these animals eat the stuff we don't, which turns into stuff we can. The miracle of that, let alone photosynthesis. Was it you talking about that? Someone was talking about photosynthesis, the miracle of that yesterday.
Judith:Yes, light and air into into this, that can turn into that, and yeah, yeah it's that's why we do what we do because we are, you know, started from knowing nothing to like feeling.
AJ:You want to tell that story yeah, yeah it is, and that's why you know I relate to your story too, eh, as a journalism student, right, and then you like drop down all tools to go to the bottom of the rung, so to speak, to make it happen. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, this is beautiful, eh.
Judith:So did you learn to milk when you took the milking job?
Eric:I did, yeah no-transcript head, you know, very gentle. But then they also use them for herd hierarchy issues, and so it does you can. You can, I think, in the best case scenario, and, like a conventional models, they breed them out. But it's, you know, we need to remember that they are sense organs, so these are blood vessels running through them. To sort of cut off a horn is uh, is is barbaric, yeah, um, and so, you know, I really, I really like that, we, that we keep them, but it does uh, you know, sometimes they you'll see some cows with cuts, yeah, injuries and things like that there's also ancient mythology around them too, which, oh yeah, no need to tell you guys as well by the sounds of how you do run it here.
AJ:Right, but the relationship, even with crescent moon and stories, ancient stories across cultures, relating with in with that story.
Eric:Absolutely yeah, no, you know, we do the biodynamic preparations. Yeah, that's you know, taking the cow and stuffering it with manure and burying.
AJ:I don't know a lot of detail about that, but I assume it's coming from a similar place.
Eric:Yeah absolutely yeah. I mean, I'm also not very well versed in biodynamics or Steiner's overall cosmology or philosophies. But what I like about the biodynamic farming, if nothing else even if these things can't be measured scientifically for efficacy if nothing else, it creates a sense of ritual around the farm and for the farmers to come together and you know, and offer something to the land and really help you think of this farm as like a living organism instead of just a plot of land. That's Gaia, hey, hey.
AJ:That's Gaia bang right on cue. Thanks, eric, really.
Eric:Thank you, thanks for coming. Yeah, so good to meet you. OLIVIA: yeah thanks so much.
AJ:Yeah, good, yeah, yeah, um all the best yeah thanks, yeah, you too.
AJ:ERIC: Good luck on the rest of your journey and yeah, so yeah, AJ: that was Eric Vinson, herd manager at churchtown dairy, alongside farm manager steffen schneider earlier in the piece, my wife olivia, and guest of honor at the farm, judith schwartz. See various links in the show notes and a few photos on the website, with more, as always, for subscribing members on Patreon and that's, with great thanks for making this episode possible. If you'd like to join us, just head to the website or the show notes and follow the prompts. With great thanks and for sharing the podcast too, whenever you can think of someone who might enjoy it. We did get to trying a bunch of the produce coming out of the farm after this too, and wow, oh, and the raw milk I said I was going to try last time was beautiful. I've not enjoyed milk since I was a kid. What is becoming of me? The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.
