Travis and Allison Cardoza

Tehama County, California

Twenty-seven year-old Travis Cardoza will tell you right off the bat, "My main focus is grazing as much as I can." And it's a good thing. They're in an excellent area for grass-based dairying. From their 50 leased acres in North Sacramento Valley, they see Mt. Shasta. "We're the most northern dairy in the state other than the Humboldt Dairy." The area boasts a Mediterranean climate, which means they get a decent amount of rainfall over the year and extreme heat in the summer. "A lot of the U.S. is difficult for grazing because of weather, but I think we're privileged here in California to have good grazing conditions," Travis says.

These days when folks talk about "living the dream" they're referring to something entirely different from what Travis had in mind. "I always dreamed of dairying the old way, but the organic dairy scene in California was pretty limited." He started out at 16 with his Dad on a conventional dairy in the Central Valley, where the maxim is to get big, bigger, and preferably biggest. They started out with 40 cows which turned into a herd of 650 animals. "We were using rBST [a synthetic growth hormone injected into cows to make them produce more milk that is banned in organic agriculture], milking three times a day, and housing the cows on concrete in a free-stall barn. We had trouble breeding back because the cows were so burned out, and there was a lot of sickness. It was a mess." But Travis kept dreaming.

"My dad is actually the one who got me into it. He couldn't help me out financially. He said the only way I could get in the dairy business on my own was to get into organic. It's the only way you can start out small and make a living. Plus I always wanted to graze, so I thought, shoot, this is the best of both worlds. You can make a living and dairy the way it should be. The cows should be on grass. It's their natural habitat."

By that time, Travis had married Allison and they had two sons. "We wanted a better way to raise our boys than being stuck in town playing video games. We'd been working on developing this plan for a few years, but I never thought I could get a loan to get started. Dad encouraged me and they approved the loan." Things fell into place in an amazing way. They found the 50 acre operation they lease now that was in turnkey condition. The house, milking barn, and grazing paddocks were already set up, the pastures brimming with perennial rye grass, Dallas grass, brome and orchard grass, and ladino clover that had never been sprayed. All of this compliments of his neighbor, who owns the place and who has been grazing his own dairy cows across the road for nearly 30 years. "My neighbor has been incredibly generous with his experience," Travis says. "He has taught me so much about grazing."