Monique van der Stroom takes her cow Pickles out to graze on her Waianae farm that produces butter and cheese sold to Whole Foods Market and local restaurants. The grass is dry, and van der Stroom has been praying for rain for weeks to irrigate her field so that the rest of her cows can graze. Morning showers on this particular Saturday are not enough to grow grass. But the milk cows at the Naked Cow Dairy are also in a dry spell. During these dry periods, van der Stroom typically buys milk from Big Island Dairy.
But with the planned closure of that dairy , van der Stroom is uncertain how much longer her farm can sustain itself. The entire industry is on the verge in Hawaii, where there used to be dairies that supplied almost all the milk sold in the islands. Today, Big Island Dairy is one of the last two commercial dairy farms in Hawaii.
The other one, Cloverleaf , in Hawi on the Big Island, is trying to finalize a tenuous sales agreement with mainland investors and a local manager eager to revitalize the industry.
On Kauai, meanwhile, plans for Hawaii Dairy Farm, which would use a pasture-based model for its cows, are on hold in the face of community opposition and lawsuits. The Hind family used the money to develop 2, acres in the Wailupe Valley.
That was just one example of a residential development pushing out dairy farming. Hawaii was still producing most of its milk locally until , when traces of the pesticide heptachlor used on pineapple tops fed to dairy cows, was found in milk. That — plus rising feed costs and competition with mainland milk — led to more dairies closing. A shortage of good land and processors who pasteurize and bottle milk have added to the troubles.
P roduction actually rose slightly in the past decade, even as most of the last large dairies shut down, leaving only Big Island Dairy and Cloverleaf. Van der Stroom ran Pacific Dairy, the last commercial dairy on Oahu, which closed in The dairy had 1, cows.
Operating Naked Cow in Waianae has been a struggle since day one, she said. The year industry veteran is not ready to quit, because she wants Hawaii to have locally produced dairy products.
Cost of living is so high. Where can you save money? I love my cows. When the father and son team bought Big Island Dairy in , they began work on a model that would help defer costs associated with milking in Hawaii. One of the largest is feed.
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HI Now. About Us. Work at Hawaii News Now. TV Guide. TV Listings. Terry's Take. Telemundo Hawaii. Gray DC Bureau. Investigate TV. By Lisa Kubota. Updated: Jan. Sadly, these two are almost single-handedly holding up the local dairy market on what used to be an island brimming with creameries. In , the island of Oahu saw its first commercial dairy plant. Over the next century, Hawaii embraced its budding milk market.
In the s however, a pesticide tragedy impacting livestock feed forced the once-thriving independent farmers to dump over 3. Over the next twenty years, the dairy industry in the state withered away as imports once only used to supplement low inventory as a band-aid became the lower-cost norm.
Despite all this, these two sisters stepped up to the challenge at the beginning of a new millennium. The influx of mass-produced dairy products and increased globalization has moved away from a model that supports local milkmen or women, and has translated into less reliance on the small family-owned shop in your town. With dairy products, this shift is all the more complicated. Naked Cow uses other local ingredients in their products like island salts, spices, and honey.
This determination to maintain a unique product comes at a price for the company.
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