This week in sustainable agriculture a speaker from Straus Family Creamery joined us named Alex Fox. She is a Redwood graduate who went on to major in environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz. She also has a master in Green Business. After interning at multiple different places, she was hired by Straus Creamery where she is now the sustainability manager.
Straus Creamery is the 1st certified organic dairy farm. They have a total of 8 farms that provide them milk. The company thrives off its four core values of: sustainability, innovation, integrity, and respect. Straus makes many efforts to reduce its ecological footprint. Ms. Fox mentioned a few of the steps such as: Annual sustainability reports and waste audits, methane digester, reusable glass bottles, electric vehicle fleets, and joining the Marin Carbon Project. The Methane Digester was one of the practices that intrigued me the most. The digester takes manure that is washed off of the barn floors into an anaerobic environment where bacteria is able to digest the methane and produce a solid that can be used to fertilize the fields, and creates electricity that the farm can use. This reduces their methane and electricity usage massively. The Marin Carbon Project is another way that the company is able to help reverse the effects that the farms may be having on the environment. Straus has created a 20 year carbon farming plan. This plan helps answer the question of "how can we take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and get it back into the ground." It includes adding ½ an inch of compost to the the soil which removes one ton of compost per acre for 30 years. It seems like such a simple addition that actually makes a world of the difference.
I would really like to thank Alex Fox for taking time to share with us her story and the ways in which Straus Family Creamery is making a difference help lead the way to a sustainable future. (Pictures are courtesy of the Straus Family Creamery website.)
Straus Creamery is the 1st certified organic dairy farm. They have a total of 8 farms that provide them milk. The company thrives off its four core values of: sustainability, innovation, integrity, and respect. Straus makes many efforts to reduce its ecological footprint. Ms. Fox mentioned a few of the steps such as: Annual sustainability reports and waste audits, methane digester, reusable glass bottles, electric vehicle fleets, and joining the Marin Carbon Project. The Methane Digester was one of the practices that intrigued me the most. The digester takes manure that is washed off of the barn floors into an anaerobic environment where bacteria is able to digest the methane and produce a solid that can be used to fertilize the fields, and creates electricity that the farm can use. This reduces their methane and electricity usage massively. The Marin Carbon Project is another way that the company is able to help reverse the effects that the farms may be having on the environment. Straus has created a 20 year carbon farming plan. This plan helps answer the question of "how can we take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and get it back into the ground." It includes adding ½ an inch of compost to the the soil which removes one ton of compost per acre for 30 years. It seems like such a simple addition that actually makes a world of the difference.
I would really like to thank Alex Fox for taking time to share with us her story and the ways in which Straus Family Creamery is making a difference help lead the way to a sustainable future. (Pictures are courtesy of the Straus Family Creamery website.)
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