Organic Valley/Travis Forgues/For tomorrow's radio show

Another great segment on organic farming tomorrow on Renewable Now.biz and WARL, WRNP, 1320.  Below is information on our guest, who is their Vice President of Farmer Affairs, and his well known food producer, Organic Valley.  We look forward to having you part of our global audience.

BIO:  Travis, his wife and children Emma, Gabriel and Molly farm in partnership with Travis' parents on a Vermont farm next to Lake Champlain, the "6th Great Lake". With degrees in Computer Science and Psychology, Travis could have taken an entirely different path, but he was drawn back to his family roots by exciting new developments in farming. Travis became especially interested in grass-based and Organic opportunities.

After 15 years of farming conventionally, in 1991 Forgues' began to graze their cows once they converted to grazing it was easy to consider Organic dairy farming. The farm became certified-organic and the Forgues' joined Organic Valley in 1999. In the past the Forgues' could barely eek out an existence for one family, but today that same farm-240 acres with 80 milking cows-can support two families with ease.




Travis knows that he'll be able to sustain his family and pass down the farm to his children when the time comes one day. His faith that Organic agriculture protects the earth with such love that only good things can come to the farmer, the animals and the consumer as a result. Organic is  not just a way to farm to Travis anymore It has become a way of life-of sustainable life. The Forgues' are one of over 700 family Farmers in the Organic Valley cooperative

COMPANY:  Our friends and neighbors around the Coulee region were discarded by a bankrupt agricultural system, and we were told to “get big, or get out!” Industrial, chemical farming was the only existing option for survival. Never mind its effects on our health, our animals, and our environment.

But we didn’t want to be industrial, chemical farmers. And we didn’t want to be at the mercy of corporate agriculture. We knew we had to do something. So one farmer, George Siemon, put up posters calling us to band together. And we did. Family farmers filled the county courthouse and we all agreed: There had to be a better way—a more sustainable way—to continue farming like we always had. In a way that protects the land, animals, economy and people’s health. And that’s how our farmer-owned cooperative was born, with George as CEIEIO.