Holly Hughes finds a way …
I have been ¬flirting with veganism for almost a decade. It’s the cheese and butter that trips me up. I don’t want to know how many times I’ve been asked “are you vegan at the moment?” by a supportive friend or family member wondering if they can put Kerrygold in the Sunday mash. Or how many times I’ve replied: “not exactly”.
A study of almost 40,000 farms in 119 countries showed that avoiding meat and dairy is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet. Eighty-three per cent of farmland is used to produce these foods that only provide 18 per cent of our calorie intake and 37 per cent of our protein respectively. Yet these products represent 60 per cent of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. According to the study, even the lowest impact meat and dairy products cause more environmental harm than the least sustainable vegetable and cereal growing. So, is it ever acceptable to have a little bit of dairy? I spoke to Sinéad Moran of Gleann Buí – a micro dairy farm in Aghamore in Co Mayo, producing 100 per cent pasture-fed, organic, raw products – to find out.
“If you’re thinking about your meat and dairy consumption,” Sinéad begins, “you really have to fully engage with what you’re eating.” Sinéad, who has studied sustainable diets with a particular focus on meat and dairy consumption and has a background in climate change campaigning, food and agriculture, proffers a SLOW approach.
“SLOW stands for Seasonal, Local, Organic, and Whole. Seasonal food is nutritionally better for you but seasonal also often means Local – so it’s not only fresher but has lower carbon emissions. Organic is important because organic farmers, who can’t rely on external additives, are really working with their soil, which is the most valuable thing we’ve got. And finally Whole means unprocessed food – that hasn’t been interfered with.”
Gleann Buí – the dairy farm Sinéad runs with her partner, MJ – is based on SLOW principles. “Raw dairy means straight from the cow,” Sinéad explains. “It’s unprocessed and unpasteurised – from teat to table!” This kind of dairy has myriad health benefits, not only for the humans guzzling it but also for the cows producing it.
“In order for us to produce raw milk that’s really good and safe to drink, we need to ensure that our cows are in tiptop shape; that they’re happy, healthy and unstressed. Honestly, they’re like Olympians!” Not only does this pampering create a highly nutritious, delicious product (the phrase “medicinal butter” is mentioned and I have thought of little else since), but it also creates a happy herd who can milk for longer.
“The average lactation period for a dairy cow in Ireland is two to three years,” Sinéad says. “We choose to work with shorthorn cows – an old, traditional breed that are not bred for high-quantity milking. Our oldest cow, Zowie, is currently coming into her sixth lactation, double the national average.” Zowie’s grandmother was still milking in her 15th lactation – Zowie still has some pretty big hooves to fill!
“Raw dairy means straight from the cow. It’s unprocessed and unpasteurised – from teat to table!”
This highlights a crucial point Sinéad and MJ are proving in Aghamore: how you farm is as crucial as what you farm. When setting up Gleann Buí, Sinéad and MJ – both from farming backgrounds – were determined that they didn’t want to farm conventionally. In fact, when MJ bought their first heifers, it was to help rejuvenate the land, not to farm a product.
“MJ wanted to graze the land, not from a productive point of view, but because that’s what the land needed to come alive – to come back to how he’d remembered it as a kid. He was right. We’d never had wildflowers before and then suddenly, the year we grazed it, we got this beautiful wildflower meadow. That’s all the land needed – that kickstart of animal impact.”
Sinéad began to research agroecology – a sustainable farming principle that works with nature – and high nature value farming, a low-intensity farming method that prioritises biodiversity conservation. High nature value farming recognises that biodiversity depends on traditional farming systems because, having grown accustomed to farming practices that evolved in specific regions, many endangered habitats and species are now dependent on them for survival.
This is true of Gleann Buí, a semi-natural habitat in which the land’s biodiversity had been naturally preserved. “What I realised,” Sinead explains, “was that to actually maintain the rich biodiversity we had on our land, we had to farm it. Grasslands thrive when they’re grazed, not over-grazed: we were trying to strike this balance.”
Turns out, managing a schedule that ensured their cows grazed extensively but not intensively was a full-time job. The idea for a business took root. “One of us always needed to be here so we had to find a way to pay us for the intensity of this kind of farming. That’s how the idea for producing raw dairy started.”
Sinead and MJ began selling organic raw milk, cream, butter, and yoghurt direct from the farm to create a circular system that would furnish them with enough income to be on the land full time. Only selling during the milking season was always of primary importance to the farm’s mission. “From March to November, our cows graze and we milk them. If they’re not grazing, we’re not milking.” This time off is intrinsic to Gleann Buí’s sustainable ethos.
“For us, producing food seasonally is the most sustainable option, not only from an environmental perspective but also from a human standpoint. Firstly, lactation is hard on the body and requires a lot of energy. If we were to milk our cows throughout the winter, we wouldn’t just be pushing their bodies to their limits, we also would have to source extra fodder externally (soya is often imported for this) to meet the cows’ energy needs. This isn’t sustainable – we’re trying to keep everything circular and within the limits of our farm. Secondly, the off-season is important for us, too – we need that downtime just as much as the cows do!”
Buying Gleann Buí raw milk and cream in their distinctive glass bottles (which, luckily for non-Mayo residents, are now available in a select range of small, independent businesses – details on www.gleannbui.ie) is actually about buying into an ethos and way of life. “What we’re trying to do is sell beyond the dairy itself – the raw product – and have people buy into what we’re doing here.” Customers can join Sinéad and MJ on the farm for farm walks during the milking period. “Prospective stockists can come meet us, the cows, and the calves,” Sinéad says. “We want to give people the opportunity to come and see what we do for themselves.” I don’t think I need the farm walk. Medicinal butter or not, I’m sold.
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