Posted on 02/25/2006 1:01:13 PM PST by NormsRevenge
CHINO, Calif. (AP) - Watching his 18-month-old grandson waddle past a herd of cows on the family's 80-acre dairy farm, Sybrand "Syp" Vander Dussen feels certain about one thing.
The boy, the youngest in a long line of dairymen, will one day follow in his footsteps.
The question is where.
For nearly 60 years, the Vander Dussens have milked cows. Suburban development edged them first from a farm near Los Angeles and is now squeezing them from land in once rural San Bernardino County.
In a state where the lines between rural and urban are disappearing, homes and cars are winning out over farms and cows.
The flight of dairies is nearly complete in Southern California, marking what could be a turning point in California's long-held dominance over the industry.
Soaring land prices and tough, new environmental regulations have many dairy families such as the Vander Dussens thinking about leaving the only state they've ever known - where their parents and grandparents sought the American dream.
Caught in the grip of urban sprawl, Vander Dussen is a shoot-from-the-hip realist. He knows his options are limited and pulling up roots may be the only way to survive.
"Dairies have gone from darlings to dogs within five years," he says. "Everyone attacks us, nobody wants us."
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As a boy of 4, Vander Dussen and his family arrived in Southern California in 1947, fleeing World War II devastation in Europe.
Raised on a dairy farm in Holland, Syp's father turned to what was familiar - first leasing land for a dairy and later purchasing seven acres in southeast Los Angeles.
As suburbs spread in the mid- to late 1960s and land values spiked, the family packed up and headed 35 miles east to a place they thought they could expand their dairy operation without fear of sprawl.
A fertile valley nestled below the San Gabriel Mountains, the Chino Basin straddling San Bernardino and Riverside counties was home to orchards and other crops and had the nation's largest concentration of cows per acre in the late '70s and early '80s.
When his father retired in 1969, Vander Dussen took over the family's property, now home to more than 6,000 cows. Amid his sea of Holsteins, Vander Dussen hardly notices the smell.
Now 63, he chuckles at the memory of his father thinking of the area as "Timbuktu." All these years later, the steady march of progress has found them.
"It will all be gone in two years," Vander Dussen said, driving past acres of bulldozed dairy land. "It's done. It's too bad."
There were once over 450 dairies in the area. Today that number is 150 and falling. Dairy remnants - former buildings reduced to piles of broken concrete - litter the area like cold graves as they wait to give way to tract homes, which sprout like weeds in the area.
Now considered one of the most attractive areas in Southern California for residential and commercial developers, the city of Chino has a motto of "Where Everything Grows." It no longer applies to crops.
Of the dairies still standing in the area, between 70 and 80 percent have been sold or are in escrow, according to Nathan deBoom of the Milk Producers Council. Some dairymen are being offered up to $550,000 an acre - a strip they may have purchased for $3,000 some 40 or 50 years ago.
At those prices, it's hard to say no. Staying would mean being surrounded by homes, neighbors complaining about the smell and perhaps most of all, the feeling of being unwanted.
"We're seeing this transition of cows to cars, pasture to pavement," deBoom said. "It's kinda the story of Southern California."
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Some longtime dairymen or their widows have decided to walk away. For those like the Vander Dussens who want to relocate, the future is uncertain.
The Central Valley is now home to most of the state's multibillion-dollar dairy industry. The eight-county stretch of fertile land in the middle of California has nearly 1.4 million cows at 1,500 dairies.
Twenty years ago, a move north would have been relatively easy. But dairymen point to a number of factors that in recent years made the Central Valley less attractive.
Groups like the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment have been active in holding dairies accountable for current conditions in the Central Valley, which has some of the most polluted air in the nation. Concerns center on cow emissions, ranging from manure to rumination, that are released into the atmosphere and react with other pollutants to form ground-level ozone.
The group cites statistics - one in six children in the Central Valley take an inhaler to school because of asthma - and have filed lawsuits seeking to compel new or expanding dairies to complete extensive and expensive environmental impact reports.
Dairies "were given a free pass to pollute, and they still have the attitude that the air is their toilet," said Brent Newell, staff attorney for the center.
The situation changed dramatically when a state law went into effect in 2004 requiring dairies to adhere to air pollution standards, just as commercial and industrial businesses do. They had previously been exempt.
To operate a dairy in California, a dairyman now needs a dozen different permits, according to Michael Marsh with the Western United Dairymen. In places like Texas and New Mexico, dairymen need one or two, he said.
"Folks would like to stay here in California," Marsh said. But "a significant number of them, after trying repeatedly to relocate farms in the Central Valley, have instead made the decision to go ahead and move their families out of state."
Marsh and others, including Vander Dussen, say dairies have been unfairly targeted.
"Dairies are not bad for the environment. Dairies can control the problems and the complaints," Vander Dussen said. "We cannot control the environmental onslaught."
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Milking cows has been a way of life for the Vander Dussen family for longer than any one of them can remember.
At 14, Vander Dussen's son, Mark, was sent to breeding school to learn how to artificially inseminate cows.
"I would have done it at 13 but he wasn't tall enough yet," the elder Vander Dussen said.
Now 39, Mark Vander Dussen co-owns the family's farm. He's been preparing himself for the possibility of a move for some time.
"I'm not sad," the younger Vander Dussen said. "I think we'll be doing something somewhere. We're just not sure where."
To stay in California would cost the family $21 million to purchase 3,000 acres in the Central Valley. They would need an additional $15 million to construct the dairy. Because their farm is in a future flood zone, the family only expects to receive about $19 million for their land.
But a few states away in Texas, the Vander Dussens could purchase land for $1,700 an acre and build a dairy for half the cost. The total price would be around $12 million.
The family will likely head east.
"The alternatives are too attractive," Vander Dussen said.
If they leave, they will join an estimated 60 dairy families that have left the state in the past two years from the Chino area. Industry experts predict the trend will continue.
To Tom Alger, a second-generation dairyman, Texas makes sense.
"The land is cheaper. The cost of doing business is a lot less," Alger said. "We think we can make it there."
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That's what worries some in the $5 billion California dairy industry. They fear those leaving now could be the first in a seismic shift of production out of state.
"If the regulatory burden continues to outpace the producers' ability to stay in business, they will just continue to leave," said Marsh of the Western United Dairymen. "It will mean a smaller industry. But it also means a loss of a significant number of jobs."
For now, the state Department of Food and Agriculture is not concerned. Milk production in California has steadily increased by 4 percent each year despite some farmers deciding to leave the state, according to department spokesman Steve Lyle.
"When you look at the numbers, you see the dairy industry as a whole - not just viable but burgeoning," Lyle said.
If the Vander Dussens decide on Texas, they will likely end up in the Panhandle, a stronghold of agricultural tradition.
Dallam County lies in the northwest corner of Texas - 60 miles long by 40 miles wide and home to about 6,000 residents. The number of large dairies is expected to more than double in the next few years as farmers flood the area from California, Wisconsin and elsewhere, according to Dallam County Judge David Field.
"We are just the ideal location," Field said. "There are very few people out here. It's wide open spaces."
The hope of many, including the Vander Dussens, is that it's just remote enough. But the move will be hard. Vander Dussen likes California. The weather is perfect for raising cows, he says.
But he's frustrated by the indifference. He sees local hardware shops closing and mom-and-pop gas stations forced out of business by chains that come with urban sprawl.
"Nobody cares," Vander Dussen said. "The dairy business is being scrutinized, and being permitted and lawsuited away. Nobody cares."
Grandson, not son ... the wife would be none too happy at this point, I think.
Boo hoo, my heart bleeds to death for these guys. My suggestion, go where you are wanted.
I think this is a real shame. These farms have been family owned for MANY YEARS...if some of you can't grasp that concept....
I am so tired of hearing farmers, beneficiaries of price supports, tariff protection, federal and state subsidies, and all manner of tax breaks, whine when their property appreciates in value.
They are being forced off their land! This valley was once nothing but dairy farms and State prison. Now the dairies are being snapped up by developers and turned into housing tracts. the yuppies buy the new houses and act shocked when the area stinks like dairy farms.
I don't care what the family paid for the land generations ago. The land is theirs period. Because of the flooding that happens in the valley during heavy rains, it has been a very good thing that the place was dairy farms, and not housing developments. I hope that if the govt is taking the land by eminant domain, they do something about the flooding, or there will be loss of life there with every heavy rain.
I hope that this family can find a new location where they can buy ample good land to continue producing milk and dairy products for generations to come.
Its hard to see the shame in someone's property getting so valuable that they can sell it, or even a small part of it and they and their children can live forever on the interest from investing the profits of their sale.
They should be happy for all the wealth they have generated, and what that will allow them to do for their family.
I lived in Chino Hills for ten years and I work for a doctor in Chino; personally, I hate to see these farms all go away. I used to like to cut through the dairyland and see all the cows and other animals, just as I liked seeing all the farmland on the Irvine Ranch when we lived there. Now Gilroy, the garlic capital, is being overtaken with houses.... at the current rate California will be wall-to-wall houses, but the Chino area is in such a perfect spot it was just a matter of time before it lost the ruralness.
What if you are like my husband and myself, built our house to retire and now all the displaced Californian's are driving the home prices through the roof and our taxes with it... where do you suppose we all go????
Sell the house, make a bundle, move to Zona, the Gulf Coast, Mexico, geez it's a big frickin world pick someplace nice. And you'll have plenty of extra cash for an extra luxury cruise or three every year.
Some things SHOULD mean more than money.
Well, they used to...
And will we see new bonds and taxpayer dollars being used to build and shore up levees so the developers can reap the real profits?
Some things SHOULD mean more than money.
Well, they used to...>>>>>>>>>>>>
I sometimes tell some of my young co-workers,"you have things that didn't exist when I was young but there are things that we had that you will never know". Most of those things they will never know cost little or nothing in terms of money but they were precious indeed!!!!!
" Some dairymen are being offered up to $550,000 an acre -"
That pegs the BS meter. Myabe one farmer had a couple of acres go for that somewhere. Take a 0 away and you could get much closer.
I grew up in Chino. My parents moved there in 1977. My wife and I left for Indiana 3 years ago.
The Dutch farmers have been leaving Chino for years. This is nothing new.
Yes!!!! And that too is sad!
Maybe I seemed a little harsh, but they are going to make $7 Million and be able to have a completely new operation in Texas, if they choose. If they decide to retire, they could pocket almost all of the $19 million.
That is not a reason to cry... if these idiot yuppies want to not have dairy farms around, well, that is their loss... it does point out the evils of zoning though... they can literally re-zone you right out of the land.
There's a shortage of REAL MILK, and the fewer family dairies there are, the harder it will be to get in the future.
That pegs the BS meter
As a Californian, let me assure you, these figures are realistic.
ping
Raw milk strikes again
Douglas Powell
Commentary from the Food Safety Network
December 16, 2005
Excerpt
In May, 1943, Edsel Bryant Ford, son of auto dictator Henry Ford, died at the age of 49 in Detroit, of what some claimed was a broken heart.
Biology, however, decreed that Ford died of undulant fever, apparently brought on by drinking unpasteurized milk from the Ford dairy herd, at the behest of his father's mistaken belief that all things natural must be good. As of this morning, seven children have been stricken with E. coli O157:H7 in Woodland, Washington, and four of them remain in serious condition in hospital.
The health department says all of the cases are connected to drinking unpasteurized milk from Dee Creek Farm near Woodland. Washington agriculture officials say dairy producers are required to be licensed and inspected monthly, but Dee Creek has never been licensed.
Dr. Justin Denny, Clark County health officer was quoted as saying, "The risks far outweigh" the taste. The Pima County Health Department in Arizona was cited as reporting Wednesday that it had received confirmation of salmonella contamination in nonpasteurized, raw milk produced by Colorado City's Meadowayne Dairy.
The milk was sold at several natural- and health-food stores in the Tucson area. And that's just this week.
Earlier this year, four people including two children in Barrie, Ontario were hospitalized with bloody diarrhea and severe abdominal cramps caused by E. coli O157:H7 after drinking raw milk purchased from the back of a vehicle in the south end of Barrie.
While most people recover from E.coli O157:H7, 5-10 per cent of cases go on to develop hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) which is characterized by kidney failure. It's not fun.
Regardless, raw, unpasteurized milk has been gaining in popularity as part of the growing organic and natural foods movement. Proponents say raw milk is healthier and better tasting than pasteurized, milk.
The glowing media coverage of all things natural abounds. The Associated Press gushed on Nov. 25, 2005, that "Kelsey Kozack's kitchen is a dairy wonderland. Fresh cheeses, yogurt and quarts of fresh raw milk abound, all compliments of Iris, a gentle tan cow who grazes on the family's seven-acre property." Kelsey was quoted as saying, "After you've been drinking raw milk for a while, you can't drink store-bought again. It has a lot more flavor and is healthier."
Tell that to the kids in hospital with a potentially fatal illness.
Washington state health officials note that there was an E. coli outbreak last year involving three people in Whatcom County tied to illegal raw milk, and in 2003, three people in Yakima County and eight in Skagit County became ill from tainted milk.
Earlier this year the New York State health department warned against consumption of some imported Mexican cheeses made from unpasteurized milk after identifying 35 cases from 2001 to 2004, including one infant death in 2004, attributed to Mycobacterium bovis, a form of TB found in cattle.
And in 2004, an Edmonton-area cheese producer abandoned the business after a Gouda cheese made from unpasteurized milk led to 11 cases of E.coli O157:H7 poisoning, including a two-year-old girl who developed HUS from the infection.
There are too many other such cases to mention.
Under federal law in Canada it is illegal to sell or distribute raw milk because of the risk of transmitting disease from microorganisms like E. coli, salmonella and campylobacter, which are eliminated during the process of pasteurization. And in Ontario, if you’re caught selling, or even giving away raw milk, the fine can be as much as $5,000.
In the U.S., unpasteurized milk is legally allowed for sale in 28 states. In Washington state, the farm must be licensed through the state and each bottle must have a warning label.
With proper testing, it may be possible to offer a safe, unpasteurized product to the consuming public. But the onus is on producers to show the rest of us that data. Adults, do whatever you think works, but please, don't impose your dietary regimes on your kids. Flowery words don't do much for kids in the hospital.
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