Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Eight years ago, Dennis and Alicia Stoltzfoos started their farm with one cow and her
6-month-old calf. Back then, they were not sure anyone would be interested in their products
— and Dennis Stoltzfoos was not thrilled that milking was an everyday chore. Today, Full
Circle Farms is a beef, dairy, poultry, and pork operation that grosses $200,000 per year.
The business succeeds for the same reason Dennis Stoltzfoos was willing to do the work —
customers could not find more nutritious products anywhere else.
Dennis Stoltzfoos, the youngest of 11 children, was raised Amish/Mennonite on his father's
conventional farm. He flirted with various jobs and spent 15 years in the alternative health
field. In his early 20s, he was constantly bothered with various aches and pains, low energy,
and allergies, and grew frustrated after a battery of tests revealed nothing wrong. His doctor
told him his problems were in his head. So he started doing his own research and became a
disciple of Weston A. Price, whose 1939 book
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
demon-
strated the benefits of animal fats and other natural foods versus processed modern diets.
“Your body makes 300 million new cells every minute,” Stoltzfoos said. “You determine if
those cells are healthy, medium, or weak by what you put in your mouth. Our goal is to make
the most nutrient-dense products possible. We were not sure in the beginning if people
would pay for food produced like this. The most surprising thing is that people cannot get
enough. You cannot make it fast enough.”
When Stoltzfoos recommitted to the year-round job of farming, he committed to the idea of
sparing no expense to have the healthiest grasses for the healthiest cattle, and the healthi-
est products you can get. Their milk is in such demand that they charge $13 for a gallon of
raw, unpasteurized milk. The prices other farmers charge varies, but $10 or less is common.
They have about 100 head of cattle, including 30 Jersey milk cows. The family owns about
60 acres and leases a couple hundred more. Stoltzfoos uses creativity in his management
decisions, borrowing principles from Joel Salatin, the famed Virginia farmer who preaches
the benefits of using every animal as a tool for the good of the whole. For example, the
farm's chickens move into paddocks when cattle move out so the chickens can scratch for
fly larvae in the manure, aiding in soil fertility.
Stoltzfoos built his own milking stall for $100 with some 2-by-4 and 4-by-4 wooden boards.
In the winter, he entices the cows in with alfalfa pellets or molasses in a trough; in summer,
he removes the trough. He never feeds his cattle grain. He uses a milking unit from an
Amish company called E-Z Milking Equipment. It is a vacuum pump with two buckets and
two milkers. He empties the bucket through a strainer into a 5-gallon container with a tap,
and his 8-year-old daughter uses the tap to fill 1-gallon jugs for customers. They spend
about one hour per day milking.
