Last Dairy to Close Its Doors
Memorandum: This is one of the few articles where you right feel that everything seemed to go straight -- a sparse occasion in this avocation. I worked unyielding on this, and was able to disburse time with the farmer, who helped by being so fair with me.
By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Walk 3, 2002
OAKLEY -- In the earth of milk and cash, Emerson Dairy has corralled a gratifying share of California's unrivaled dairy mart.
The sprawling dairy at the paw of Sellers Entry includes a drove of about 2,000 producing cows that relieve milk a gain from a long-running household business.
On-locality breeders artificially inseminate the massive animals, whose product is tracked on laptop computers. Tank trucks reach this place three times a day, hauling from home thousands of gallons of milk.
But rightful like the rusted kernel storage turret that sits contiguous the dairy work, Emerson, the last dairy landed estate in Contra Costa Shire, is fading off.
Stan Emerson, who operates the 614-acre dairy with his older brother, Dell, is negotiating a quantity to sell his useful land. It will shutter a dairy profession that began in 1913.
The final closure of the landed estate underscores the quick changes in East Contra Costa, a pastoral region lengthy identified by its affluent agricultural account.
It is a difficult and compounded issue with which Stan Emerson has grappled for years.
With few options, he has watched as bulky subdivisions crept up against his dairy from the occident.
"This business has been in continued dairy agency since 1913, and it's been a awesome ride," uttered Emerson, wearing a cowboy hat and a two of snug denims.
"It's been fun, but it hasn't always been rewarding. Sometimes it's been very uphill, especially when milk prices are depressed. But we've always worked unyielding to withstand the pinched economic provisions and, in that, we've been successful."
Emerson Dairy sits on a prized...
