Yogurt - From the Ground Up

There’s yogurt and then there’s yogurt with benefits. Pure, full-fat yogurt made with milk from nutritionally balanced, grass-fed cows raised on a certified organic farm is at the top of the yogurt pyramid. Added benefits accrue when that same yogurt also offers a boost of probiotic bacteria, which is good for the gut and good for your health, says Josh Biemond, one of the partners in the family farm business at Upper Canada Creamery. “We believe that fermented products are beneficial to our health because they contain bacterial cultures that work with our own natural gut flora.”

Biemond, with his wife Ellen, brother Rudi and his sister-in-law Jennifer, owns and works 400 acres of farmland an hour south of Ottawa, close to the U.S. border at Prescott. Their approach is at once modern and very traditional. They’ve embraced technology, but have returned to farming practices prevalent before the days of industrial agriculture. This means that they have a modern, automated milking machine imported from Australia on the one hand, while on the other, they use no pesticides and predominantly feed their cows a forage-based diet, the majority of which is grass with a top up of farm-grown oats through the leaner months, and kelp brought in from Nova Scotia.

Pieter Biemond Sr. and his wife Maria arrived from Holland and bought the land in 1981. They began to farm intensively. He brought equipment with him from Holland — the best spraying machinery around — and consequently, he spent months and months crop spraying his own land and that of others’ throughout the summer. After another long season on the sprayer, Pieter decided he’d had enough of expensive chemicals and gave it all up. In 1989, the farm gained organic certification. Since that time, the Biemonds have become soil and nutrition experts, with a long-term view to produce the best-tasting, healthiest milk and yogurt possible.

The 48 milking cows at Upper Canada Creamery, which produce approximately 1,000 litres of milk daily — some of which is sold to the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, the remainder kept for making yogurt — enjoy a nutritionally balanced diet, high in protein, plant-based sugars and fibre.

Josh, who is responsible for the land, believes strongly that soil chemistry and soil health is the first step to healthy cows and high-quality milk. “We use the tools that technology provides to make it simpler to be a smart farmer,” he says. “There’s no denying that new technologies allow you to become a better farmer.”

They spend much time and effort making sure that the soil is balanced, so that it produces plenty of high-quality grass, filled with omega 3s, 6s, fatty acids and the minerals, protein and sugars that the cows need. To this end, Josh aims to cut his hay at just the right moment, just before it flowers and seeds, when the digestible, balanced nutrients it offers are at their highest. This is then stored for the winter months, when the cows are out of the fields and in the barn.

Between May and November, the cows graze in the fresh pasture daily, moved along by a series of rolling electric fences, which allows each section to regenerate without being over-grazed. But when the pastures do need support, Josh chooses fish emulsion from the east coast, which is high in minerals and soft rock phosphate from B.C. to boost calcium levels. The herd is a mixed bag of breeds, that includes Swedish Red, Jersey, New Zealand and Dutch Amerii, “because each breed specializes in different component in the milk,” explains Ellen. “Also, we look at physical attributes. Can these cows walk a long way? They are encouraged to walk and forage as they used to do, before the days of factory farming and high-intensity milk production.”

Of course, the Biemond’s look for robust cows with all-around good health, but it’s not a primary concern. “Our veterinary bill is minimal because we’re proactive on the health issue and our cows have the tools to fix themselves,” explains Josh.