The Field Guideby Moss & MarrowDe Meentboerderij
- Cattle, sheep or goats graze on pasture in the grazing season
De Meentboerderij is a dairy farm on the Melkmeent in Hilversum, in the middle of het Gooi, where a family milks 140 cows and also runs a care farm, a petting farm and a tea room.
The cows are a mix of Swedish Red, Holstein and Montbéliarde, chosen for robustness and long lives, and they graze outside for a large part of the year with the 50 young stock, on 75 hectares of grassland, 12 of them natural grassland managed with Natuurmonumenten. The farm sells fresh milk and beef from its own cows, including its own Meentburger and cuts for the barbecue; whether the milk is sold raw isn't stated. Honey from hives kept around the farm by a local beekeeper is sold as Meenthoning, and eggs from the farm's own hens, collected daily by the care-farm participants, are sold too, though how the hens are kept isn't stated.
The farm products are sold at the farm, which is open to visitors Wednesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00. The tea room, Juffrouw Jansen, serves apple pie, pancakes and a Meentburger roll.
The farm meets the On the Way to PlanetProof standard, partly through solar panels and through breeding a strong, long-lived cow with low CO2 emissions.