Sustainability
At one time there were more than 200 dairies in San Diego County. Now the Frank Konyn Dairy, sister company of San Pasqual Valley Soils, is one of only two. San Pasqual Valley Soils is a 13-acre composting facility on adjacent land that supports the dairy and composts its manure. San Pasqual Valley Soils also accepts yard trimmings, agricultural residues, straw, wood shavings, and wood chips for composting and mulch production. Each year, we help landscaping businesses divert 14,000 tons of greens waste from our local landfills. The Frank Konyn Dairy cows are not just recycling food products, they are upcycling them! See what Time USA had to say about this subject in their recent article, “Cows Are The Unlikely Heroes In The Fight Against Food Waste“.
The dairy collects brewery grains to feed its herd of about 880 milking cows, as well as food scraps, fruits, fruit pulp, vegetables and discarded bakery materials. More than 1,000 tons a month of this material, most of which was being landfilled, is now feeding cows and supporting a local, family-owned business.
Our OMRI-listed Valley’s Best Compost® is approved for use in organic agriculture, and we’re proud this product supports many of the County of San Diego’s largest organic farms.
San Pasqual Valley Soils and the Frank Konyn Dairy are continuously working to keep milk production and compost creation local, sustainable and affordable to San Diego County residents. We thank all of our customers and partners for allowing this to happen.
The Frank Konyn Dairy promotes sustainability from the ground up!
As the only commercial-scale grower of alfalfa in San Diego County, the dairy has been producing this sustainable forage for their own herd since 1962. Unlike many other crops, alfalfa has the ability to actually return nutrients to the soil which is invaluable to any farm. In growing alfalfa, the dairy has not only reduced their carbon footprint by sequestering it’s carbon, it has also minimized the amount of crops that have to be trucked in to feed the cows. In addition, the need for fertilizer is reduced which has economic benefits for the farm. Since growing alfalfa also improves the soil, it is apparent that the sustainable farming of this crop has many environmental as well as financial benefits.
In the quest to continue to improve their sustainable dairy farm practices, Frank Konyn Dairy Farm Manager, Ernie Klemm, attended the “World Alfalfa Congress 2022” in San Diego to learn more about this valuable crop and how to optimize growing it. Find out more about the benefits of growing alfalfa and this conference in the Hay and Forage Grower article, “World Alfalfa Congress Features Agronomic, Environmental, Economic Impact of World’s Most Sustainable Crop“, from September 13, 2022.