Idyll Farms

Idyll Farms, LLC
Private
Industry Cheesemaking, Agriculture
Founded 2012
Headquarters Northport, Michigan, U.S.
Website www.idyllfarms.com

Idyll Farms is a pasture-based goat farm and creamery in Northport, Michigan that produces award-winning artisanal farmstead chèvre. (Idyll refers to a pastoral scene depicted in song or poem.)

Idyll Farms cheeses received three awards at the World Championship Cheese Contest (including Best of Class) in 2016, as well as multiple and repeat awards (including in the broad all milk cheese category) at the American Cheese Society North American Competition in 2013, 2014 (the farm’s first two years of production),[1] and 2016.[2] Its cheeses were also named a “Best Artisanal Cheese” in Food & Wine magazine in 2016[3] and one of “The 49 Best American Cheeses” in Men’s Journal magazine.[4]

Unlike conventionally managed dairy animals raised primarily on grain diets for the production of most commercially available cheeses, Idyll Farms’ certified-humane Alpine goats are pasture-fed using rotational grazing practices which mimic and harness nature's complex, productive processes.[1]

Idyll Farms is owned and operated by hedge fund manager Mark Spitznagel,[5] who built the sustainable farm after acquiring its approximately 200 acres in 2010 in his hometown.

Idyll Farms Detroit

In June, 2014, Idyll Farms moved a herd of their wethers (castrated male goats) along with movable pens and electric fencing from Northport to the heavily blighted Brightmoor neighborhood of Detroit in a philanthropic effort to have the grazing goats clean up overgrown foliage and to help the struggling community through agriculture, jobs, education, and self-sufficiency. Despite heavy local support as well as national media attention for the “guerrilla”[6] Idyll Farms Detroit project (including from Ron Paul[7]), Mayor Duggan immediately ordered the goats removed because of a city ordinance banning all livestock.[8][9][10]

References

  1. 1 2 Idyll Farms Takes Home Three Awards at 2016 World Championship Cheese Contest, PR Newswire, March 17, 2016
  2. ↑ Idyll Farms rakes in honors, Leelanau Enterprise, September 1, 2016
  3. ↑ "Best Artisanal Cheese: Idyll Farms, Mont Idyll; Northport, MI". Food & Wine. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  4. ↑ "The 49 Best American Cheeses". Men’s Journal. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  5. ↑ Feeding the Bubble: Is the Next Crash Brewing?, Der Spiegel, December 3, 2013
  6. ↑ The Goats of Detroit, Modern Farmer, June 18, 2014
  7. ↑ Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan Halts Urban Farming Project in Struggling Neighborhood, Ron Paul Channel, June 9, 2014
  8. ↑ Fund Manager Sets Goats Grazing in Blighted Detroit, The New York Times, June 5, 2014
  9. ↑ A Deadline for Goats to Get Out of Detroit, The New York Times, June 6, 2014
  10. ↑ City of Detroit butting heads with blight-eating Brightmoor goats, Detroit Free Press, June 6, 2014

Coordinates: 45°09′08″N 85°37′43″W / 45.15219°N 85.62862°W / 45.15219; -85.62862

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