The Rural Voice, 2004-08, Page 26� a
George Taylor's Transvaal Farms owns the dairy goat herd (left). His C'estbon Cheese (right) turns the milk into profit.
Back to the future
When George Taylor wanted to make a living on the farm he turned
to an old family tradition of cheese making.
The result is C'estbon cheese
Story and photos by Keith Roulston
George Taylor had come to a
crossroads in his career. His
job at the Toronto sports
channel TSN was changing and it
was going to be impossible for him
to continue to commute from his St.
Marys area farm. "This (farming) is
in our blood" he says so he chose a
future on the farm.
But how to make a living? He
wanted to be a full-time farmer who
didn't need a job off the farm but he
wasn't in a position to buy quota so
any form of supply management was
out of the question. Still, there is a
family tradition in the dairy industry
so he looked at milking goats:
"You can't make a living just
milking goats," he says with a cost of
production that's higher than whit
you receive for your milk. Again he
turned to a family tradition and
decided to make cheese with the
goats milk.
22 THE RURAL VOICE
The tradition he turned to was not
that of his father George Sr. who, as
former CEO of Labatts was involved
in large-scale dairy production with
Ault Foods Ltd. Instead he turned to
the modern equivalent of the kind of
small-scale on-farm food processing
his forefathers brought to North
America when they came with with
Samuel de Champlain nearly 400
years ago.
Setting up a small-scale on-farm
cheese plant was not easy. While the
rural development division of the
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and
Food was promoting farm
diversification, the food inspection
division was used only to dealing
with large plants, well separated from
the place the milk was produced.
"OMAF didn't want to licence the
facility. They came on board but not
without a fight."
The system is much more
streamlined now but he advises
others who want to get into on-farm
processing not to get discouraged
when a government official says
"no"
"Just because OMAF or CFIA
(Canadian Food Inspection Agency)
says 'no' doesn't mean it can't be
done."
For instance there's the issue of
windows in his cheese -room. There's
no mention of windows in the
regulations about cheese -making
facilities so officials interpreted that
as not allowing windows. He wanted
windows so he insisted that just
because they we're not mentioned in
the regulations didn't mean they
weren't allowed. He finally won a
concession that the windows could
be installed as long as they were
shatter -proof glass. It was more
expensive but he got his windows.
"It's give and take", he says.