Natural approach

OTHELLO, Wash. – Richard Smith grew up on a large Florida dairy, studied animal science in Scotland, managed farms in the Middle East and later built and ran a 30,000-cow dairy in Oregon.

Then, despite the recession, he abandoned industrial agriculture in favor of a more retro approach. Smith and his wife, Jill, rented a small dairy near Walla Walla, bought seven cows and began selling raw milk under the brand Pure Éire (pronounced AIR-uh) – a nod to Smith’s Irish heritage.

The response was overwhelming.

“We were the only item in the dairy section seeing double- and triple-digit growth,” he said. “We went to Seattle when everybody else was losing shelf space, and they begged us to produce more.”

Pure Éire Dairy relocated about 95 miles southwest of Spokane near Othello, where Jill Smith grew up. Today they milk almost 200 cows, and have a total of 400 head, including young stock, dry cows and bulls.

Pure Éire Dairy products are sold in Western Washington, the Tri-Cities, Walla Walla, Colville and Spokane. Local merchants include Huckleberry’s, Main Market Co-op, Yoke’s and Lorien Herbs.

During a recent interview, Smith discussed what distinguishes his cows’ milk from the competition.

S-R: You grew up in Gainesville, yet you sound Irish.

Smith: Both my parents were from Ireland.

S-R: What’s your earliest memory of farming?

Smith: Helping my dad hand-milk a fresh cow when I was 5.

S-R: You hand-milked cows?

Smith: Thirty-five years ago they didn’t have the infrastructure we have today, so the calf would be removed from its mother, but the fresh cow would be hand-milked and the calf would be bottle-fed. On our dairy, we keep the mother and calf together for a day or two so they bond.

S-R: What was your favorite class in high school?

Smith: Probably science. I graduated early and went on to Glasgow University in Scotland. It’s renowned for its animal science, and my parents preferred that educational system.

S-R: What career did you envision?

Smith: I wanted to get into farm management. After college I worked on extremely large dairies in Saudi Arabia. Then I built a dairy in Boardman for a regional cooperative, and ran that for a number of years.

S-R: What changed the direction of your life?

Smith: My pivot point was about 15 years ago, when I realized that if the public knew where their food really came from, this thing would implode. Oprah had just done a story on the beef industry (in 1996), and I thought the same thing was going to happen to the dairy industry. We’d become large industrial sites where we sat in front of computers and every cow was just a number. When I gave tours, people were surprised by how big we’d gotten.

S-R: Then what?

Smith: Jill and I started an organic dairy, shipping to a national processor for seven years until it started going exactly the same direction – organic dairies becoming just like conventional ones, seeing who could do it the cheapest. Consumers thought these were mom-and-pop dairies milking 50 cows, and we had 1,000.

S-R: What was the alternative?

Smith: We decided to direct-market to consumers because we figured people would pay more if they could pick up the phone and actually call the farmer, instead of calling some number on the carton and getting some corporate office.

S-R: How did banks react?

Smith: Banks want stability, and we don’t give them that, because we rely on retail stores to pay us, as opposed to processing plants or co-ops. And banks typically deal with dairies milking 1,000 to 10,000 cows, not 100 cows. So they were skeptical.

S-R: You started Pure Éire with seven cows and now you milk nearly 200. What will prevent you from growing to industrial scale?

Smith: We’re an all-grass dairy, so we can only milk as many cows as we can grow grass for. That’s what makes us unique. Really we’re grass farmers, and cows eat the grass and produce milk.

S-R: Why aren’t others doing what you do?

Smith: Nobody wants to tie up all their ground for grazing because they can grow corn and alfalfa and get higher yields. The public has to demand this type of milk if it’s to become mainstream.

S-R: You said cows are just numbers at conventional dairies. Do all 200 of your cows have names?

Smith: The majority do. And if you could call out a number from 1 to 200, I can go find that cow without looking at her ear tag, because I know what each cow looks like and I know their personalities.

S-R: Why do you only raise Jersey cows?

Smith: When we put the herd together, we wanted cows that were fit to graze. Holstein cows struggle to graze because they’re bigger and more productive. The other reason is that all our cows are DNA tested to be A1 (gene) free. There’s a correlation between Type 2 diabetes and heart disease and milk from cows that are A1, and Holsteins are huge carriers of A1.

S-R: Your website notes that your cows are antibiotic and hormone free. Why is that important?

Smith: We’re organic, so we don’t use any hormones. And because this is a very low-stress environment for the cows, we don’t see much illness. At commercial dairies, the cows are confined indoors on concrete floors – they’re never outside, breathing fresh air. So their feet don’t hold up, they’re more susceptible to pneumonia, and they don’t last anywhere near as long as our cows.

S-R: What if one of your cows gets sick?

Smith: If she needs antibiotics, we’ll use them – we won’t let the animal suffer. But she will never come back to this herd. That cow will be sold to a conventional dairy.

S-R: What’s your typical workday?

Smith: Usually from 6 a.m. to whenever things slow down, which can be anywhere from 4 to 6 p.m.

S-R: Seven days a week?

Smith: No, my family and I don’t work Sunday. We have a skeleton crew on the weekend.

S-R: So can you take vacations?

Smith: I haven’t had one since I’ve been self-employed.

S-R: How old are your kids?

Smith: Nine and 7.

S-R: Do they like this lifestyle?

Smith: Yes, and that was part of the reason for doing this. If I’d stayed with large-scale dairying, our kids wouldn’t get to do what I did growing up – being on a farm working with animals, feeding the babies.

S-R: What do you like most about your job?

Smith: Meeting customers who are excited about our products. They really make us feel like we’re doing the right thing.

S-R: Do they actually come out here?

Smith: All the time. We see anywhere from 500 to 1,000 people a year.

S-R: What do you like least?

Smith: Wintertime, when the weather is cold.

S-R: What are you most proud of?

Smith: That we’ve succeeded taking a path nobody else has taken. Pure Éire is different from every other milk on the shelf.

S-R: Is there anything you wish you’d done differently?

Smith: All our growth is from cash flow. In hindsight, it would have been nice if a bank had allowed us to build everything right the first time. Sometimes it takes two or three times to get something where we want it to be.

S-R: When you do tastings in stores, what’s the typical reaction?

Smith: Older people tell us this is the sort of milk they grew up with. Most consumers don’t realize how much most milk today is adulterated before it gets to the dairy shelf.

S- R: What else?

Smith: People tell us they’re lactose intolerant – that they can’t drink milk. And my response is, “You’re probably not lactose intolerant. You’re intolerant to the way the milk you’ve been drinking is created. It’s homogenized, it’s standardized, and we don’t do any of that.” People who give our products a chance usually do just fine with it.

S-R: What reaction do you get from other dairy farmers?

Smith: They laugh at our size because we’re so small. But their sales have been declining the past 20 years. We try to give consumers what they want by being non-GMO verified, animal-welfare approved – not pretending the cows are grass-fed when they’re never out on the grass.

S-R: What’s the business outlook for this approach?

Smith: It’s good as long as consumers are willing to pay a premium for our products. If they don’t see the difference between our milk and what else is on the shelf, then we may as well own 5,000 cows and do it the same as everyone else.

S-R: How much would it cost to start a dairy like yours?

Smith: Millions of dollars. Our processing plant alone is easily $1 million, a milking parlor is another $200,000, and each cow is $3,000.

S-R: It seems like a hard way to make a living.

Smith: Absolutely. That’s what’s led to large-scale farming – kids saying, “I don’t want to work this hard.” You have to love what you do, or you don’t do it.

This interview was edited and condensed.