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.

What are the conditions like that the cows are kept in? Where do they feed?

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.

What is their diet comprised of? Are they entirely pasture raised or is their diet supplemented by grains etc.?

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

How are the cows milked?

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

What happens to those cows that are no longer producing milk?

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

How do you ensure that the dairy-producing cows keep producing milk? How are the dairy cows impregnated?

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 happens to the male calves? What happens to the female calves? 

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.

What happens to the animal waste produced? How are the pastures and plants fertilised?

The animal waste is used to make compost for our fields and vegetable gardens. The liquid waste is diluted and sprayed on our fields.