Quote:
Originally Posted by stevew
It sucks that the economics simply aren't really there for a small farm to make amazing milk and cheeses organically. I'm sure that we could have amazing tasting milk but it would cost at $20/gallon, or the cheeses in the $20/pound range. I doubt there are ways to make those prices decrease enough for that type of quality to move to closer to a consumer friendly range.
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There are opportunities, it just takes a lot of skills most farmers (myself included) don't have to make the jump from providing a raw product to a consumer-ready product. I've made a little mozzarella cheese, but a cheesemaker I am not. It's a tough market to break into. From getting shelf space at grocery stores to simple name recognition, it's plain tough. And getting into that would take me away from what I really enjoy about farming and that's the cows.
The best opportunity for somebody like myself is to create a raw product that is highly desirable to the companies that process it. The farmer-processor relationship can be antagonistic at times (processors want their raw product as cheap as possible) but they will pay a premium when it's of the highest quality.