A Dairy Making Sure Manure Isn’t Waste

Dec 13, 2012 5:00 PM ET
Photo by Spencer Millsap

by Dan Stone of National Geographic

“It takes a lot of energy to produce milk,” Albert Straus tells us almost immediately after we arrive at his dairy. He would know. Straus owns and runs the Straus Family Dairy and a nearby creamery in Tomales Bay, just north of San Francisco. With knee-high boots trudging through mud, Straus shows us the 300 cows he manages, a herd whose milk becomes cheese, ice cream, butter, and yogurt that gets distributed across much of the U.S.

That’s the clean story. Making sure that the rest of us get our ice cream requires Straus to deal with a less palatable part of farming. Every day, each of his cows produce 120 pounds of manure. Added together, it amounts to a mountain of manure that builds up, rain or shine.

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About Straus Family Creamery
Straus Family Creamery strives to consistently provide the highest quality, best-tasting organic milk, yogurt, butter, ice cream, and sour cream made with minimal processing and wholesome ingredients. Straus Family Creamery makes business decisions based upon environmental and ecological considerations, which support the philosophy of sustainable, organic family farming, for the health and well being of the company, its farmers, employees and the community at large.