Hidden north of Chewelah behind a red mailbox small enough to miss in a blink, Clover Mountain Dairy is bottling milk for the people of Stevens County – they have been for four years.
Their head of cattle can be counted in breath. They only milk six cows at the moment.
The region was once home to more than 360 small local dairy farms, according to Clover Mountain co-owner Virginia Thomas. Today, they are one of eight.
“If there’s no access to market, then there’s no opportunity to even think about starting a farm,” Thomas said.
The number of small dairy farms was cut in half from 2002 to 2019 across the country, according to a report from the United States Department of Agriculture. Over the same time period, the country’s milk production increased. Larger outfits are buying out the small farms.
“So, part of it is trying to bring back that rural community fabric,” Thomas said.
Multiple community members banded together for a creative solution; they established a nonprofit creamery in 2022. The Columbia Community Creamery offers the necessary market access for local farmers to sell their product at competitive prices for people in the local community.
Four Stevens County dairy farms are currently working with the creamery. No other such business model exists in the country; Thomas and Co. looked it up to try and replicate. Instead, they’ve blazed the trail.
“We’ve already had some communities and organization reach out to us from across the nation,” Thomas said.
The board is comprised of several community members who have a personal interest in preserving the history and rural fabric of Stevens County. It also helped to have a retired lawyer for Starbucks aboard to wade through the legal waters and garner grant money from the government.
“I knew there was more to me than being in the corporate world in the legal department,” Brad Shaffer said. “It’s been a great journey for me.”
The Washington State Department of Agriculture awarded Columbia Community Creamery $452,000 to get off the ground.
The creamery now employs eight people and pays it forward with educational opportunities.
