A2 Milk: a Product That May Take Off

(Stephen Lam/Chronicle photo)

"A2/A2" may sound like the latest Star Wars character, but in real life it just may represent the future of dairy:

Alexandre Family Farm is one of the country’s only producers of A2/A2 milk, which is touted as a superior, easier-to-digest dairy. Many lactose-intolerant people say they can drink it without any discomfort. Chefs from Michelin-star restaurants are clamoring for the unusually luscious, delicious milk...

A2 milk’s growing fanbase — which includes a growing number of top Bay Area chefs — believes it’s the future of dairy. The global A2 milk market size was valued at $2.24 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow particularly fast in the United States in the coming years, according to Fortune Business Insights. The rise of A2 milk comes as the broader dairy industry is in crisis, facing declining sales amid the explosion of plant-based milks. A2’s proponents hope it will stage a comeback for dairy.

“It’s not going to happen overnight but in 20, 30 years I think all milk will be A2, or pretty close,” said Stephanie Alexandre, co-owner of Alexandre Family Farm, whose creamery is in San Leandro. “It’s changing the industry.”

...A2 milk’s road to mainstream consumption is not without challenges. It’s significantly more expensive than conventional milk. At $7.99, a gallon of Alexandre A2 milk costs twice as much as the average in the U.S. Alec’s Ice Cream pints aren’t cheap — around $9, though it depends on the store. For farmers, it’s costly to breed and maintain a fully A2 herd of cows, who must be milked and kept separate from other cows, Alexandre said, especially without the processing resources of a large, commercial dairy business.

Speaking as one who avoids dairy products because of lactose intolerance, I don't mind paying a higher price for A2 milk if it means I can occasionally partake of cheese and ice cream; it will represent a small increase to the food budget, equivalent to visiting Starbucks a couple times a week. While A2 may remain a niche product, I'm betting it will take off.

Infrastructure Spending: Hoping for a Different Result

From July 22nd: Lake Oroville reservoir

Government spending programs are signed to much fanfare, yet always seem to fall short of their goals (or eventually succeed at multiples of the original cost estimates). Your humble blogger nevertheless hopes that the infrastructure bill will produce some progress at improving California's water storage capacity. [bold added]

In California, where a historic drought has depleted reservoirs, state Sen. Melissa Hurtado said infrastructure money is needed to help fund new places to store snowmelt from the local mountains and to repair canals, levees and other methods of conveyance, which are crumbling or in other disrepair. Ms. Hurtado’s Central Valley district has been hit hard with water cutoffs to its big farming sector, and she said some small towns there face possible loss of drinking water due to the shortfall.

“If we don’t act now, it is going to be just catastrophic for mankind,” said Ms. Hurtado, a Democrat.

Maybe there's hope after all: a Democrat used the traditional "mankind" instead of "humankind", and she did not refer to "catastrophic" climate change but water shortages that everyone, global warmists or not, can do something about.

The Butterflies Return

Santa Cruz Monarch butterfly (Chron photo)

In an unexpected development global warming, the bête noire of environmentalists everywhere, may be responsible for the resurgence of the monarch butterflies in Monterey County:

conservationists estimate the current population that has arrived in its annual wintertime migration to the California coast to be around 10,000 compared with 1,900 last year.

One possible reason for the rebound: this year’s drought, since warm and dry conditions in early spring can help with their migration...

Though the reason for the rebound isn’t known, [biologist Emma] Pelton said scientists such as Arthur Shapiro at UC Davis have found correlations between drought years and a boost in butterfly populations, at least for butterflies at lower elevations like monarchs.

(Photo from Siberia Times)

Opinion is overwhelming that global warming is normatively bad, but impartial analysis makes it clear that there are significant beneficiaries, specifically Russia and Canada, if temperatures keep rising: [bold added]

Let’s state the long-term truth no diplomat would: The world’s two largest countries are also among the two biggest winners from climate change.

They are already among the top energy and food producers in the world, and with warming temperatures they can more easily access even more energy and produce quantum leaps more food. Oil may be getting cheaper, but agrobusiness is a surging asset class. According to New Scientist magazine, a 4 degree Celsius rise in global averages temperatures would decrease agriculture yields in today’s other leading states such as the U.S., Brazil,China, India and Australia. Meanwhile, Canada and Russia’s ramped up industrial farming industries could be the breadbaskets for the planet. They are the hydro and food superpowers of a dry and thirsty planet.

The land area of the contiguous 48 states is approximately three (3) million square miles, while Siberia's is 5.1 million. If only a fraction of the latter becomes arable due to global warming, it will more than offset farmland losses in the rest of the world, and we're not even taking into account the gains from Canada.

And if the above seems too left-brain for you, dear reader, isn't it great that the butterflies are coming back?

Hornets Weren't Part of the Model

Murder hornets in Washington (Chron photo)

Global warming may not be all bad. If it is indeed responsible for California's hot, dry weather, then it keeps away the murder hornets:

The insect, whose actual name is the Asian giant hornet, inflicts painful stings and can spit venom but typically doesn’t attack people and pets unless threatened. It earned its “murder” moniker because it is highly lethal to honeybees and can annihilate entire hives in hours...

“It is exceedingly unlikely that these hornets can establish in California,” [UCD entomologist] Lynn Kimsey said. “If you look at where they're found in their native range in southern Asia, this region has summer rain. I think California is too dry, except perhaps along the far northern coast.”

A recent study by Washington State University researchers also concluded that while murder hornets could spread down the West Coast through Oregon within a few decades, they likely would not settle in California. The study found that “much of the interior of the U.S. is inhospitable to the hornet due to extremes of heat, cold and low rainfall,” including California’s Central Valley, according to a university news release.

By killing our honeybees murder hornets would threaten

California’s agriculture industry, which state data shows is the largest in the U.S., accounting for over 13% of the nation’s total agricultural value. According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the Golden State produces two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts — crops that rely on pollination by honeybees.

To support State agriculture California should spend its scarce dollars on building more dams and water infrastructure while letting markets dictate the speed of the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. We should accept high temperatures because it keeps the honeybees safe.

This path, however, would need much less regulation, and where's the fun in that?

Roundup: Common Sense Has Left the Building

$39.95 at the Iwilei Home Depot

Hawaii's fecundity is integral to its appeal but is an extra burden to property owners.

The weeds had found the cracks in the asphalt around my parents' home and had grown noticeably. Because family volunteers perform maintenance irregularly, I went to Home Depot for Roundup, which kills weeds to the root. It took about 30 minutes to spray the front half of the home.

Roundup is effective in killing plants where they don't belong. Lately it has been in the news because of jury awards to users who have contracted non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

California wants to regulate Roundup, but the Trump Administration has "ordered companies to ignore state requirements that businesses warn customers". Of course the discussion has turned political, exacerbated by the billions of dollars at stake (google non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and at the top of the list is an ad for potential Roundup plaintiffs).

Below is a representative quote from an environmental advocate (bold added):

“The Trump EPA’s disgusting campaign to hide glyphosate’s well-documented links to cancer from American consumers is hideous,” said Brett Hartl, the director of government affairs for the Center for Biological Diversity. “This is just the latest example of the Trump administration’s disturbing push to ignore peer-reviewed independent research by leading scientists in favor of whatever pesticide companies claim their own confidential research reveals.”

Whether or not there is a warning label, users of Roundup--or any other powerful substance--would have to be naive not to take precautions such as wearing protective clothing, eyewear, or gloves. On the other hand the vast majority of home gardeners can take comfort because people who work with the chemical in agriculture or professional gardening seem to be the only ones at risk.

Common sense tells you that one cigarette a week won't kill you but two packs a day might. The same is true for Roundup; if you use it once every two months or so you'll be fine. It's neither 100% safe or 100% dangerous, but common sense has left the building.

Here No More

Local insects.

Many airports greet travelers with pictures of tourist attractions and exhibits on local history.

This year the San Francisco Airport, International Terminal, provides information about insects, with a section devoted to those found in the Bay Area.

Some scientists are saying we are in the midst of an insect apocalypse. It's hard to imagine that we'll miss them, but like the Native American tribes and the orchards of Santa Clara, we might have some regrets after the insects are gone.

Agriculture: Everything Old is New Again

(Chronicle photo)

Two words - Heirloom chicken:

Based on an 800-acre Arkansas farm, Cooks Venture will begin selling its heirloom-breed, pasture-raised chickens in California on Wednesday at Golden Gate Meats in the Ferry Building. The cost is $3.98 per pound,

The feature that makes this chicken special is that it is raised according to the practices of "regenerative agriculture":

The basic idea behind regenerative agriculture is this: the more organic matter in soil, the more carbon it can sequester. Another added benefit is increased water retention, so that less irrigation is needed.

From 2015: an acquaintance raises
chickens in Hawaii.  She's ahead of
her time.

The premise: just go back to the way things were before industrial agriculture and chemical fertilizers were introduced, and we can save the planet from anthropogenic global warming.

Who knows, if latter-day puritans are successful in getting their blue green laws enforced by State power, maybe Thomas Malthus' 200-year-old warnings about over-population and widespread starvation will come true. Time to dust off your copy of "An Essay on the Principle of Population."

It Can't Be Racism Because No Whites Are Involved

Taylor Farms plant in Salinas (Chronicle photo)

I've been buying Taylor Farms organic produce at Costco for the past year and was disappointed to see this Chronicle headline: 16 former employees sue Taylor Farms for racial discrimination.

However, there's still a chance that Taylor Farms won't be pulled from Costco shelves because the story doesn't fit the mainstream narrative of white discrimination against non-whites. In other words, there's a good chance the story will be buried: [bold added]

African American workers faced rampant racist and discriminatory behavior at the farm’s manufacturing plant in Tracy.

The 16 employees named in the lawsuit, all of whom are African American, described incidents in which co-workers called them “n—,” “monkey” or Spanish-language racial epithets like “congo” and “mayate.” The plaintiffs also claim they were denied promotions because of their skin color and were often forced to work in unfavorable conditions...

According to the lawsuit, 80 African American employees worked at the facility in 2015. By 2017, there were fewer than 20...

Many of the plaintiffs listed in the lawsuit worked for Taylor Farms between 2014 and 2017. Most of the events are described in the lawsuit as interactions between African American employees and Latino employees and supervisors.

I think we should cut the Latino name-callers some slack. In California we don't believe in brainwashing immigrant populations with Anglo values.

Coming and Going

The Department of Agriculture has strict rules against importing animals (e.g., hamsters, lion fish, snakes) to Hawaii. And it's not just exotics: household pets, i.e. dogs and cats, that don't meet with the requirements of a 4-page rabies checklist may be quarantined for up to 120 days.

There are equally burdensome regulations against outbound plants and plant materials. Hawaii has insects and diseases that can cause extensive damage to Mainland crops.

Government agencies have come in for a lot of criticism for various security failures, but the USDA appears to have done a good job screening traffic in both directions for the half a century that your humble blogger has been flying.

Not for Everyone

The fact that the ad for a barn door showed up in my inbox indicates that Home Depot still needs to do some work on its targeted marketing effort (I'll wager that there's not one barn door in my entire zip code).

Nevertheless, thousands of customers are interested, else why would Home Depot feature this item?

Which makes me appreciate again what a great, big, diverse, wonderful country this is.

A Slice of Heaven

Black gold from Santa Rosa, CA (Chron photo)

It took over 100 years for Napa and Sonoma wineries to be declared the equal of their venerable French counterparts at the "Judgment of Paris" in 1976, but North Bay orchards--some using vineyard lands--are on a much faster track to competing with another renowned French export: [bold added]

Several weeks ago...was the first successful harvest among several orchards betting on Wine Country as the world’s next great truffle-growing region.[snip]

High-quality imported fresh black truffles typically cost $800 per pound and are at their prime up to four or five days after harvest, about the time it takes to fly them from Europe or Australia

Growing truffles, like making wine, is a multi-year endeavor.

Preparing the site for your truffière requires the most labor. Remove all trees, stumps and root systems from previous growth, then test your soil. Since truffles require a soil pH of 8 to 8.3, United States growers must apply agricultural lime before planting.

Once your soil is prepared, consider irrigation. Maturing [oak and filbert] trees require about an inch of water a week. When growing truffles, you do not plant one or two trees; you plant one or two acres of trees. If watering the trees proves too labor-intensive, you will likely abandon your orchard and your investment.

For a few seconds I entertained the idea of becoming a gentleman truffle farmer, but tending to two acres of trees is too steep a price, especially without seeing any results for the better part of a decade.

Here's hoping that California truffles will be on sale at Whole Foods or Costco in the not-too-distant future. If they're under $100 a pound, I'll cut me a slice or two.