Patty Loew:
We begin down on the farm where some are bucking trends to weather hard economic times. Part of the strategy is a more ecofriendly approach to agriculture. The Crave Brothers Dairy is pioneering a new way of farming as “In Wisconsin” reporter Art Hackett discovered near Waterloo.

Art Hackett:
When the four Crave brothers began a major expansion about seven years ago, the goal was building a better dairy farm.

Charles Crave:
We thought this is an opportune time in our career to take the equity we have had and capitalize on that equity and develop a farmstead that's better than anything we have had in the past.

Art Hackett:
In doing so the Crave brothers also embraced a concept known as “value-added agriculture.”

Art Hackett:
They make money by milking cows like any other dairy farm. But what's different is they try to make money off of virtually everything else that comes out of the cow.

Art Hackett:
Most dairy farms shift raw milk to a processor. Not so here.

Charles Crave:
We take our milk stored in this milk silo out of this spigot and directly hook it to a pump. We pump that milk directly underground to the cheese factory 100 yards away.

Art Hackett:
The Crave brothers produce specialty European-style cheese like soft mozzarella.

Charles Crave:
Half or more of our milk is used in the cheese production. Big seasonal cheese, during fresh mozzarella season, more of our milk is used.

Art Hackett:
That's Charles’ brother George scooping curds out of the vat. The farm gains the added value of a finished product rather than selling milk as a bulk commodity.

Bob Cropp:
We are seeing increased interest in the farm process. Even some small farmers. But that is the largest cheese operation there.

Art Hackett:
UW-Extension ag economist Bob Cropp says the cheese plant appears to be doing quite well. Varieties the Craves produce compete with imports that are at a disadvantage because of the weak dollar. But the cheese plant isn't the final stop for some of the milk. Another pipeline returns whey from the cheese plant to the farm. It's mixed into feed for the cows. The nutritional value and the profits stay on the farm and in the family.

Charles Crave:
If you make an investment, eight, nine, ten years ago you would like to see it pay off and fortunately for us the cheese factory has helped us through this last year.

Art Hackett:
Crave says another investment is paying off but in an indirect way. Each of the 1,000 cows produces 115 pounds of manure a day. The farm partnered with an independent electricity producer to build a digester to generate power from the methane bubbling from the composting manure.

Bob Cropp:
They generate enough electricity for their farm and the cheese plant. Plus they sell some.

Art Hackett:
Crave doesn't see himself as being in the electric business since he still has to pay a utility bill. The value to the farm comes from the byproduct left over after the methane has been drawn off. The dried compost is used for bedding for the cows.

Charles Crave:
Trying to keep down the amount of bedding we would need to bring onto the farmstead. It's a good holistic, natural approach and it’s very warm in the winter. Today if you were laying on sand for bedding it wouldn't be so cozy. If the cows are laying in here they are nice and comfy.

Art Hackett:
There is more. The liquid waste from the digester is a uniform nitrogen rich fertilizer for the crops grown for cattle feed. Crave admits all of this infrastructure was expensive.

Art Hackett:
That was at a time when milk prices were pretty darn good.

Charles Crave:
We knew they wouldn't be good forever. Nobody anticipated they would fall right off the table like they did the last year.

Art Hackett:
Economist Bob Cropp says investments can pay off even when milk prices are low.

Bob Cropp:
You have got to know what you are doing. You have got to be good at the production side, well managed dairy herd. It's another management tool you have to. you have got to manage some people and you have got to know how to market.

Charles Crave:
There’s probably as many of these ventures that have failed as which have succeeded in the last decade. So before folks get too -- buy in totally to the value-added on farms, you have to realize if they have the physical and mental attributes that can complement this type of business. Are they willing to spend the rest of their lives at it?

Art Hackett:
For the Craves the improvements are paying off during the dairy downturn.

Patty Loew:
Charles Crave says if the class-three milk prices reach $14 his family’s operation will be in good shape. That's the milk used for cheese production and covers most Wisconsin dairies. Professor Cropp projects prices to be in the $15 range by late spring and nearing $17 by the end of the year. Last May those prices hovered around $10.