Land of milk and money
Initiative helps New Mexico remain one of the top cheesemakers in the U.S.
New Mexico is home to multiple national laboratories and is the second-largest oil-producing state in the country. There are thriving space and technology ecosystems here.
A perhaps lesser known industry, which also generates billions of dollars of economic output annually and creates thousands of jobs across the state, is dairy production.
New Mexico is one of the largest dairy farming states in the country. New Mexico State University officials report it is the ninth-leading state in milk production and the fourth-leading cheese producer.
“After California, after Wisconsin, Vermont is a big milk producer, but we are up there,” said Lissa Knudsen, the president of the board of the New Mexico Cheese Guild. “We have really fantastic policies and climates for milk production. ... Dairy is the No. 1 agricultural product of our state. It eclipses things like pecans or green chile even.”
The recently formed New Mexico Cheese Guild was created to support cheesemakers in the Land of Enchantment. A goal of the association is to support small-scale farms, such as those with 100 animals or fewer, or even smaller backyard farmsteads with five or six goats to make cheese and milk for a family or a local growers’ market, according to Knudsen.
“This is sort of a different way of approaching our food production,” Knudsen said. “It is about staying local and staying small scale and using more traditional methods that are less harmful, both to the animals, but also the environment. That’s why we exist even though there’s this huge dairy history in this state. We’re looking to really support the local, tiny, small cheese producer.”
The New Mexico State University Extension Service estimates that the dairy industry has a $2.2 billion direct economic impact in the state annually and an additional $4.2 billion in indirect impact. The office estimates the industry supports more than 20,000 jobs.
The office reported last year that 50,000 pounds of raw milk are shipped daily from New Mexico dairy farms to dairy processors, primarily within the state.
Being one of the top dairy states means not only an abundance of milk production but also the production of products made with milk, including cheese.
To support the cheesemaking industry, the state recently allocated $200,000 for
the New Mexico Cheesemaker Incubator, an economic development project aimed at fostering the growth of the local cheese industry, Knudsen said.
“When I was up in Santa Fe this last session I talked to a couple legislators, and they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ve taken a tour of the largest cheese factory in the nation, which is in Clovis, New Mexico,’” she said. “We have this really robust, industrial dairy production process.”
The New Mexico Cheesemaker Incubator will foster cheesemaking skills through specialized classes on different parts of a cheesemaking operation, including production techniques, quality control and business management.
The guild is working with Street Food Institute to renovate a building on Fourth and Bell streets in Barelas.
“We’re hoping to be able to convert one of the units in that storehouse to a cheese aging space,” Knudson said.
The space would serve cheesemakers in the community who do not have the resources to invest in a cheese cave that can be maintained at the right temperature and humidity to age cheese.
“They can then go through the process to have their cheese aged in our space, and we’ll then give it the seal that comes with the New Mexico Cheese Guild and help them with getting it distributed,” Knudsen said. “And hopefully, they’ll be able to make some money and have a career based on cheesemaking.”