BoerBert

BoerBert is a dairy farm in the Kamerik polder on the edge of Woerden, where one family has farmed since 1885 and now milks about 280 red-and-white Holstein and MRIJ cows.

The farm has been organic since 2003 and is certified organic (SKAL); we found it in the register. The cows graze from about April to November, more than 3,000 hours a year, and eat mostly herb-rich grass with a little concentrate feed. No cattle are bought in, and a cow that needs antibiotics is treated and then sold. Raw milk and yoghurt are both sold from taps. The farm makes boerenkaas (raw-milk farm cheese) from its own milk, and about 250 Barnevelder hens roam the polder around a mobile henhouse. Beef from their own herd is sold in 12 kg boxes, each a twentieth of a cow, and the cow goes to a nearby butcher once all twenty boxes are sold. Goat kid meat and pork come from a family farm in Benschop.

The self-scan shop and the milk tap are open Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 20:00 and on Saturdays until 16:00, with staff on Friday afternoons and Saturdays. You can bring your own containers, and the shop also sells juice from their own orchard, with ice cream and honey from the hives on the yard in season.

The grassland gets no artificial fertiliser, and mowing waits until meadow-bird chicks can fend for themselves.