Good to Goat
August is "National Goat Cheese Month" (like you didn't know). There are about 335,000 milk goats in the US; some in every state. (Wisconsin leads the pack with about 40,000 head.) Impressive numbers for an industry that was almost nonexistent before 1979, when Laura Chenel became America's first commercial producer of goat cheese. (courtesy of Gourmet Magazine)
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Looking more closely, there were 291,000 dairy goats in the U.S. in 2002, 335,000 in 2007, in 2008, and 385,000 in 2009. However, I found California as the lead in milk goat inventory with 39,000 in 2007. (source: USDA-NASS as of July 1st; 2002 & 2007 data are as of December 31st of the year, specifically from the 5-year Census of Agriculture, USDA-NASS). I'm not sure why Gourmet's figures agree in part with USDA-NASS but not in whole.
Cory (Rachel's brother) has started a job working on a goat dairy in Tomales Bay, Marin County, CA. He is doing this in addition to working for the produce farm in Dixon, at least for the time being.
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