Friends of Rural New York

Dr. Arden Nelson and his wife, Dr. Meg Cattell, are owners of Windsor Dairy, which produces and sells organic milk products under the Organic Valley Rocky Mountain Pastures label. Their 1,000-acre farm boasts 400 cows that produce 16,000 gallons of milk a week. The dairy also is working with Fort Collins’ Bingham Cheese Co. to produce gourmet cheeses.

Couple say organic products are all about healthier animals

By Linda Black, Special to the News
July 5, 2005

Veterinarians Dr. Meg Cattell and Dr. Arden Nelson have dedicated their careers to studying and promoting preventive medicine and nutrition for animals, specifically dairy cattle. It’s an interest that has led them to research, teaching, clinical practice and consulting.

Now the married couple is applying more than 20 years of education, research and scientific theory to a very practical venture. In 2000, they started Windsor Dairy, a 1,000-acre spread in Northern Colorado that sells organic milk under the Organic Valley Rocky Mountain Pastures label. The dairy boasts about 400 cows that produce 16,000 gallons of milk a week. Its milk products are sold through Stinton Dairy and the Whole Foods distribution system.

“It fits perfectly with what we were doing (in veterinary medicine),” Cattell says, adding that organic milk production is all about maintaining healthy animals. “We figured we had a good chance to do it right.”

They certainly had the background.

Cattell, who worked on her grandfather’s dairy farm in her youth, received degrees in veterinary medicine, epidemiology and environmental health from Colorado State University. As a Fulbright Scholar, she studied dairy farms in India. She also worked at dairies in England and Scotland and conducted archaeological reconstruction on an Iron Age farm in Great Britain. All of which, she says, “fits into a longstanding interest in farming systems.”

After graduating from veterinary school, Cattell developed an interest in preventive medicine, specifically in dairy cattle. That led to conducting clinical trials for private companies as well as CSU, where she was on the affiliate faculty. Cattell is board certified in dairy clinical practice.

Nelson, a native of Bemidji, Minn., also spent summers on his grandfather’s dairy farm, received his veterinary degree from the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine and practiced in upstate New York, where he studied and then taught preventive medicine and nutrition.

Cattell says it was inevitable that she and Nelson would ultimately go into dairy farming.

“We went to vet school to become farmers,” she says.

In 2002, they transitioned from traditional dairy farming to organic. Cattell maintains the core difference is “very philosophical,” that organic dairy farming is about sustainability and adapting to the environment.

It’s a system that starts from the “ground up,” she adds, starting with improving the soil, selecting the right crops and designing a grazing system. The cows are outside. They’re grazing and putting manure on the pastures, she says. “It’s a much more natural system.”

To adapt to the region, Cattell says, the operation is breeding Holstein cows with Brown Swiss and Tarentaise cattle, which come from the Alps and are, therefore, hardy in the cold and used to high elevations. The pastures are planted with perennial grasses that are well-adapted to the area and build up organic matter that holds moisture.

“That’s a good example of finding something that works for the livestock and that’s good for the environment,” she says.

At the same time, they have adopted a rotational grazing system, in which all the cows are put on a different small fenced two- to three-acre pasture each morning to graze and are moved to another pasture in the afternoon. That allows the cows to eat the grasses down to the ground and move on. The grasses grow back in a few weeks and the cows can return.

The couple also plant winter crops, such as rye and triticale, so the cows can graze year-round.

Cattell says pasture grazing not only keeps the cows healthier but also makes the milk they produce healthier.

Benefits include higher levels of Omega 3 fatty acids, antioxidants and conjugated linoleic acid in the milk, she says.

“The nutritive value from grass-fed cows is phenomenal,” Cattell adds.

She says conjugated linoleic acid is a potent anti-cancer agent and notes that grass-fed cows have 20 times higher levels of CLA in their milk.

“That’s very exciting to us,” she says.

The focus is to keep animals healthy through nutrition, which then leads to keeping people healthy through nutrition.

“We’re very excited about that idea, and there’s some great science behind it,” Cattell says. “We see it as a growing trend.”

In December, Cattell and Nelson made a move that allows them to focus all their attention on the farm. They became members of a farmer-owned cooperative, Organic Valley, based in La Farge, Wis., which represents 689 dairy farmers in 20 states. The cooperative handles just about everything on the business side of the operation.

“This way we can focus on being a farmer,” Cattell says.

The cooperative picks up the milk from the farmers, manages the processing plants, markets and sells the milk, distributes it and writes the farmer a check, says Theresa Marquez, director of public affairs and chief marketing executive for Organic Valley.

“We do all the arrangements for the farmers,” she says. “All they have to do is provide us with quality milk.”

The price paid to its farmers ranges from 15 percent to 50 percent higher than the price conventional farmers generally get, she says.

And it’s a booming business.

Although organic milk makes up only 1.1 percent of the total milk market share, 29 million gallons of organic milk were sold between January and August in 2004, says Stephanie Smith, spokeswoman for the Western Dairy Council.

Eighteen brands of organic milk are sold at supermarkets across the United States, Smith says, but added the three major players - Organic Valley, Horizon Organic and Organic Cow - account for 83 percent of all organic milk sold in the supermarkets.

And the market keeps growing. Sales increased 21.8 percent between January and August 2004 compared to the same period in 2003, Smith says.

And through June of this year, organic milk sales are up 28 percent from the same period last year, according to Caragh McLaughlin, senior brand manager for Horizon Organic.

Organic Valley reports that its sales increased from $156 million in 2003 to $206 million in 2004. Marquez says the sale of organic dairy products increased 36 percent last year, and, when it comes to organic milk, there’s not enough to meet the growing demand.

Although she says she can’t pinpoint any one thing to explain its increasing popularity, she notes that about 70 percent of the new consumers are young mothers.

She speculates that the “cautionary principle” may be a factor: They’d rather be safe than sorry when it comes to possible risks involved with the pesticides used in conventional dairy farming.

McLaughlin, of Horizon Organic, also believes more consumers are concerned with the impact of diet on their overall heath.

“In a study we conducted earlier this year, we found 87 percent of Americans said they plan to practice healthier eating habits this year, and of those, 45 percent plan to do so by adding more organic foods to their diet,” McLaughlin says.

Windsor Dairy

• What: Producer of Organic Valley Rocky Mountain Pastures milk products

• Where: Windsor

• Production: Dairy has 400 cows that produce 16,000 gallons of milk a week

• Owners: Dr. Meg Cattell and Dr. Arden Nelson

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