Davis, Calif., (October 31, 2017) – Starting January 1st 2018, a prescription from your herd veterinarian will be required to purchase a “medically important antibiotic”. While most producers are generally aware of these new regulations, there is some information regarding the implications for farm operations that is important to keep in mind. Much of the discussion around antibiotic resistance has centered around preserving antibiotic effectiveness for human use, and while that is critically important, preserving antibiotic effectiveness is just as critical for animal use.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that more than two million antibiotic-resistant infections occur in people every year, resulting in some 23,000 deaths. The medical community has been tackling the issue with outreach to consumers and doctors like the CDC’s “Get Smart” Program. Similarly, in California all hospitals and nursing homes are required to implement “Antibiotic Stewardship” programs to promote responsible antibiotic use and limit development of resistance.
On the animal side, certainly a significant percentage of antibiotic use occurs in livestock, although recent research suggests that movement of resistant bacteria most commonly occurs from humans to animals rather than in the reverse direction. That said, any antibiotic use, regardless of whether it is in humans, pets or livestock, does tend to promote resistance. California’s new livestock medication laws involve all animal species and seek to leverage the efforts being taken on the human side. The expectation is that expertise provided by the herd veterinarian will help optimize antibiotic use on farms, limiting development of resistance. Because most dairy producers have a herd vet and are using prescription medications under their supervision, the effect on dairy operations should be modest.
That said, there are several potential advantages to regular review of the dairy’s treatment program. Using resistance data collected from farm mortalities, a herd veterinarian may be able to identify lower-tier, less expensive antibiotics that are still effective. Re-examination of disease management programs such as those for mastitis, metritis or lameness, offer even greater savings, since it is always cheaper to prevent disease rather than to treat it. Perhaps most importantly, as treatments are reduced, so does the selective pressure on the dairy’s pathogens. Ultimately this should mean that antibiotics used on the farm will remain effective for years to come.
Now is the perfect time to schedule a health and treatment program review with your herd veterinarian with an eye towards optimizing treatment programs and reducing medication costs. In the coming months and into the new year, CDQAP will be providing more detailed information on the new livestock medication laws and will focus on cost-saving opportunities.
Davis, Calif., (October 20, 2017) – The University of California, Davis, today announced plans to raise $115 million in philanthropic support to update and improve three critical areas of the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Center: the Livestock and Field Service Center, the Equine Performance Center and the All-Species Imaging Center. This campaign, called “Leading the Way,” marks the first phase in a long-term plan to transform the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Center.
UC Davis’ veterinary medicine program is already ranked No. 1 in the world. But the university’s veterinary teaching hospital is overdue for an update. Opened in 1970 to serve 3,000 patients per year, the hospital now sees more than 50,000 annually, causing the hospital to face significant constraints in space, layout and capacity, and impacting the speed at which clients receive care.
“It’s clear why patients are brought here. They receive the highest standard of compassionate care and benefit from the latest discoveries in veterinary medicine,” Chancellor Gary S. May said. “So let’s take some much-needed next steps, ones that ensure that UC Davis will continue to offer world-class care and an unbeatable education for students with a comprehensive veterinary medical center that builds on UC Davis’ strengths and reinforces our role as a world leader.”
The university has witnessed strong philanthropic interest in this campaign, having raised $67 million — more than half of the campaign goal — prior to this afternoon’s announcement. Donors include grateful clients, alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the School of Veterinary Medicine and UC Davis.
The class of 1992 had the foresight to support this project in 2012 as part of their 20-year reunion class gift. Alumnus and referring veterinarian Jon Klingborg ’87, D.V.M. ’92, spoke at the announcement about the importance of the project.
“I’m so happy that my class of 1992 is on the front edge of this fundraising initiative,” said Klingborg. “It is our vision that others will join us to help build the new Veterinary Medical Center.”
Other donors include the Frank and Eva Buck Foundation, Glen and Peggy Jeckel, the Wayne and Gladys Valley Foundation, the Baileys Foundation and Alison Baileys, D.V.M. ’16.
The first phase will include:
The Livestock and Field Service Center will become the first patient service area to come online and is an integral example of how progress at UC Davis and its commitment to animal agriculture will benefit California and the world. Upgrades and modifications will improve student and clinician safety and will also provide patients an optimal handling and care environment.
The equine industry is an important part of California’s economy and culture. To serve this industry, the Equine Performance Center will transform equine services with a new arena and gait analysis capability for lameness evaluations. With the opportunity to observe horses performing under saddle, the hospital’s equine specialists will be able to better detect and treat the underlying injury or medical condition. This exciting facility design includes state-of-the-art force-plate and video analysis rarely available in veterinary settings, opening a new avenue to improved performance through the application of clinical research.
The All Species Imaging Center, pivotal to all hospital clinical specialties, will be centrally located to serve all patients, large and small. The strategic placement of the latest in imaging technology and expertise will expedite diagnosis and patient care, reduce stress and wait time for patients, and optimize operational efficiencies.
“Our vision will ensure access to the best options for veterinary care,” Dean Michael Lairmore said. “The Veterinary Medical Center will be unlike any in the world, one that combines compassionate health care for animals with innovations from across our university, a spirit of discovery and a passion for education that will transform veterinary medicine into the future.”
Tomales, Calif., (October 13, 2017) – Loren Poncia grew up as the fourth generation on his family’s ranch in Tomales and always knew he wanted to come back and be a full-time rancher.
Lisa and Loren Poncia (pictured with their two daughters Avery and Julianna) started the Stemple Creek Ranch brand 10 years ago. Photos by Paige Green Photography, courtesy of the Poncia family.
Poncia’s family immigrated to Northern California from Italy in 1897 has been continuously involved in various forms of agriculture since then. After graduating from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 1998, he was passionate about coming back and running the family ranch but realized there was no room for him to financially fit into the business. Poncia spent nearly twenty years in corporate sales in the biotech industry.
Twelve years ago, Poncia and his wife Lisa decided they wanted to try to establish an agricultural business of their own. They set out to raise high quality beef. They first transitioned their cattle to be “all natural.” They sent a load of cattle to a feedlot, but when 30% of the cattle got sick, they realized they wanted to do something different.
At the time, Poncia had been reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and it sparked his thought process. The book caused him to question the feedlot model and why they were finishing their cattle on corn and other grains. The Poncias also began to consider selling their meat directly to consumers, recognizing the benefits of being an agricultural community just a stone’s throw from the San Francisco Bay Area where the local food movement was beginning to take hold.
In 2007, while Loren continued to work at his full-time corporate job, the Poncias started Stemple Creek Ranch. The intent was to finish all of their beef and lamb on grass on the ranch instead of sending it to a feedlot and to sell the finished product locally. They slowly built their herd and sold directly to consumers, local restaurants and butcher shops. In 2009, the Poncias sold all their beef and lamb within a 100 mile radius of their home ranch.
Already committed to 100% grass-fed and grass-finished product, the Poncias became certified Organic and sold product to Whole Foods for several years. Over time, they expanded their retail sales, selling at the two largest farmers’ markets in Bay Area (the San Francisco ferry plaza on Saturdays and the Marin County Civic Center on Sundays) and to other grocery stores including Good Earth Natural Foods in Marin County, Berkeley Bowl in Alameda County, Woodlands Market in San Francisco and other mom and pop butcher shops throughout California. They also sell to a select few of the finest restaurants in the greater Bay Area.
Most recently, the Poncias began selling Stemple Creek Ranch beef to the four Oliver’s Markets locations in Sonoma County. Poncia said this is particularly exciting because it is something they’ve been working on for many years. He said the family is thrilled to have somewhere local where their meat is easily accessible to Sonoma County consumers.
Today, the Poncias run their cattle in Sonoma, Marin, and Humboldt counties on both owned and leased pasture. They rent the family ranch from Loren’s parents and several years ago Loren and Lisa also purchased the ranch “next door” from the Burbank family who had kept it in the family since the 1860’s.
The beef cattle are the primary focus of the ranch, but the family also tends to 300 ewes. Their latest venture has been pork that is raised on the home ranch in Tomales. Five years ago, the Poncias lost a large group of lambs to coyotes. They got three guardian dogs to live with the sheep, and since enlisting Zeus, Pepper, and Salty, they haven’t lost a single lamb.
While all of the pastures are certified organic, only some of the cattle are certified organic. Organic beef comprises approximately 30% of the Stemple Creek Ranch sales. Poncia said he’s seen the organic market growing quicker than the conventional market.
Stemple Creek Beef is known for their fatty grass-fed beef despite not finishing on grain. Poncia said this makes year-round production particularly challenging and they have to supplement the cattle with organic hay in the drier months.
Poncia said it’s become important to figure out how to balance dry times, describing every summer as a seasonal drought for their business. He said it’s become important to their farming practices to take care of mother nature so she can in turn take care of them.
“Ten years ago, I considered myself a grass farmer,” said Poncia, “now I consider myself a soil farmer.”
Their close proximity to the coast provides more moderate temperatures benefitting their operation by allowing their perennial grasses to stay green longer. Poncia says that their production close to the coast with the cool ocean air influences the flavor of the beef.
Stemple Creek Ranch is part of the Marin Carbon Project, having a plan to take care of their land that can help draw carbon from the atmosphere and fix it in the soil. The more carbon that is in the soil, the more water the soil retains, and the more grass that can be grown. The ranch is one of three ranches used as a demonstration site by the Marin Carbon Project to illustrate the importance farming practices can have on their environment.
Poncia stresses that cornerstones of the Stemple Creek Ranch brand are honesty, integrity and quality. Every decision that Loren and Lisa make on the ranch and in the business are made with those pillars in mind. They love having people visit the ranch and being able to share what they do and educate people about local, sustainable and regenerative agriculture.
For the family, the internet and social media has been a huge driver of their success and ability to develop a successful brand. They have “met” many of their retail and wholesale customers online and have grown these online relationships into successful business partnerships.
“I couldn’t imagine trying to build our brand over the last 10 years on a shoestring budget without social media,” said Poncia.
In addition to social media, Poncia gives a lot of credit to his wife, Lisa. Lisa came into the business without an ag background, but Poncia described her as someone open to new opportunities and ideas. He said she offers him a huge amount of support, but she’s also just a “really good business woman and partner.” The couple has two young children, Avery and Julianna.
The family is always looking to expand their business, but they are limited by their access to pasture. Poncia said in a perfect world they would love to expand their brand by partnering with other farmers who share their values.
“We’re very thankful for the support of the community and customers who will pay for a quality product. We’re over the moon to be able to sell a high quality product locally. We didn’t know exactly where this business would bring us, but consumers vote with their dollars, and so far they are voting that they like the product.”
Davis, Calif., (October 4, 2017) – Each year, the couple makes three trips to Mexico and two to Nicaragua to support local veterinarians and care for donkeys, or burros, still heavily used for transporting goods and people. Summers find them visiting Native American reservations across North and South Dakota to treat horses that otherwise have no access to veterinary care. Eric has made the trip to the Dakotas more than 20 times, with Cindy aboard for 15 of them.
Each journey also introduces veterinary students from UC Davis and across the United States to the needs of underserved, rural communities and allows them to practice critical, hands-on skills first introduced in vet school.
Near the edge of California’s Delta where the pavement turns to gravel before disappearing into native grasslands, University of California, Davis, veterinarian Eric Davis and his wife, Cindy, live with three horses, five donkeys, a pair of scrappy Chihuahuas and a pond-full of koi.
They are horse people in the best sense: sun-weathered, energetic, frank and compassionate. Their modest country home is a gateway to the world and what Eric calls “its most forgotten creatures.”
Dakotas bound – On a hot, late-spring day, Eric, who teaches in the School of Veterinary Medicine, and Cindy, a veterinary technician experienced in field anesthesia, were rapidly fitting out their 25-year-old Thomas Built school bus for this year’s trip to the Dakotas. Hand-painted two shades of gray with royal blue trim, the vehicle would once again serve as their summer home and the hub of mobile veterinary clinic.
“Rule number one: You do not load the day before you leave — but here we are,” said Eric wryly, relieved just to have the vintage vehicle back from the mechanic. “We should be castrating horses in Winnemucca this time tomorrow.”
Upon arriving in the Dakotas, he, Cindy and their team of veterinary students tend to cuts, bruises, dental problems and countless castrations of fairly wild, adult horses.
When Eric began visiting the Dakotas in the early ‘90s, he arrived to find that one Native American ranching family had 300 un-castrated colts in need of his surgical skills. Each subsequent trip has been a bit different but long, exhausting days have been a constant.
“I have literally been in the New Town rodeo arena in North Dakota at 2 a.m., castrating a horse by the light of a headlamp,” he said.
Because they would be so far away for so long, and dealing with so many unexpected variables, they spent three weeks in concentrated preparation for the Dakotas trip. But for Cindy, coordinating the logistics for all of their domestic and international trips has become a fulltime, year-round job.
“This is our life,” Eric said. “Not just something we do in our spare time.”
Not your average road trip – Meticulous packing is always critical for the bus trips to the Dakotas, some 1,300 miles away.
“I’m worried as hell about forgetting something,” Eric said. “I even dreamed about packing the bus the other night.”
Their cargo ranged from a dozen plastic bins with snap-on lids, tool chests and a super-sized metal water jug to a lariat for roping horses, a mobile ultrasound unit, liquid nitrogen for biopsying tumors and, of course, the indispensable dart gun.
“You hope you don’t have to use it but some of the horses are so wild, they’ll go over a 7-foot fence,” Eric said. Last year he had to dart five horses with sedatives in order to treat them.
Concern for the forgotten ones – Starting out his career as a farrier, Eric came to UC Davis in 1967, earning a bachelor’s degree in animal science in ‘71, a master’s in ’72 and a doctor of veterinary medicine in ’77. After working for a decade in private veterinary practice, he returned in ’87 for a two-year residency in equine medicine.
Having served at three other universities and with two rural veterinary outreach programs, he again returned to UC Davis in 2008 to teach and work with the veterinary school’s International Animal Welfare Institute. He and Cindy also have founded the non-profit RVETS, or Rural Veterinary Education, Teaching and Service, through which they coordinate their trips to the Dakotas and Central America.
Eric is experienced in treating horses, donkeys and mules, but has a soft spot in his heart for the donkeys that continue to be beasts of burden in the remote regions of the developing world. They are exquisitely adapted to the desert environment and its sparse vegetation. In general, they are in better health than most pet donkeys in the United States, he said.
“In the U.S., we are recognizing that there are a lot of donkeys in the world — over 40 million by some estimates — and they are important to the quality of life,” he said. “If you’re going to care about the world, those are things you should know.”
In the Dakotas, however, where the prairie and sky seem to race out to meet at the horizon, the expansive grasslands are too rich for a donkey diet and far better suited for horses.
Natural resources are abundant there but names like Little Big Horn, Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge, and Standing Rock speak of the region’s history of conflict and heartbreak for Native Americans. Today, many of the surrounding counties are among the poorest in the U.S.
The rural horse owners are committed to their animals but lack resources to pay for veterinary care, which is scarce, at best, in these sparsely populated regions. When the Davises and their team of students arrive, clients cover the costs of medication and supplies, but the veterinary team donates their time and labor.
Narrowing the gap – For the Davises each trip yields its own rewards, including the satisfaction of training up a new generation of veterinarians.
“There are those moments when a student really catches on to things or you can show them how to do something they’ve never seen before,” Eric said.
There also is the pure joy of watching the horses in their native, prairie environment.
“And I like their owners,” Eric said. “Some of the reservation residents who live way out on the prairie are really great to work with — very grounded in reality.”
“We just love our clients,” said Cindy, who admits that coming home is, nevertheless, a highlight of each grueling summer trip. “A couple of years ago, we said that we were not going back but then we realized we can’t not go back.”
She and Eric hope that their service in the Dakotas yields benefits for UC Davis and its School of Veterinary Medicine.
“I can’t overemphasize the importance to our work of having access to the vet school’s analytical laboratory and clinical research faculty,” he said. “In return, I hope I bring back to campus an appreciation of the gap between what is known in veterinary medicine and the veterinary care that is provided in these different parts of the world.
“Even in this enormously wealthy country, there are still rural communities that are without veterinary care,” he said. “The challenge to our profession is to make that gap smaller.”
Video: Treating Horses on Native American Reservations
UC Davis veterinary student, Olivia Stonehouse, inspects the teeth of a horse at the McLaughlin Rodeo Grounds in McLaughlin, SD. Photo by Joe Proudman / UC Davis.Eric Davis, a UC Davis veterinarian, and Tarek Isham, a UC Davis veterinary student, perform a quick surgery in Little Eagle, SD. Photo by Joe Proudman / UC Davis.Students unload the bus at the Pow-Wow Grounds in Little Eagle, SD on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Local horse owners from the area met the group there for animal treatment. Photo by Joe Proudman / UC Davis.
Geyserville, Calif., (August 9, 2017) – Mark Vanoni emigrated from Switzerland with his wife Angelina in the mid 1800’s. They settled on the Central Coast and had a dairy below the Hearst Castle. However, a severe drought in 1898 caused the family to lose their dairy.
The Vanonis searched the state for a new ranch, seeking a piece of property with ample water. They purchased their Geyserville ranch in the first couple years of the 1900’s, and the family still has the deed from 1902. The ranch was near the Russian River (although the family recalls that at the time their relatives purchased the property, the river didn’t run year round) and had natural springs throughout the property.
Cattle on the Vanoni Ranch circa 1940 including Shorthorns and Herefords. Photo courtesy of the Vanoni Family.
The family spent 40 years raising dairy cattle on the ranch, shipping butterfat by train. During the same time, the valley floor was planted to grapes and three acres of prunes. The price of grapes was insignificant and the family realized they weren’t making a profit and pulled out all their grapevines to increase their grazing land. Mark’s grandson Ed, the current ranch owner, was still farming when they had grapes. However, his wife Johanna described Ed “as just not a dirt farmer.” Ed recalls that some relatives wanted to sell the ranch, but he purchased 1,500 acres from his grandmother in 1950. He married Johanna two years later who managed the ranch while Ed was away in the Army.
For Ed, the ranch was always a passion. Growing up, he lived in Geyserville, but never missed an opportunity to help out on the ranch. Ed and his father began to rent the property from Ed’s grandmother and they converted the ranch to beef cattle, crossing Shorthorns with the dairy cattle they already had. They switched to Herefords after having a hard time selling Shorthorns and later moved on to Angus, which the family still raises.
“I was always interested in working on the ranch,” said Ed. “Always coming up to visit my grandparents on the dairy, and as soon as I got my driver’s license, I drove up every weekend. I was always fixing fence!”
In addition to raising cattle, Ed and Johanna developed a reputation throughout Sonoma County and beyond for their ability to train cutting horses. The couple worked side by side to train award winning cutters which they used as a supplemental form of ranch income for more than 50 years. Ed recalled seeing his first cutting horse in 1949 at Cow Palace when he was in college. Johanna, who grew up in San Mateo, learned her skills by exercising horses in the Bay Area. Over the course of their training career, Ed and Johanna watched as the cutting horse industry evolved from ranch horses to wealthy owners.
Ed and Johanna Vanoni. Photo by Rachel LaFranchi.
In addition to training horses, they ran approximately 10 Quarter Horse broodmares and raised stallions. Today, Ed and Johanna continue to manage the ranch and run approximately 100 pairs of Angus cattle. They rotate their cattle on large pastures and keep just enough cattle to take care of themselves.
Ed and Johanna have four children Adriane, Mark, Yvonne and Calvin who are all involved in the ranch. The Vanonis expect their children to take over the family property, but said that what the four do with the property is up to them.
Courtesy of Sonoma County Farm Bureau, by Rachel LaFranchi
Modesto, Calif., (July 24, 2017) – The dairy industry has had a rough few decades. Although milk prices have always had a boom or bust cycle, the regulatory cost of production has really created challenges for all dairies in the state. Since 2005 over 650 dairies have shut their doors in California. In more recent years, the milk production numbers showed a year-over-year-over-year decline for 22 consecutive months. The end of 2016 briefly went positive and now we’re in decline again. The lack of certainty in the dairy business has generally been accepted on the pricing side, especially as we have become a much more global industry. But what’s really new as of the last 20 years, is the crazy uncertainty the State environmental regulations have caused to our businesses. Before it’s through, more dairies that are my neighbors will be closing their doors because they’re just tired of working so hard to get so little in return. This will have a massive impact on jobs and ancillary jobs in the Central Valley, potentially to the tune of $200 million in net economic benefit annually.
One thing is certain though, we can’t keep doing things the way we’ve always done in the dairy industry, because it’s not working. When an opportunity came for the dairy industry to get some certainty on the regulatory side, Western United Dairymen and many other ag organizations took it.
With the help of Assemblyman Devon Mathis (AD 26), the passage of AB 398 this week (known as the extension of Cap and Trade) really helped to secure some certainty for the dairy industry. The cap-and-trade program is a plan that provides certainty to our dairy processors, which means there is some cost certainty for our dairies. No other choice was on the table that provided a sense of regulatory and cost certainty.
What would have been the outcome with no Cap-and-Trade extension? The state would implement more rules and impose mandatory reductions to meet the rules with no market mechanisms. So we made a choice, and Devon Mathis helped us make the choice by committing to save jobs and businesses. We protected our member dairy families and their employees.
Our organization and the industry must remain humble and vigilant that this choice doesn’t become an empty promise by the State, and sometimes opportunities show up in strange places. The passage of AB 398 and the extension of a Cap-and-Trade program are the only viable methods to make this possible so that the dairy industry isn’t regulated into the ground.
by Frank Mendonsa, President of Western United Dairymen
The July issue of California Dairy Magazine is now available to read online! Read the latest California Dairy & Feed industry news and technology. Here’s a peek of what’s inside:
Emergency Cow Mortality Disposal Advisory Extreme Heat Takes a Toll On Central Valley Dairies
Lessening the Dairy Gas Leak Utilizing a Methane Inhibitor in Dairy Feed
California’s Dairy Industry in 2016 CDFA Releases Annual Milk Production Report
Be On the Lookout for Sugarcane Aphid this Summer Protect Your Sorghum Feed Crops
Udder Things California Dairy News Briefs
California Milk Prices Continue Increasing Losses to Heat Stress Neutralize Increases in Milk Prices
Sacramento, Calif., (July 18, 2017) – The cattle industry in California has undergone dramatic changes over the last few decades. International competition and opportunities, new regulatory requirements, fluctuating feed costs, changing consumer demand, economies of scale and competing land uses all affect the bottomline in cattle ranching. Ranchers have experienced increasing production costs while revenue has not kept pace with costs.
To help ranchers make business decisions, new cost studies for beef cattle production have been released by UC ANR Agricultural Issues Center and UC Cooperative Extension.
“These studies are useful to new and experienced ranchers, lenders and other agribusiness companies, as well as government officials, researcher and students who want to know basics of ranch practices and the costs and returns that can be expected for a well-managed operation,” said Daniel Sumner, director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center. “The studies show ranges of net returns under alternative price scenarios to help indicate sensitivity of returns to cattle market conditions.”
The analyses are based on a hypothetical well-managed ranching operation using practices common to the northern Sacramento Valley. The three studies are based on a herd of 300 cows and bred heifers, 60 yearling heifers and 15 bulls. An 11 percent cull rate is applied to the herd. An 89 percent calf crop with three percent mortality before weaning is assumed.
All rangeland and pasture is rented per animal unit month. Ranging analysis tables show net revenue over a range of prices. The costs, materials and operations shown in this study will not apply to all ranches. Ranchers, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors, and other agricultural associates provided input and reviewed the methods and findings of the study.
Free copies of these studies and other sample cost of production studies for additional commodities are also available. To download the cost studies, visit the UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics website at https://coststudies.ucdavis.edu.
The cost studies program is funded by the UC Agricultural Issues Center and UC Cooperative Extension, both of which are part of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
For more information or an explanation of the calculations used in the studies, contact Donald Stewart at the Agricultural Issues Center at (530) 752-4651 or destewart@ucdavis.edu; Larry Forero, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor for Shasta and Trinity counties, at lcforero@ucanr.edu, or Jeff Stackhouse, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor for Humboldt and Del Norte counties, at jwstackhouse@ucanr.edu.
Sacramento, Calif., (July 10, 2017) – Due to the excessive heat the Valley has experienced in recent weeks, the dairy industry has been hit with high mortality rates. This has led to a slow-down in Baker Commodities’ mortality pick ups.
As a result of this crisis, producers are going to be allowed to compost mortalities for temporary storage on the dairy or, if willing to meet some extensive conditions, permanently bury the composed material on the dairy.
This option is available because of an existing RB-5 waiver for addressing burial of mortalities in emergency landfills during an animal health emergency. Among the conditions of the waiver is that RB-5 must receive a request from CDFA detailing the need for on-site disposal, a request which is being generated now.
In addition, either the state or the affected counties must declare an emergency. Tulare, Kings, Madera and Kern counties have, or are in the process of, creating emergency declarations and the other major dairy counties are being contacted to follow suit.
CDQAP is generating specific guidance for producers describing how they can implement this option and what their responsibilities are if they do. It appears that producers will have two options:
Producers can temporarily store mortalities on their farm in composting piles for later transport to permitted landfills.
Producers can permanently inter mortalities on farm in an emergency landfill, a process which requires substantial follow-up and paperwork.
Click here to review the CDQAP Emergency Mortality Disposal Advisory.
Petaluma, Calif., (July 6, 2017) – The Gambonini family has been farming in Petaluma for nearly 150 years, passing down their family ranch off Lakeville Highway for the last 104 years. Frank Gambonini runs the ranch alongside his wife Stacey, and the couple has three daughters who are actively involved in the ranch and the dairy industry.
Left to right: Frank, Stacey, Samantha, Francesca and Alex Gambonini. Photo courtesy of the Gambonini family.
Frank’s great great-grandfather, Battista Gambonini, was an Italian-Swiss immigrant who travelled to the U.S. via ship and flatcar. When he arrived in Petaluma, Battista spoke no English and worked for nine years as a ranch hand before leasing his own property in Marin. Battista purchased his first ranch near Bodega Bay in 1908. His neighbor, Paulo Dado, was also a Swiss immigrant and the two met repairing fence lines only to discover that Battista’s son and Dado’s daughter had been born on the same day. Twenty seven years later, their children, Silvio and Evelina married, and together they purchased the family’s current ranch on Lakeville Highway in 1913.
The family churned their milk into butter and sold it heavily salted to merchants in San Francisco. The Gamboninis and Dados also brought their butter to town via horse and wagon every two weeks.
Silvio and Evelina had four children. Their son Earl married Esther Giacomini and they took over the family dairy in 1947. Their son George married Margaret Gervasoni in 1962. George and Margaret took over the family dairy in 1965, and their son Frank became a partner in 1993. Frank and Stacey purchased the dairy business from George and Margaret in 2010.
Frank and Stacey have three daughters: Francesca who recently graduated from Cal Poly and will be attending Penn State in the fall to pursue her master’s degree in Animal Science concentrating on dairy reproductive science; Alex who will be a junior at Cal Poly this fall is studying dairy science and agribusiness; and Samantha who will be attending Petaluma High School this fall as a freshman where she plans to be actively involved in FFA. The dairy was converted to organic in 2007 and the family milks about 270 head. They have approximately 600 cows total, all of which are Holsteins except a few Brown Swiss and Jerseys that are their daughters 4-H and project animals.
Stacey was born and raised in Chicago and said her outsider’s point of view shows her how unusual but incredible their family’s situation is. Stacey remembers one particular morning walking into the kitchen to find her husband and three children (then teenagers) sitting at the kitchen table all reading dairy magazines – she described what she saw as a little surreal, funny and definitely amazing how the dairy life is a part of every minute of every day.
“I don’t know how or why Frank gets up seven days a week and does this, but it’s in his blood and he’s placed that passion in all three of our children.” Stacey said the men in the family have always passed on their passion and love for the dairy cow to the next generation. She said her husband is a great teacher and his father George is the same – both have passed on their love and dedication of the dairy industry to their children.
Alex, who is interning for Western United Dairymen this summer, intends to come back to Sonoma County after graduation and wants to see the ranch continue. She is young and enthusiastic about her family’s business with ideas about diversification and a passion to keep the Gambonini’s dairy in the family.
“Growing up on the ranch, it’s not just a possible career,” said Alex, “it’s a lifestyle.”
