At a local farm, in Maryland, USA, Wayne Cullen raises his
herd of goats on his 24-hectare known as Cherry Glen farm in Boyds and he has
had a steady supply of goat milk from his herd for years. The supply is quite
so much that he didn’t know how he can manage with it all. One day he was told
by someone around there to take the goat milk to make into goat cheese.
He said that somebody mentioned to him that he could make
bulk chevre pretty easily because there was a strong market for it and his
neighbor also said that he could make about 1,000 US dollars a goat a year and
later that is what he decided to do. His decision to that agree with many more
American consumers having begun to take a closer look at the food they eat and
want to know for more knowledge about food. That means they want to know even
where their food comes from, what is in it, and what nutritional benefit it
offers. It’s a trend away from mass-produced, processed foods, in favor of food
that is organic, sustainably-produced, green, and locally grown. The results
has been a growth in small family farms which produce this kind of food like Cherry
Glen farm in Boyds, Maryland.
Cullen has yet to turn a profit, even though his
award-winning Cherry Glen goat cheese is sold in over 50 stores and restaurants
around the Washington D.C. area because there is a lot of competition and
according to Cullen, it is very difficult to educate the store, cheese buyers
in the stores (people who buy cheese for the store) it is also very hard to
educate the public.
The researchers and agricultural experts in this product say
there has not been only Cullen in this business, but 6.8 million Farms in 1935
in the states were reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Today
farmers are producing more than ever on about two million large mechanized
farms.
Sarah Hackney, at the National Sustainable Agriculture
Coalition, said that food distribution markets are no longer set up to serve
small family farmers. She said “like a large production company, you know, it’s
easier for them to get distribution access. They can lock-in a sweatheart deal
with a grocery chain at a really low price. So that is one of the challenges
for the smaller grower. That means you don’t have those advantages for you.
For Cullen to survive to get more profits and to cut high costs
he is constantly looking for any new methods; for example, he decided to build
the cheese-making plant where his electric bill went from 500 US dollars a
month to 3,500 a month. Later he copes with this burden by installing the array
of solar panels which now produces all the electricity for his farm.
He finally said that he think to sell more as he need to
develop some additional varieties and he has to have some strong marketing
people.
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