ENVIR 495F

GROWING STUFF
Ecology, Economy, and Politics of Resource-Extraction Ecosystems

Home Page
Requirements
Course Schedule
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READINGS
Introduction
Forest General
Forest Local
Forest Post-Mortem
Aquaculture General
Aquaculture Local
Aquaculture Post-Mortem
Dairy General
Dairy Local
Dairy Post-Mortem

FIELD TRIPS
Forest Products
Aquaculture
Dairy

ESSAY ASSIGNMENTS Forest Products
Shellfish
Dairy

Field Trip on Dairy Farming, Whatcom County, Saturday, June 1

TIME
We will meet at our two white, UW vans, in the lot in back of the Burke Museum, between the Museum and 15th Ave, at 8:00 a.m. (yea!), and be on the road by 8:15. It will take between one and a half and two hours to get to the Whatcom County farming region. We will be hosted by a series of dairy farmers in the area around Bellingham and Lynden. The agenda is as follows:
  • 10:00 Bill and Jackie DeGroot's Jackie's Jersey Milk. They are one of the few licensed raw milk sellers in Washington. They are not certified organic. Their quality-control technician will be there along with Bill and Jackie to show us the farm and answer questions.
  • 12:00 Larry and Debbie Stap's Twin Brook Creamery. They converted from more conventinal dairying to a model of home-bottled, un-homogenized milk about ten years ago, and now they bottle their own milk and sell in retail stores in Whatcom County and around Puget Sound. Larry will host us for lunch (bring your own), look at the bottling plant, and discuss philosophies of farming and stewardship.
  • 1:30 Darryl vander Haak's manure digester. This apparatus takes manure from several nearby farms and puts it through a digestion process that recovers methane to generate electricity and sells it to the local power company. They have recently added a liquid nutrient extraction process that intensifies recycling of nutrients within the local ecosystem. Eric Powell of ANDGAR corporation, which built and maintains the digester, will be there to explain how it all works.
  • 2:30 The DeJong family's Eaglemill Farms dairy. Theirs is one of the larger dairy farms in Whatcom county, with 1,200 milking cows, managed according to scientific principles of diet and milking. This will give us an opportunity to see the operations of a large dairy farm, hosted by three generations of the DeJong family.
  • 4:00 Hans and Colleen Wolfisberg's Edelweiss Dairy. This was the first dairy in Whatcom County to produce certified organic milk, and currently sells to Organic Valley. This is the only certified organic dairy that we will visit today. Hans is from a Swiss Dairying background. He also maintains a complex system of rotational grazing.
We will return to Seattle by about 7:00 or 7:30.

QUESTIONS FOR DAIRY FARMERS
To get full benefit out of seeing and talking about dairies and their local environment, we will compile a new list of questions that you probably should print out and bring with you on the trip.

WHAT TO BRING
Check the weather for the Western Whatcom County area and dress accordingly. Wear boots or shoes that will allow you to walk in mud and cow barns Bring enough food for a picnic lunch. Bring sun protection if the forecast is for sun. Most importantly, bring a field notebook (Rite-in-the-Rain is recommended, but expensive), something to write with, and the list of questions that we will work out in class on May 30th and then post here. If you like to take pictures, bring a camera, and then we can enjoy a slide show on Monday June 1st.

WHAT TO DO AFTERWARD
By 7:00 a.m on the morning of Tuesday, the 31st, you will need to post an analytical reflection from the trip. You should reflect on what surprised you, what you learned, and how what questions still remain in your mind about the ecology, economics, and philosophies of dairy farming, and how these might inform your environmental thinking generally.