Most of the dairy farms and cattle ranches at Point Reyes National Seashore will soon disappear. Though the ranchers have been leasing the land from the National Park Service for decades, environmental groups sued the agency in 2016, alleging that agricultural pollution was disrupting local ecosystems. Earlier this year, twelve of the 14 working ranches accepted a buyout worth an estimated $30 million from the environmental groups to end years of draining litigation.
These ranches represent a loss of 20% of the agricultural land in Marin County and a third of West Marin’s dairy farms. Their closure means that many ranch workers, most of them immigrants, will lose their jobs, with ripple effects for local schools, services, and businesses. Though the buyout money might sound like a lot, after it’s divided by twelve and legal fees are paid, most of the departing ranchers will have little prospect of opening a new operation elsewhere.
The campaign to displace the ranchers reflects a misguided vision of nature as a pristine playground suitable for postcards and tourists, with little regard for community or the planet.
While the buyout threatens our community as we’ve known it for 100-plus years, it’s still possible to keep some agriculture thriving inside Point Reyes.
When the nature preserve was created in 1962, 21,000 of its 53,000 acres were zoned as “pastoral,” allowing commercial dairies and ranches to operate. Since then, the preserve’s land area has grown, while the pastoral zone has shrunk. After the recent settlement, a general management plan eliminated most of this zone. A recent lawsuit filed by two ranchers could restore the commercial agriculture allowance, with new tenants and new leases.
Keeping the pastoral zoning would help prevent the community from being dismantled.
Some environmentalists argue that removing farming and ranching will restore Point Reyes to a more natural state. Among their concerns are water quality issues created by manure, lack of biodiversity, invasive species overpopulation, land deterioration, and habitat destruction. They argue that livestock agriculture is fundamentally incompatible with ecological conservation.
But the removal of responsible farmers from Point Reyes doesn’t restore nature — it neglects it. For more than 30 years, Straus Family Creamery, which I founded, and its network of supplying organic family farms have shown that responsible farming restores ecosystems. Organic and regenerative farming practices can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, put carbon back into the soil, and foster healthy soils that help landscapes adapt to drought, flooding, and severe storms.
On my Straus Dairy Farm near Point Reyes, I have worked to implement a carbon-neutral farming model. We are working toward on-farm carbon neutrality by reducing methane emissions from animals by more than 90% while maximizing soil carbon sequestration through regenerative practices like compost application and intensive rotational grazing. Farming responsibly can provide measurable, scalable climate solutions while feeding local communities high-quality, nutritious food.
Straus Family Creamery’s supplying dairy farms are working to adopt a similar model, as were two of our supplying farmers at Point Reyes. The farms and ranches on the preserve are not industrial-scale; they are small, deeply rooted, family-run operations. The threats introduced by removing these farms include a new land-management strategy that will likely lead to excessive growth of coastal scrub brush, resulting in soil degradation and an increased risk of wildfires.
Across California and America, dairy farms are vanishing. Farmers — the oldest workforce in the country, with a median age of 58 — are aging out of the trade and not being paid what they’re worth. Land and housing costs are unsustainable. In 1940, the United States had 4.6 million dairy farms. Today, there are around 26,000. With food demand projected to rise, farms are vanishing when we need them most.
The answer isn’t the removal of farmers — it is the expansion of certified organic farming models that restore the land while feeding local communities. Agriculture and nature preservation are not at odds; they are different aspects of the same vital endeavor.
For those who neither live nor work in West Marin, it may be difficult to understand why we who do are so upset about the Point Reyes decision. To accept it is to accept that our area doesn’t have a future that includes resilient landscapes, a secure food system, and agricultural workers. To preserve this essential and diverse community, we must fight for the people who enable it.
Anyone who shares this vision should contact Doug Burgum, secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and Jessica Bowron, acting director of the National Park Service, and demand that they reverse the general management plan to allow commercial agriculture to continue at Point Reyes. This would create security for new tenants — a next generation of farmers who can produce food and practice sustainable, regenerative agriculture on that land.
Secondly, we need Burgum and Bowron to establish an Agriculture Trust — with a board and leadership that includes farmers — to manage and maintain the preserve as a working agricultural landscape, so that farmers and ranchers can live and work in harmony with nature. The only way to support the future of our food system is to keep our farms and communities intact.
Albert Straus is a second-generation farmer and environmental innovator in dairy farming who owns Straus Dairy Farm in Marshall. He is the founder and executive chair of Straus Family Creamery and a life-long resident of Marshall.