Another gem label to add to the list is now touted on brand new milk cartons, butter boxes, and cheese packages from local Wisconsin dairy group Grass Point Farms. The label is nationally standardized as “Certified Humane Raised & Handled”. It is a certification from a 501c3 non-profit organization called Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) and is supported by The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, The Humane Society of the United States, and is endorsed by over twenty-five other humane organizations. Their inspectors are trained and educated in Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine and follow Animal Care Standards that were developed by an international scientific committee of twenty leading professors, scientists, and veterinarians. To-date since their inception in May 2003, they have Certified Humane fifty-two products.
A Label for the Humane Farmer
To find out what the new label means, we asked one of the farmers of the new Grass Point Farms, Joe Tomandl. “It means our cows are treated well,” he says, “And for us, we had to change very little. We never used hormones; we did not mutilate our cattle by docking their tails and each cattle has been grazing on at least two acres of fresh pasture for over fourteen years. And when we do supplement their feed with grains and then balage in the winter, we do not lace them with antibiotics. Certification included actions that were to us small farmers basic, common sense.”
The Tomandls manage a farm of sixty cows while the size of other Grass Point Farms can range from forty to a hundred and twenty cows. They are a fourth-generation dairy farm family, their 120-acre farm first established in 1918. “Our three sons have also committed to pasture farming, which is really gratifying. Conventional dairy farming is a sunup to sundown business and we wonder why the next generation is not interested.
Pasture farming requires less labor because the cows feed themselves and they fertilize the land themselves. They have space to graze so they are more healthy and athletic, and they end up living longer. It’s a really neat system, how it loops like this. It provides a sustainable income too. The University of Wisconsin found that a pasture raised farm can net the same profit as a conventional farm-with half the number of cows.”
An increased quality of life for both the farmers and the cows is just one of the added benefits of managed rotational grazing (MRG). The immediate draw for the Tomandls was the economic independence. Since 1990, the Tomandls have been part of a Wisconsin community of small grazing farmers. The group has organized conferences at a grass-root level to exchange their knowledge and experience, gathering much information from farmers in New Zealand. “Their dairy is the most economically productive in the world,” Tomandl said, “We knew we could learn from them.” Since then, farmers like the Tomandls have been honing the practice of MRG, a rotational system of ushering herds to various sections of pasture (paddocks) to ensure the forage quality and quantity available to them.
The Making of a Label
It was at the grazing conferences that the Tomandls met Chad Pawlak and Bruce Ellis of Organic Farm Marketing (OFM) and Wisconsin Organics. “They are sincerely interested in doing something for rural communities and the small farms surrounding them,” Tomandl remarks. The Tomandls and farmers like them quickly realized the potential of linking with OFM, the missing marketing link of past grass-fed ventures. Grass Point Farms began creating their standards and market niche in the summer of 2005. “We wanted to differentiate our product and offer a price point between conventional and organic,” says Tomandl. “In the end, we wanted to show how our cows are treated on our small farms.” That is when they required inspections of implemented conservation, grazing, and nutrient plans drawn up with the help of Natural Resources Conversation Services. They also required hormone-free, pasture-based treatment of their cows and found a third-party agency that would inspect their care.
The Good Life
The beneficial impacts go beyond sustainable income to the environment and health. For example, less fertilizer waste and manure runoff enter river systems and the soil itself is being fed rather than eroded. Increased levels of omega-3 fatty acids are found in grass-fed dairy products. “There are no losers in producing cattle entirely on pasture,” concludes Dr. Kate Clancy of the Union of Concerned Scientists in a report this last June, “Farmers win, consumers win, the environment wins, and even the cattle win.”
Like those of us at Goodness Greeness, Holly Bridges of HFAC has been anticipating this summer’s launch of Grass Point Farms. “They’re amazing,” Bridges says, “People like Chad Pawlak and the farmers at Grass Point are dedicated stewards, visionaries. They have a right to be proud of their product and consumers can be assured their handling practices are humane.”
Now, one hundred and fifty other dairy farmers wait to join the ranks of Grass Point. They wait for the growing demand of educated consumers, investors in labels that signal a bejeweled evolution of the way we consume.
Goodness Greenness: Grass Point Farms
Posted: August 4, 2006 by Certified Humane
Another gem label to add to the list is now touted on brand new milk cartons, butter boxes, and cheese packages from local Wisconsin dairy group Grass Point Farms. The label is nationally standardized as “Certified Humane Raised & Handled”. It is a certification from a 501c3 non-profit organization called Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) and is supported by The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, The Humane Society of the United States, and is endorsed by over twenty-five other humane organizations. Their inspectors are trained and educated in Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine and follow Animal Care Standards that were developed by an international scientific committee of twenty leading professors, scientists, and veterinarians. To-date since their inception in May 2003, they have Certified Humane fifty-two products.
A Label for the Humane Farmer
To find out what the new label means, we asked one of the farmers of the new Grass Point Farms, Joe Tomandl. “It means our cows are treated well,” he says, “And for us, we had to change very little. We never used hormones; we did not mutilate our cattle by docking their tails and each cattle has been grazing on at least two acres of fresh pasture for over fourteen years. And when we do supplement their feed with grains and then balage in the winter, we do not lace them with antibiotics. Certification included actions that were to us small farmers basic, common sense.”
The Tomandls manage a farm of sixty cows while the size of other Grass Point Farms can range from forty to a hundred and twenty cows. They are a fourth-generation dairy farm family, their 120-acre farm first established in 1918. “Our three sons have also committed to pasture farming, which is really gratifying. Conventional dairy farming is a sunup to sundown business and we wonder why the next generation is not interested.
Pasture farming requires less labor because the cows feed themselves and they fertilize the land themselves. They have space to graze so they are more healthy and athletic, and they end up living longer. It’s a really neat system, how it loops like this. It provides a sustainable income too. The University of Wisconsin found that a pasture raised farm can net the same profit as a conventional farm-with half the number of cows.”
An increased quality of life for both the farmers and the cows is just one of the added benefits of managed rotational grazing (MRG). The immediate draw for the Tomandls was the economic independence. Since 1990, the Tomandls have been part of a Wisconsin community of small grazing farmers. The group has organized conferences at a grass-root level to exchange their knowledge and experience, gathering much information from farmers in New Zealand. “Their dairy is the most economically productive in the world,” Tomandl said, “We knew we could learn from them.” Since then, farmers like the Tomandls have been honing the practice of MRG, a rotational system of ushering herds to various sections of pasture (paddocks) to ensure the forage quality and quantity available to them.
The Making of a Label
It was at the grazing conferences that the Tomandls met Chad Pawlak and Bruce Ellis of Organic Farm Marketing (OFM) and Wisconsin Organics. “They are sincerely interested in doing something for rural communities and the small farms surrounding them,” Tomandl remarks. The Tomandls and farmers like them quickly realized the potential of linking with OFM, the missing marketing link of past grass-fed ventures. Grass Point Farms began creating their standards and market niche in the summer of 2005. “We wanted to differentiate our product and offer a price point between conventional and organic,” says Tomandl. “In the end, we wanted to show how our cows are treated on our small farms.” That is when they required inspections of implemented conservation, grazing, and nutrient plans drawn up with the help of Natural Resources Conversation Services. They also required hormone-free, pasture-based treatment of their cows and found a third-party agency that would inspect their care.
The Good Life
The beneficial impacts go beyond sustainable income to the environment and health. For example, less fertilizer waste and manure runoff enter river systems and the soil itself is being fed rather than eroded. Increased levels of omega-3 fatty acids are found in grass-fed dairy products. “There are no losers in producing cattle entirely on pasture,” concludes Dr. Kate Clancy of the Union of Concerned Scientists in a report this last June, “Farmers win, consumers win, the environment wins, and even the cattle win.”
Like those of us at Goodness Greeness, Holly Bridges of HFAC has been anticipating this summer’s launch of Grass Point Farms. “They’re amazing,” Bridges says, “People like Chad Pawlak and the farmers at Grass Point are dedicated stewards, visionaries. They have a right to be proud of their product and consumers can be assured their handling practices are humane.”
Now, one hundred and fifty other dairy farmers wait to join the ranks of Grass Point. They wait for the growing demand of educated consumers, investors in labels that signal a bejeweled evolution of the way we consume.
Category: news