Camphill Village Community

Address

103 Klein Dassenberg Road, western cape

VAT Registration

4850 117 112

Welcome to Camphill Village West Coast, a dynamic community working with intellectually challenged adults, where we care about the environment and produce quality products in a natural farm setting. Camphill Village was established in 1964 to provide a unique inclusive approach to life for intellectually challenged adults, offering them purpose and dignity.

Our enterprises – bakery, dairy, herbal workshop, farm and vegetable gardens originally started as therapeutic workshops for our residents, and grew into income-generating enterprises which now contribute to the financial stability of the organisation. Our products are made with care and have a reputation and following in the greater Cape Town area.  Camphill Village West Coast is a dynamic community working with 96 intellectually challenged adults.

Camphill Village is all about sustainable farming and our focus is on protecting our natural resources, our land and animals as part of our social responsibility. Unlike cows harnessed to intensive milk production once our cows have been milked they get to spend the rest of the day roaming in the field grazing naturally. Their diet is free from artificial additives, chemical and genetically modified ingredients and they are hormone and antibiotic free.

Our Bakery produces a wonderful range of breads using stone-ground flour and natural yeast. Camphill has a starter dough that is 23 years old and this is the secret to the enhanced flavours and texture of our breads. Our rye breads take a full 24 hours.

Camphill Cosmetics will pamper your body and mind whilst making sure that you are taking care of the environment and your health. Our cosmetics are produced using only the purest high grade essential oils and raw material and integrate our farm-grown herbs such as lavender, rosemary and geranium. The products we make cover a wide range of massage oils lip balms, deodorants, body moistures and soaps. We also have our own JOJBA PLANTATION that yields pure cold pressed oil which is revered in the beauty industry for having the same properties as the sebum produced by your skin. This oil is often referred to as “liquid gold” and is an excellent moisturizer make-up remover, hair conditioner or massage oil.

Supplier Vetting Questions 2024

We are milking 44 cows at the moment.

Is your animal feed GMO and glyphosate free? No.

Are synthetic fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides used in the land where the animals graze? The animal waste is used to make compost for our fields and vegetable gardens. The liquid waste is diluted and sprayed on our fields.

How regularly are the grasses ploughed?

Are routine antibiotics and hormones given to the animals?

No.

What % is grass and what % is supplemented? 

The cows graze on our pastures. We have a farm of 220ha, and of that, about 35ha of pastures. They spend all of the time outdoors, in pastures, except when they are milked. They are collected from the fields and milked twice a day, mornings and afternoons.

In winter it is a combination of natural winter grass, serredella, kweek, and kikuyu. We also have fields of oats for winter grazing. 

If supplemented, how is the feed grown (GM crops, chemically fertilized/herbicides?) 

While they are being milked, their food is supplemented with a feed which consists of non-GMO maize, molasses and Lucerne, and straw. We grow barley and lucerne which we bale for summer fodder supplement feeding.

Do you practice regenerative grazing (moved at least every 3 days to allow the grass to recover)?

We rotate our cows, so as the pasture can recover. We are milking 44 cows at the moment and they alternate pastures, and we have planted more as to then take us through summer.

How do you manage predators?

How do you milk your cows: Machine or by hand? 

The cows are milked with machine clusters, eight at a time.

How do you ensure the comfort of the cow during milking: i.e. no sores or pinching machine attachments etc.? Do you do tail docking?

We do not tail dock or castrate our bulls, they have a milk cream put on after milking and the machine has a soft rubber cluster that does not pinch and is comfortable for the cow.

How do you manage the hygiene in the milk?

We have the milk tested, and as well as follow strict hygine protocol when handling.

Is the milk pasteurised or batch pasteurised?

Yoghurt the milk is batch pasteurized only

At what age do your cows stop producing milk and what do you do with them when they stop? 

Cows that are no longer milk producing we sell on auction.

What breed of cow do you use? 

Jersey cows

Are you Grass-Fed certified/PGS certified or Organic certified?

No.

Are animals integrated with crops?

Yes.

How and when are they slaughtered?

We do not slaughter.

How often are your animals impregnated and how? 

We do not do artificial insemination. We have two bulls that are part of the herd of cows in milk, and each cow has a calf every year to ensure it stays in milk.

What do you do with the resulting male calves? 

See answer below.

How long do the calves remain with the cows? 

The calves stay with their mothers for 2 months. Thereafter we sell the male calves to one of our staff who raises them as bulls. The female calves we raise to be our future herd.

Are your animals ever transported by road how is their comfort and humane treatment assured?

No we do not transport our cows.

What is the daily yield per cow on average?

Average daily yield is around 12-16ltrs in winter and 5-8ltrs in summer, but this varies