Less than an hour from San Francisco, dairy cattle graze peacefully in grassy pastures. Marin County used to have hundreds of small dairy farms. Today, only a handful remain. Suburbanization, coupled with rising costs, pushed out most of the ranchers. Those that remain operate on thin margins.
2008 has turned out to be an exceptionally dry year. Drought conditions mean dry pastures. Dry pastures mean hungry cows. Since the pastures aren't producing enough grass to support the herds, ranchers are resorting to supplementary feed, buying expensive hay to keep their cattle going.
Drought conditions have had a heavy impact on Marin County's ranchers, and some fear that this year's drought may do them in. Listen to one rancher's story on KQED.org.
Read a Marin Independent-Journal story on the ranchers' conditions.
Learn a bit about the history of dairy ranching in Marin County -- read the National Park Service's fact sheet on Portuguese Dairy Farms in the Marin Headlands.
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