Transcripts

JOHN BIEWEN: A lot of Americans who eat feta, Rochefort, Pecorino, and Manchego, don't even know they're eating cheese made from the milk of sheep. That's OK with Roger Steinkamp, so long as those cheese eaters keep on eating the rich, expensive cheeses. What does bother Steinkamp, is that all but a sliver of the sheep milk cheese consumed in this country, perhaps a couple billion worth every year, comes from Europe.

[MILK VAT WHIRRING]

On a recent Sunday, Roger Steinkamp stood over his steel 200-gallon milk vat an old dented up number that he says he salvaged from a dairy graveyard in Wisconsin. He eyeballs the steaming milk, then peers at a thermometer on the wall.

ROGER STEINKAMP: Right now we just started pasteurization, and the milk temperatures are right at 145 degrees, and the air temperature is at 150, and we'll run it that way for 30 minutes.

JOHN BIEWEN: It's cheesemaking day, a once-a-week occasion at Le Paysan, just outside of Hinckley, Minnesota. Roger Steinkamp and his wife Lucy are Le Paysan, one of about a half dozen commercial producers of sheep milk cheese in the country. Le Paysan's cheeses are sold in Twin Cities' food co-ops and a few other gourmet cheese outlets.

Steinkamp is also president of the North American Dairy Sheep Association, a group dedicated to developing the dairy sheep industry in this country. A telling indication of that industry's stature is that Steinkamp has to support himself by teaching high school full time. He says there are now about 20 farmers in the US milking sheep for commercial use.

ROGER STEINKAMP: Four years ago, we could have counted everybody who was involved with either sheep cheese making, or producing sheep milk on one hand. And so if we start with that, we've grown a little bit as an industry, although we're still looked at, or considered cute, by the dairy industry.

[SHEEP MEH'S]

JOHN BIEWEN: Steinkamp says selling his cheese is not the problem. The problem is getting enough milk from the few farmers who milk their sheep. In fact, the nation's largest herd of dairy sheep is here at the University of Minnesota's agricultural experiment station in Rosemount. Animal scientist, Bill Boylan, researches sheep milk production, trying to breed ewes that produce more milk.

American sheep produce less than half the milk that European breeds do. Boylan says sheep milk producers in Europe wear designer clothes and drive expensive cars. He tells American sheep farmers, there's money to be made in milking.

BILL BOYLAN: With pretty good milking ewes, that is reasonable production, they can gross about $100 more per ewe from the milk. In addition to that, they'll still have the lambs and the wool. So we're talking about a hundred ewes, about $10,000 for about four months work.

JOHN BIEWEN: But Boylan says, as in many fledgling industries, there's a catch-22 that keeps domestic sheep dairying from taking off.

BILL BOYLAN: A lot of people are interested in it. And we would go into dairy sheep, but the question is, what do I do with the milk? On the other hand, processes aren't going to build a factory to process milk or adapt to processed sheep milk, unless the product is there, so it's difficult for them to get started.

JOHN BIEWEN: Steinkamp, of Le Paysan, says state and federal agriculture policies work against small industries, like sheep dairying, because of expensive licensing fees that are meant for huge producers. And he says it's hard to get funding to start an industry that will take 10 or 15 years to develop. But against all odds, Steinkamp says, the sheep dairying industry is more than doubling every year.

ROGER STEINKAMP: Little by little, we're getting the pieces of the puzzle put together. And what we're seeing here is very similar to what we would have seen in France 30 years ago.

JOHN BIEWEN: Sheep milk cheese maker, Roger Steinkamp. This is John Biewen.