Mertens Dairy
Nearly 1,000 cows live on a barren lot with no access to pasture at this Clover supplying dairy factory farm on the outskirts of Sonoma in Sonoma County.
Don’t fall for clever marketing. Clover “Sonoma” is majority owned by Alpina, a Colombian corporation, has several large factory farms across the state including in the Central Valley, and brings in over $200 million in sales annually.
Mertens Dairy, one of their suppliers in Sonoma County, does not provide cows access to pasture. They live on feces, dirt, and mud, separated from their babies who are confined nearby in small, individual hutches. These calves also live in mud and feces. The males will be sold for slaughter.
This facility generates approximately 33 million pounds of animal waste annually, more than the entire human population of Petaluma, and stores it in a manure lagoon so massive it is larger than two football fields. These lagoons release harmful greenhouse gases and can contaminate groundwater and destroy local ecosystems. Mertens specifically is located within the Sonoma Creek watershed, which is impaired due to bacteria, microbes, nitrogen, and/or phosphorus according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
There is nothing cute or clever about Mertens Dairy. This facility harms animals, pollutes our water, and contributes to climate change.