Honest Meat

Made Simple: Buying Meat in Bulk

Two sides of beef, chillin down on the farm.

Since we have been "animal-less" for the last two years, we have practically become vegetarians. Turns out that buying good meat at retail prices is a bit tough on our meager incomes. It's ok- we have become pros at cooking beans, rice, quinoa and other affordable foods. We don't have any food waste anymore either, except for our coffee grounds, which get composted anyways. We turn all our veggie scraps into soup stock and if we do eat meat, all of the bones and extra fat go to the stockpot too. But I digress...

So being animal-less has meant being more or less meat-less. But now that we have a firm place to call home and thus a place to store food, we finally plunked down for a side of pork. We have sold hundreds of sides of pork, but never been a customer ourselves. It used to be quite common for Americans to buy "locker beef" or sides of pork directly from a neighbor, relative, or farmer who lived nearby. It was economical and assured a steady supply of protein through thick and thin, especially wintertime when you maybe couldn't get to a store for a couple weeks. People would can, cure, dry, smoke, and freeze the meat in various ways so that it would last for months and be consumed in smaller quantities. This method of food purchasing sort of fell out of fashion for 30 or so years, at least in the rapidly urbanizing regions of the country where most Americans live. It still was quite the norm in rural America to buy a quarter steer or half pig, as it still is today. Luckily, this trend is reversing. You can find sides of livestock all over the country- see www.localharvest.com to find a local producer in your area.

Buying meat in bulk like this has many advantages- the per pound price is considerably cheaper than buying cuts of meat at the store. You get steaks and chops at the price of ground meat. The meat is usually fresher than store bought and quickly frozen. You can have it cut to your specifications- like thick pork chops? Like bone-in roasts? Like your ground meat a little leaner? Like your beef dry aged for a couple weeks to make it more tender? When you buy meat in bulk, you usually get to make those choices. The other big advantage to buying meat like this is understanding a bit more how the animal was raised, who raised it, and even the quality of the slaughter and butchering. You deepen your relationship with the meat supply chain- it become less anonymous and opaque. Maybe that makes you feel like the meat is safer, more wholesome, and perhaps it is. The other advantage (some would consider this a challenge) is that buying meat in bulk encourages you to eat a variety of meat cuts and expand your culinary prowess. I remember the first time I butterflied a boneless pork loin, stuffed it with sauteed apples, bread, nuts, and butter and then tied it back up to be roasted. I was beyond proud when that roast wowed my family. That would never happen if I just bought the same ol' cuts at the store that I knew exactly how to prepare (in the same boring way). Best of all, in my opinion, is that buying meat directly from the farmer/rancher will better keep them in business. Keeping the folks in business that take good care of our meat animals is the best way to assure humane livestock production and good land stewardship. It's a win-win. You save money and the farmer makes better money. Direct dollars, less middlemen.

The disadvantages of buying meat in bulk is usually the large price tag you have to bite off all at once, where to store it, and then figuring out what to do with it all. I don't get intimidated by 100 lbs of meat sitting in my freezer- indeed it gives me a great feeling of security. But for others it may cause stress for meal planning thinking about what to do with all that meat. Agghh....the stress of privilage.

Drawing from our recent pork buying experience, here is some advice:

1) Find the right farm raising the animal how you like it- we spent about a year trying to find a farm within a 100 miles of us that was raising heritage breed pigs (we like their fat and flavor over modern breeds) on pasture and feeding organic grains. We found plenty of pastured pigs, but most of them were blue-butts (York/Hamp crosses) that are too lean for our tastes. Or when we did find heritage breeds they usally had been fed conventional feeds. I was willing to relax a bit on that issue knowing how extremely high organic feeds have been lately, but whenever I did, my husband would just remind me of the evils of Monsanto and GMOs, and I would sulk off, porkless. We did finally locate that local perfect farm with a pasture-raised, heritage-breed, organically-fed pig. Phew! Here was our Berkshire pig from High Roost Ranch of Glenwood, Washington.

2) Check your bank balance and figure out the numbers- when you buy a quarter, half, or whole animal direct from the farmer, you usually pay a price based on the hanging weight. That is the weight of the animal after it has been killed with head, guts, and blood removed. Some farmers charge by the live weight- the weight of the living animal- if they have a manner to weigh the beast. I see this happen with lambs quite often when they are sold at around the 100-110 pound live weight range. If you are paying for the live weight, you should ask about how many pounds of usable meat will come off that animal and then do the math to see if that makes sense for you. With our Berkshire above, we paid only $3.50 a pound hanging weight, which is a steal for an organically-fed pig. I truly hope the farmers can stay in business with those prices. I did not pick this farm because their prices were so low, but rather for the breed and their animal husbandry practices. But I can't deny being delighted with my final bill of $318.50 (91lbs hanging weight x $3.50/lb.) for a half pig. On top of that, we paid for half the cost of the custom mobile slaughter fee of $60 since we just bought half of the pig. Slaughter costs for a steer will run much higher, up to $150. If you are just buying a half or quarter beef, you will pay 1/2 or 1/4 of that fee, so factor that into your costs. Around the country, you may pay anywhere from $3.00-6.00/lb. hanging weight for beef and pork. Goat and lamb usually run a bit higher because their carcass sizes are much smaller, around 40lbs hanging weight for a whole animal. I usually see goat/lamb prices around $6.00-8.00/lb. as a side or whole animal. Still all considerably cheaper than buying good quality meat at a grocery store, which may run $7-24/lb. depending on the cut.

3) Pick the butcher and give instructions- Often the farmer will give you a couple choices of where to have the animal butchered. You can even elect to cut it up yourself at home, which can be fun and educational or a giant pain in the butt if you don't have the right tools. Our farmer gave us two options for butchery and we choose the butcher that had a better reputation for quality. All they had to say was "their bacon is divine" and that sold us on Mayer's Custom Meats of Vancouver, Washington. A bit further for us to drive, but their reputation was excellent. If you are buying that much meat, you want it to be processed well. Once you choose the butcher, the farmer arranges to get your animal there somehow. In our case, the mobile slaughter guy took the carcass directly to the butcher. Once the carcass arrives at the shop, the butcher gives you a call and asks you how you want your side cut up. We received a pleasant phone call from a very nice woman and I ran down the list of cuts that I wanted. After years of raising pigs and selling pork, I know how I like my pork cut up. However, if you are new to this, ask either the farmer or the butcher to give you sample cutting instructions (here is one for pork). You will have to decide how thick you want steaks/chops, how big the roasts, whether or not to leave bones in the meat, spice flavorings for sausage, and other details. Don't be intimidated if you don't know everything- feel free to ask the butcher what their favorite ways to prepare certain cuts or what sausages they like best. If MSG, nitrates, sugar, salt, dextrose or other preservatives are a big deal for you, make sure you tell them to leave certain things out. Also, if you prefer paper-wrapped or plastic vacuum sealed packaging, you should make that known. You may not have an option, but if you do, I would suggest vacuum sealed because your meat can last longer and it is easier to see what you got inside the pacakge. However, if you are going to gobble up all the meat within 3-6 months, paper wrapping is just fine.

4) Find the space- a lot of people fret about having enough freezer space to buy meat in bulk. It turns out that you can fit half a pig or a quarter beef in a regular size top-mounted freezer space, as evidenced by this picture below. We even have a few other things crammed in there too, like turkey stock, frozen tomatoes, and other odds and ends. Our 91 pound hanging weight pig turned into about 70 pounds of meat (we left the bone in all cuts to get a better efficiency) and that all miraculously fit in our freezer. For the time being, we don't have to go out and buy a stand-alone chest freezer. But you can buy something decent for a bit over $200 and fit a half steer or whole pig if you so desire. The new models are so energy-efficient you should hardly notice a blip in your utility bill. I even have off-grid friends who just bought a chest freezer they can easily power with their solar panels. However you store your meat, just make sure it is good and frozen. Check the door seals and for ice build-up, which may indicate a leakage of cold air and you could get freezer burn on your meat. Chest freezers are better sealing than stand-up freezers and have less problems with ice build-up.

Here is our freezer with a half a pig.

Here it is with the meat plus all the other crap we had in it- frozen bananas, frozen tomatos, turkey stock, vegetable trimmings we use to make soup, etc.

5) Get the meat, pay for it, take it home quick- self explanatory. But usually the customer is responsible for picking up the meat from the butcher, paying for the butchering costs (separate from the price paid to farmer), and then transporting it home. Bring some coolers and some ice for that. Butcher costs run between $.50-1.50 a pound, depending on what you have done to the side. Simple cutting is on the lower end of the price scale, grinding may cost a bit more, and then sausage-making and curing will cost the most. To save money, keep the fancy sausages at a minimum. You can also do bulk sausage instead of linked sausage to save a few dollars too. We ended up having our pork belly turned into bacon, hocks smoked, and our ham roasts and trim turned into 2 types of bulk sausage in addition to all the regular cuts. Nothing too fancy and our total bill for a 91 pound pig was just $72 for all the butchering and packaging (I expected it to be closer to $100, so was pleasantly suprised!). So add those costs into your budget as well. This put our total pig costs at $420.50 or $4.62/lb. on the hanging weight. Realize that your final packaged meat weight is going to be less than the hanging weight. With pork, you can expect 60-80% of the hanging weight (more if you ask for all the bones, fatback, etc.) and with beef, lamb, and goat you should expect closer to 55-75% usable meat from the carcass. If you want to get your money's worth, ask for all the soup bones and trim. You can use that to make stock or feed to your dogs, but you might as well get it if you can.

6) Start cooking!- Start out with some of the easier cuts that you have familiarity with and then start adding in some new ones. Open up a cookbook or search the cut on the Internet. Type in "top round roast" and see what delicious recipes pop up. Start experimenting- brining or marinating your meat, smoking it, barbecuing, braising, roasting, stewing, pan searing, dry rubbing and enjoy the journey. Your palette will be greatly rewarded, even if you screw up a peice or too. Your pocketbook will thank you. Your friends will start popping up unannouced at dinnertime more frequently. Your "what should I cook for dinner" conundrum will start to ease itself. You will know a farmer and you will honor a specific animal that gave up it's life for you. That may bother you, but more than likely it will give you a special reverance for your food and make it that much more enjoyable.

Look at those nice thick slices of bacon, made exactly how I like them! Plus look at all the fat- no lean pork for us. Get the kind of meat you want when buying straight from a farmer.

Now go find a farmer and make the call!

Kickstarting a Meat Revolution!

I am posting this Kickstarter campaign for my friend Camas Davis of the Portland Meat Collective. Please read on to see how you can support meat education efforts around the country:

As you may know, the Portland Meat Collective is a one-of-a-kind meat school and culinary resource that has changed the way citizens of Portland, Oregon think about their food, their community, and their local economy. For each Portland Meat Collective class, local farmers sell whole animals to students who in turn learn from local butchers and chefs how to transform those whole animals into everything from pork chops to bacon. Students go home with a lot of good meat and a lot of very rare knowledge. Chefs and butchers have the opportunity to share their art. And farmers are able to sell their animals directly to consumers who truly appreciate their humane and sustainable farming practices. The result? A growing community of informed omnivores who are rethinking meat consumption and production in America.

The Portland Meat Collective has been a successful business and educational model for over three years. As we’ve gained attention in the national media, word of our model has spread. As a result, each week we receive requests from people living all over the country requesting a Meat Collective in their town. We think the Meat Collective model could and should thrive in many towns across America. It’s clear others feel the same. We're not talking about franchising, here. Nope. Instead we want to empower other folks to start Meat Collectives in their home towns.

 

Our Kickstarter page has a video and bullet points on why the Meat Collective model is so unique, as well as detailed plans for how we’ll spread the model across the country. You can check it out here:

 

http://kck.st/YTa3XQ

 

We think our Meat Collectives Across America campaign could be a great story for your readers because:

 

1) Meat Collectives Across America represents a unique type of Kickstarter campaign.  We’re not asking people to back a product. We’re asking them to back a movement that could change the way their community thinks about food.

2) Consumers are increasingly more informed (and concerned) about where their food comes from. The Meat Collective model offers consumers hands-on, direct education about how meat gets to their tables so that they can make informed decisions about the meat they choose to eat.

3) The Meat Collective model is a flexible model that could be adapted to many different communities, both urban and rural. As it is adapted to different locales, the meat education movement as a whole will gain strength in its diversity.

4) The Meat Collective model helps to build alternate, local economies of meat production and consumption in America.

 

Here is the Kickstarter link once again- http://kck.st/YTa3XQ

Egg Production: Not All It's Cracked Up to Be

Photo by Tana Butler. All Rights Reserved.

I adore eggs, the way they look with their different shades of white, off-white, tan, brown, green, and blue, their smooth shell, their sensual shape. I love to eat eggs, the quick and easy package of calories, protein, and nutrients they provide and the myriad of ways they can be cooked. In fact, I just ate two sunny-side eggs on top of black beans with an avocado on top for breakfast this morning, taking all of 5 minutes to put the dish together. Even the most expensive eggs provide more protein, calories, and nutrient-density than most meat of the same volume, so they are a populist food. Those that are allergic to eggs or don't like the taste are missing out, but I fully understand. I hate the sulfury flavor of an overcooked egg too.

Many small and beginning farmers start with laying hens because of their low-cost of entry and relatively quick cash turn around. Egg production can be a focal point of a farm (as ours once was) or a nice ancillary enterprise for a diversified farm. The hens themselves provide a multitude of benefits to the farm- pest eradication, fertilizer, weed consumption, waste recyclers, entertainment, etc. But increasingly, egg production can be a farm's downfall, money pit, or both. I have to write this article because I am helping yet another farmer understand that their costs of production are too high and that their egg prices are too low in comparison. Unlike most consumers, I am usually that lady admonishing a farmer for their low prices and telling them they need to raise their prices. What kinda nut-job customer tells a farmer to raise their price? In my case, one that has raised too many chickens to keep straight and understands the full costs of production only too well (at our high point we produced 350 dozen eggs a day!). A farmer need not loose their shirt on chickens and a consumer need not pay a dollar an egg to have healthy eggs. There is a happy medium, but it takes diligent record-keeping, good management, and accurate math to reach it. I will elaborate for those that produce eggs (back-yard style or commercial farmers)...

Free-range and pastured laying hens produce fewer eggs than confined birds. They also have higher rates of death loss and lower feed efficiency. This has all been scientifically proven. So, using a typical Rhode Island Red laying hen (which is a solid brown egg layer that can last 2-3 egg cycles), on the low end you could expect to get 200 eggs from one bird and up to 275 eggs a year if you provide supplemental lighting in winter time. So lets use this 200-275 eggs as our low-high range for the following calculations. Egg yield is a very important factor in a successful egg operation, but something that is often overlooked. Many farmers pick breeds that don't produce very well, they don't cull out unproductive birds, or they don't provide supplemental lighting, so their per bird egg yields are on the low end. Underfeeding or overfeeding can also negatively impact egg production.

Farmers also overlook many of the expenses of egg production, often just looking at their feed costs as the only input. You (farmers) must include ALL the costs of production, or you will consistently loose money. Here are some of those inputs with typical costs if you had a 200 bird flock:

Hatchery chicks ($2.75 average, sexed)

Feed until laying age (25lbs from day-old chicks to 22 weeks x .32lb. is $8)

Feed for 12 months of production (.27lbs a day most efficient x .32lb. is $31.50)

Bedding material, oyster shell, grit, diatomaceous earth ($2 a bird)

Electricity for brooding, supplemental lighting, egg refrigeration ($2 a bird)

Chicken coop, waterers, feeder, egg washer depreciation ($4 a bird)

Egg cartons, labels, ink for labels ($3 a bird)

Labor (.10/day x 365 days per bird is $36.50)

Overhead (insurance, prop taxes, etc. is $3.60 a bird)

Total Expenses per Bird: $93.35/year

So, if that bird was producing 200 eggs a year, each dozen would cost the farmer $5.62. If that bird was producing 275 eggs a year, each dozen would cost the farmer $4.49. Of course, if you increased the flock size, some of the per bird costs could go down, such as electricity, depreciation, labor, and overhead.

Now, if the farmer was charging something like $3 or $4 a dozen, which are typical prices (sadly) that I have seen all over the country even for organic eggs, then you can see that the farmer could be loosing between .49-1.62 per dozen eggs. LOOSING money for every dozen eggs they sell. How many other businesses do that? So obviously, if the farmer is producing the lower yielding egg numbers, they need to be charging at least $5.62 a dozen to BREAK EVEN. If they are producing higher yielding eggs, they need to be charging at least $4.49 to BREAK EVEN (all costs being the same). So when I tell farmers they need to raise their prices (usually to at least $5/doz. but sometimes $7-8/doz. if they are buying more expensive organic feed), there is a method to my madness.

My take home messages:

• Egg production numbers are important to keep track of. Pick the right breed, cull the unproductive hens, consider supplemental lighting, and make sure their diet is on track for good production.
• Look at your other expenses and consider ways to lower them or spread them across more animals if your land-base and market will support that. For example, if you can raise 1,000 birds just as easily as 200 birds and your land can support that (& your market), then maybe you want to up your numbers to spread your costs out amongst more birds.
• Feed efficiency is crucial since feed costs are your highest priced input. Don't underfeed and don't overfeed- it negatively impacts egg production, egg size, etc. Study & do research. For example, I just read that providing diaotomaceous earth in layer feed improves feed efficiency! Explore all options! Also, don't think you can feed less just because they are on pasture. They will actually need MORE feed to process all that fiber, break down the nutrients in the grass, etc.
• Don't forget death loss. I didn't even factor that into my costs, but pastured birds have higher death loss, sometimes as high as 25% if predation is constant. Good electric fences, livestock guard dogs, locking the birds in at night, etc. will keep them from dying. Dying from prolapsed uteruses often happens from overfeeding too.
• Buy your inputs wholesale. Don't buy retail egg cartons, labels, feed, etc. Shop around!
• Don't forget infrastructure and equipment depreciation. If you don't build that into your price, you won't have the money to fix stuff that will inevitably need fixing. This is crucial!
• Farms have overhead. You have things like property taxes, liability insurance, interest payments, software, web-hosting, etc. that need to get spread out amongst your various enterprises. Factor those real costs into your price.
• Review your costs of production annually so you can adjust your prices accordingly. Don't keep the same price for years and years when your costs of production are going up!
• Add a profit margin (such as 10% for unforseen costs, higher than usual death losses, etc. ) to the top of your egg price so that you cover your costs and make a profit. That's only an extra .50 cents or so. Keep in mind that distributors and food retailers often make margins of 30-50%, so for you to make 10% is reasonable since you are doing 90% of the work!
• Lastly, be honest with your customers and help them to understand what it costs to produce eggs. If you are producing nutrient-dense, tasty, healthy eggs then most likely your customers will be willing to pay for that. If they balk at your new price, do more education, provide taste tests, farm tours, or other methods to get them to better understand. Likewise, stay on top of your expenses and practice cost containment measures so you don't just keep raising your prices to exhorbitant levels each year. Your customers should not have to pay for your poor management.

 

 

Oxen Tales: The Beginning

This is our future, hopefully, but we are still several years away from it. Our boys are just one month old at this point, just getting past that critical stage that weakened dairy bull calves come in- will they live or will they die? Yes, they got their colustrum and about one week of whole, raw milk at the dairy they were born at. After that it was our turn to care for them, trying to keep them alive and gaining on nutritionally-inferior powdered milk. At some point we hope to have a nurse cow if we are going to keep buying inexpensive dairy bull calves. But we sorta lept into getting this batch of 4 calves before we had everything perfect, knowing that it will take two years before they are ready to even use as oxen. This is a long-term process. If we get it right, these guys will be with us for 10, maybe 12 years.

Jerseys are a pretty light-bodied breed for oxen, but easy to come by and handle for new teamsters like ourselves. At full size, we will be lucky to have them weigh in at 1,500-1,600 pounds. On the other hand, a Milking Shorthorn steer, a sought after oxen breed, will get up to 2,300 pounds at full size. But you can see in the picture above that Jerseys can get plenty big enough to do some farmwork or logging, which are the things we hope to use them for.

Why oxen? If you are like me, you maybe thought that oxen were a special breed. In my head I had always pictured a much hairier, hardy-looking animal, more akin to a yak. But any cattle breed can be transformed into a work animal with the right amount of patience and training. Just make sure they will have horns- a polled cattle breed won't make a good oxen. The horns are necessary for keeping the yokes on. My husband and I have been enamored with the concept of draft animal power for some time now- it just didn't exist much in the part of California we farmed in so it was difficult to gain the necessary skills. During our travels in 2011, we made sure to visit a couple farms that used draft animals. The first was Green Gate Farms in Austin, Texas that used a pony for pulling a small cart and humans around. Next was Claddagh Farm in Montville, Maine that used draft horses for cultivation, haying, and logging. After that we sought out Tillers International in Kalamazoo, Michigan for some hands-on training, this time with oxen. At Tillers we took an oxen basics class for one week and stayed on the following week to volunteer with their hay harvest. We also got a chance to work a bit with their Belgian draft horses, providing me one of the most spiritual experiences of my life using a team to mow down a field of cover crops.

My hubbie making our oxen yoke at Tillers International class, Aug. 2011

There are many reasons to consider draft animals- directly they don't burn fossil fuels, they can be fed on home-grown forages, their waste products are fertilizer, they can reproduce themselves (if given the chance!), their maintenance costs are usually in the form of your time & patience, they have more personality than a tractor, they can bring fun to your farming experience, they can appreciate over time instead of depreciating like a tractor (a well-trained draft team can fetch a pretty penny), and they are very versatile around a farm/homestead. You can use them for soil tillage, weeding, harvesting certain crops, mowing, haying, moving materials, logging, cutting firewood, collecting maple syrup, setting fence, and more. Can a single tractor do that? Probably not.

We have decided to start with oxen because of their low costs of entry. You can buy dairy bull calves for $10-40 each. You can make your own yoke. Cattle don't suffer the inumerable maladies that equines do. The costs of exit are low too- if that ox doesn't work out for some reason, you can eat it! Of course you could do the same with equine, we just don't have much of a culture of eating horse-flesh in this country. The drawbacks of oxen over horses or mules is probably their speed. At this point, we aren't trying to farm hundreds of acres with them, so I don't really see slow speed as a problem. Their slowness also makes them easier to handle by children and we hope to engage our daughter in training and using these guys.

Here is what our "oxen-to-be" look like so far. Keep in mind they are only one month old! We keep them in a well bedded horse stall during the frigid nights and let them romp outside once the temp gets above 20 during the day. Feeding includes 3x day non-medicated 22% protein milk replacer, electrolytes, and probiotics. We are also giving them around .5lb/day of 18% protein textured feed ration made up of oats, mollasses, & vitamins. Starting this month we will let them out onto some grass for a couple hours a day to begin their grazing habit as their little rumens develop. As for training, we are just walking each of them with a halter every couple days, getting them used to it and spending time brushing and petting them. I have to admit, it's a lot of fun having these guys in our life. I call them "my boys".

Four Jersey bull calves that have adopted us

Book Released! Farms With A Future

I have been alluding to the fact that I was writing a book for some time now. I took a year to travel around the country and meet dozens of creative, innovative, hard-working farmers and ranchers, hoping to learn from their mistakes and successes and find a handful that I could profile in the book (indeed, I covered many of these farms in my blog over the last couple years). I then spent around 6 months turning those interviews and advice gleaned from other agricultural experts into 272 pages of wit, wisdom, and pratical nuts-and-bolts ideas on how a farmer might be able to build a sustainable business. The final result is 15 case studies of these farms built into 13 chapters on different business topics related to farming, such as creative financing, finding & securing land, farm planning, equipment and infrastructure, marketing, human resources, and more. I should point out that this book has been a work of many- each chapter was content reviewed by an outside expert. It's not a memoir, it's not about me nor our farm. I only include a couple small anecdotes of what we did right and wrong.

Some may say that I have "no right" to write a farm business guide because I am not running my own farm at this moment in time. It is true we did decide to sell our farm business, travel for some time, and learn from others (I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to reinvent/refresh their entrepreneurial vigor) . We were looking for inspiration and working models to show us how we could do it better the next time. With the money we earned from selling our previous business, we will be buying our first bit of land this next year and starting something new based on a lot of the ideas we gleaned from others and our new holistic goal for the family, which is, "My family and I will create and support health and wellness while pursuing our passions, caring for our community, and improving our environment." What that next farm business will look like is up in the air. Our business plan will be fleshed out over the winter as we further analyze the market conditions of this region and find the right peice of land, among other considerations. In the meantime, we have bought some dairy bull calves to begin training as oxen and are looking to purchase a couple all-purpose farm dogs such as English Shepherds. We are consulting for other farmers on things such as grant writing, energy conservation, multi-species grazing, and pasture management (which in turns educates us even further). It's so exciting to have this opportunity in our lives.

So of course I would love it if you bought my book, read it thoroughly, maybe even passed it onto a friend or colleague that you think might glean something from it. My goal for this book is to save you a few headaches and provide some ideas and inspiration for you to build a business that works for you, your land, your animals, and your people. We are all in this together....

Meat my Survey!

Hello kind and gentle readers. In my perpetual attempt to reinvent myself, I am thinking of taking this blog to the streets via a new print magazine dedicated to every MEATY. I know it's a crazy idea- moving to print when everybody's moving to digital. Call me a Luddite, but I like things on PAPER that I can dogear, throw in my backpack, read over breakfast, take on a plane, file in a box, pull back out years later, or give to a friend when I think she just "has to read that one article". I think others would like a meat magazine in print too. So in my risk-averse, slow-planning style, I am asking YOU to give me some feedback on this magazine idea via a survey. It will take you only a few minutes- there are only 7 questions. Please, please, please take the time to fill it out before I go blow all my money on a stupid magazine idea!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6BC59V2

No need to comment on this post, just go fill out the survey if you have opinions!

THANKS!

 

A Meaty Conference

The animal behavior and welfare expert Temple Grandin will be there, I will be there, but will you?

Join a diverse group of professionals within the local and niche meat industry for two days of panel discussions, workshops, networking and demonstrations at the Carolina Meat Conference, to be held at the beautiful WinMock Barn & Events Center in Bermuda Run, NC. Topics include cured meats in retail and foodservice, efficiency in small plants, regulatory issues, controlling input costs in pastured meat production, challenges of value-added processing, innovative marketing, and more! Back by popular demand- intensive hands-on workshops for consumers, farmers and chefs. I will be there leading an honest discussion about the challenges of running a direct market meat farm, as well as doing a book signing.

When: December 3-4, 2012

Where: Bermuda Run, NC (near Winston-Salem)

Cost: Only $145 (includes meals), a steal for the quality of education you will receive

How to register: go to www.carolinameatconference.com

I look forward to seeing you there!

Ramblings on Mark Bittman and Meat vs. Produce

Last week I had the privilege of hearing Mark Bittman, cookbook author and NYT writer, speak at an event in Portland, Oregon. Although I admit to not reading much of his work and owning only ONE cookbook at the moment (Joy of Cooking!, what else?), I follow him on Twitter and occasionally read one of his opinion pieces in The Times now and again. I was pleasantly surprised to hear him focus the majority of his talk on the myriad of problems in the food system instead of waxing on about cooking and other foodie fluff that I assumed he was going to talk about (based on the fact that his talk was part of a fluffy foodie fest in PDX). His speech was essentially a repeat of everything you hear Michael Pollen or Erik Schlosser talk about in Food Inc. or Fast Food Nation, but it's important to have several voices out there repeating essentially the same thing. More people are likely to hear that way.

However, Mark Bittman's continued portrayel of meat as "bad" and produce as "good" is starting to annoy me. My background in science, especially agroecology, instructs me that everything needs to be looked at in context to it's connections to other organisms and natural processes. Well managed livestock, for example, can be a nice complementary activity with other forms of agriculture and can reduce input dependency. In terms of human health and sustenance, we all know that animal products contain more calories, protein, and fat (i.e. nutritional density) than most plant-based foods. In a world of dwindling food supplies, those things are important. Instead of labeling one food as good or bad, let's look at some of the nuances and grey areas of meat production (part of the whole reason behind this blog!). Although I do agree with Mark's labeling of some food as "nonfoods" and other food as just "food". Soda and Hot Cheetos are undoubtedly "nonfoods". Let's say bye, bye to them...

So while Mark was railing against the supposed ills associated with animal agriculture (as if it's all done the same exact way around the world), I began to think about the old farm we used to have. We rented 20 acres of land in a floodplain that was not appropriate for crop production because much of it was under water for 3-5 months a year (flooded fields are considered a food safety hazard for crops). However, because it flooded, it kept the pastures greener much longer into the dry California summer. The hard clay held onto moisture and nutrients, but would scare most fruits or vegetables away by constricting their roots. Hardy perennial grasses, clovers, and mustards did just fine there and supported a diverse menagerie of animals that we raised. So I think you get my point that pasture and animals were a good fit with the land.

Next to us was a slightly raised up field that had topsoil added to it over the years to get it just above the active floodplain. Another farmer rented this field and grew berries and vegetables. The majority of his acreage was planted with one crop though- organic strawberries.

So after listening to Mark Bittman talk about all the environmental and public health ills created by animal production, I decided to do a little comparative math between the inputs and outputs of our animal production with the neighboring berry production. The organic strawberry numbers were derived from a UC-Davis publication on sample organic strawberry production costs, so those number are averages.

Measurement	Org. Strawberries/ACRE	Animal Combo*/ACRE
Water Usage	868,937 gallons	130,341 gallons (1/5th the water usage)
Fertilizer Usage	5 tons compost/acre 500 lbs bloodmeal/acre 94.5 gallons liquid & foliar fertilizers	0 (animal excrement provides all needed fertilizer)
Tillage	Average of 11 tractor passes/row	0 (no tillage used for pasture establishment)
Calories Produced	2,736,000 per acre (strawberries have high sugar content, thus high calories)	4,546,875 per acre (40% more)
Protein Produced	57,600 grams per acre	351,973 grams per acre (83.6% more

 *Animal combination includes rotating 2,500 laying hens, 250 pigs, and 6 beef steers across 20 acres using rotational grazing.

So as you can see in this table above, strawberries utilize a considerable amount of water. Produce in general requires a significant amount of water, yet the water footprint of fruits and vegetables is hardly discussed. With increasing droughts, dropping water tables, salt water intrusion into groundwater, and climate change, I'm not sure we should be promoting growing more water hungry crops as a replacement for eating meat. Plus, think of all the areas of our land mass that can't or shouldn't be irrigated- they could support rotationally grazed livestock but they will never support irrigated agriculture. So our integrated animal production used about 1/5th of the water, which was mostly needed to irrigate pasture for a few months out of the year and run the automatic waterers for the animals.

As for fertilizer use, we did not use any in the 6 years of renting this ground. The animal excrement was all that was needed. As practitioners of rotational grazing, our animals spread and deposited their manure all over the fields. The strawberry farmer had to use compost, bloodmeal (which comes from factory farmed animals), fish emulsion, and other liquid organic fertilizers to grow his crop. Who knows the embodied energy that went into making those fertilizers and transporting them to his fields.

Regarding tillage, we used no tillage at all. Our animals revitalized the pastures and we overseeded a couple times. The strawberry farmer made an average of 11 tractor passes before the berries were planted. Each tractor pass not only burns a bunch of fuel, but it also compacts the soil. Because we practiced multi-species rotational grazing, our soil compaction was limited, usually to just right around the automatic waterers.

Now for the outputs of production, strawberries, being a high sugar fruit, do produce a decent amount of calories per acre. If the farmer averaged 24,000 pints of berries/acre x 114 calories per pint, then they produce around 2,736,000 calories per acre. Between our eggs, pork, and beef, we produced an average of 4,546,875 calories per acre (this is in raw form, not the cooked products). I based this number on average egg production and carcass yields. That means we produced around 40% more calories per acre. I did not factor into this equation the grain feed that went into the chickens and pigs because our feeds were mostly waste feeds derived from wheat middlings, brewer's spent grains, waste vegetables, and local, dry-farmed barley.

As for protein, our animals obviously produced more (being made of protein!), producing nearly 351,973 grams per acre while strawberries produced only 57,600 grams per acre. Humans need much more than protein, but this illustrates the nutrient density of the foods we were producing. And keep in mind that we were using land inappropriate for vegetable or berry production. In fact, two other farmers tried growing produce on that land before us, and they both quickly pulled everything out before they lost their shirts.

So not only did we produce more food with less inputs, but we did so on land that was not suitable for growing fruits, vegetables, or nuts. So my suggestion to Mark Bittman is to investigate further how animal agriculture can be suitable on certain types of land with certain types of resources constraints and that eating grass-based animal products can be more sustainable at times. It can use less water, little to no fertilizer, utilize little to no tillage, and produce more food and more calories to feed a growing population. Imagine if there were hundreds of thousands of us small livestock producers all over the world feeding our local communities instead of 3 or 4 enormous meat packers controlling our meat supply? That seems like something worth supporting. So instead of constantly railing against the problems in our food supply, let's start supporting the positive alternatives before it's too late. And let's develop a more holistic, science-based understanding of our food system instead of casting everything as black or white. That's my goal and I'm sticking to it!

Small Farmers Matter

I just had to post this little bit of prose from Lynn R. Miller, founder and editor of the Small Farmer's Journal...

WE ARE THE LANDSCAPE

"To say we are small farmers is to say something very important. We are not miners. We are stewards. We are not users. We are husbands. We practise farming methods which retain water and build soils. We embrace low impact approaches to working because of the smaller ‘footprint’ but also because it suits our economy. We don’t poison. We refresh. We harvest with hand and eye and we distribute the same way. We walk our fields and gardens and ‘look’ at them and into them because we want to know them. And we want to know that land because from the knowledge come the right answers to problems and opportunities. We are not factory workers. We are shepherds. We are not tacticians or economists or efficiency experts. We are parents, lovers, artists, and gardeners. We are not landscape architects. We are the landscape. We are not theologians. We are the religion. We are not destroying the planet we are healing her. We are small farmers." – Lynn R. Miller

 

If you don't subscribe to the Small Farmers' Journal, you should. It's everything the independent, sustainably-minded family-farmer would ever want, along with some gorgeous photography, poetry, and prose thrown in.

The Invisible Butchers

The hardworking butchers of Alleghany Meats, Monterey, Virginia

Have you ever thought about the people that cut up the meat you so enjoy? If you are buying factory-farmed meat, then the workers who cut up that meat would probably not be smiling like this (nor would they have the light skin tone of these folks above, to be truthful). Big meat plants favor speed and robotic-like efficiency, doing the same move over and over until repetitive use injuries force a worker to leave. Smaller plants can treat their workers, the animals, and the resulting meat with much more care, just as a small-scale farmer can pay more attention to each plant they grow.

There's a myriad of reasons why our country needs these small meat processing facilities and we need much more of them. From the on-farm facilities like Sugar Mtn. Farm to mobile slaughter like Island Grown Farmers Cooperative to regional all-in-one facilities like Marksbury Farm, we need more places that independent farmers can take their animals to be killed humanely and expertly butchered. This permits the farmers to market their own meat, instead of receiving the abysmal prices that middlement or auctions offer. It allows farmers to remain independent, focus on quality, and build a brand in the marketplace instead of joining a bunch of anonymous meat that's out there.

Alleghany Meats is one recent effort to bring USDA-inspected slaughter and butchering services to the mountainous region of West Virginia and Virginia. Although only a few months old, local farmers are already seeing the benefits of having their animals expertly processed at Alleghany for their own retail sales. Read more in a recent article I wrote about Alleghany Meats and their general manager Chris Fuller at this Cooking Up a Story link.

Starting or Revamping a Farm? Then Buy THE Book!

What makes a farm sustainable and successful? And what special qualities and skills are needed for someone to become a successful farmer? I go about trying to address these and other crucial business questions in my new book, which I think is a must-read for anyone who aspires to get into farming, or who wants to make their farm business more dynamic, profitable, and, above all, sustainable (in a triple-bottom line sense). Over an entire year, me and my husband- both experienced farmers ourselves- took a sabbatical and traveled the length and breadth of the United States to live and work alongside some of the nation's most innovative farmers. Many of my blog posts over the last year feature some of those farms we visited. Our daughter came along for the ride too, learning a great deal about US history, geography, culture, and bioregions. Along the trip we learned about farming best practices, and a whole lot about what doesn't work too. Our previous farming experiences reaffirmed many of the lessons we learned. My new book Farms with a Future: Creating and Growing a Sustainable Farm Business shares some of this collective wisdom in an inspirational yet practical manner; it will help beginners avoid many of the common mistakes that first-time farmers make. Just as importantly, it discusses positive ideas that can help make any farm enterprise more vibrant and financially profitable. Profiles of more than a dozen representative farms help round out the invaluable information and encourage farmers to embrace their inner entrepreneur. Younger growers, in particular, will benefit by learning about "the right stuff" from both their peers and longtime experts. This book provides a useful reference for beginning and experienced farmers alike. While many other books address agricultural production, there are very few that talk about business management for long-term sustainability. Farms with a Future offers an approachable, colorful take on building a triple-bottom-line farming business. Each chapter and topic has been peer reveiwed by outside experts- this book is a compedium of advice.

You can pre-order my new book here: Farms with a Future. Publication date is in November!

Landing Successfully: Serendipity Organic Farm, CA

Photo above: Jamie Collins, owner of Serendipity Organic Farm, growns healthy crops on the fallow fields of nearby mansions.

I first became interested in land tenure issues while studying tropical agriculture during an exchange program in the small Central American country of Belize. The best farmland there, flattish and deep with well-draining soils, was mostly occupied by larger export-oriented firms growing crops like oranges and cacao. The steeper hillsides was where the peasants farmed- often practicing a form of shifting agriculture that was unduly criticised for its use of fire. While staying with a Mayan family for a few days, I got to understand their slash and burn technique better, as well as many of their other agricultural techniques more akin to permaculture- things like rainwater harvesting, swales, hand-dug ponds, wildcrafting, and agroforestry in which they planted fast-growing trees for firewood, construction-grade wood, shade, livestock fodder, and other uses. The crop diversity was staggering, as was their ability to grow nearly everything they needed. This particular family only had to purchase the occasional bag of salt at the nearest market. They even grew their own coffee and sugar- my kind of people. What is so intriguing to me was that there in Belize and much of the rest of the world sustainable agricultural practices start to break down chiefly because of dwindling access to family and community lands. The Mayan families in Belize were having to shorten the length of their crop rotations due to their ancestral lands being divied off to the Forestry Department, private lumber companies, or ag-export businesses. What was once a sustainable 15 year rotation in which they would harvest the most valuable trees and then burn the underbrush followed by one year of planting crops such as corn and then allowing the forest to re-grow for the following 14 seasons was now being shortened to only a couple year fallow. The forests don't get a chance to regrow where they could support tons of wildlife, control soil erosion, capture rainfall, and rebuild soil fertility. Instead, the rotation was shortened because there is less land available and now the whole system begins to unravel- wildlife like howler monkeys suffer, soil erosion increases washing away vital topsoil, rainfall runs off quickly to local streams instead of being captured and stored in the soil with the tree root systems, and the whole landscape heats up and tends towards desertification. Likewise, the food diversity and wild game that used to support the family starts to dwindle, making the family more reliant on outside income to purchase their food, firewood, etc. Studies around the world have shown essentially the same thing- that lack of secure land tenure ( tenure meaning "to hold" the land) leads to unsustainable growing practices and harms food security. It also makes it really hard to build a farm business.

In the United States we are running into essentially the same problem, especially for first-generation and young farmers who don't have access to family land or deep pockets to secure land. This problem is quite serious- how will our next generation of farmers feed us when they can't access the land they need? How will lack of land tenure affect global food security? The USDA is predicting a nearly 6% increase in farmland prices over last year, following a couple years of double-digit growth mostly due to high commodity prices. That means that in the last 5 years, farmland prices have increased by a staggering 25% and in some areas much more! Maybe the bubble will burst, but the overall trend is always upward. What is a new farmer to do?

My new book "Farms with a Future" will include a thorough chapter on the subject of Finding and Securing Land, guided by input from a lot of farmers I have met and the founder of California FarmLink, Steven Schwartz, who gave me lots of technical information. There are a myriad of creative ideas packed into that chapter, much of it inspired by my friend and former neighbor, Jamie Collins. Jamie has struggled for years to piece together the farmland she needs to make a viable organic farming business. It seems like she has finally created the the right scale business with the right parcels of land- some of it residing in the cooler fog zone that cool-season veggies love and some acreage in the warmer interior in order to grow succulent heirloom tomatoes, avocadoes, lemons, and other delicious produce. She even has her own little 5 acre home base now, achieved with the help of one of her relatives that is allowing Jamie to eventually take title to the land. There she can grow perennials, start her crops in a greenhouse, raise some animals, and pack and store her produce- things she couldn't really do successfully on leased land.

Listen to her story in the audio link below to understand how she has struggled and overcame problems with land and markets, using a combination of creativity, tenacity, and good ol' fashioned negotiation skills.

Photo above: Serendipity Organic Farm's heirloom tomato display at a fancy food festival.

Jamie Collins Audio Interview:

JamieCollins-SerendipityOrganicFarm

Pre-order my new book: Farms with a Future: Creating and Growing a Sustainable Farm Business, to be released this November by Chelsea Green Publishers! Thanks ya'all!

Book Final Stretches

I still love you kind readers, but have to take a brief blogging hiatus while I finish up my book. I am working with the wonderful Chelsea Green Publishing out of Vermont to create what I hope will be a useful reference for beginning and experienced farmers alike. Books on agricultural production proliferate while those on business management for sustainability are scarce. My book "Farms with a Future" will add another arrow to your quiver with an approachable, colorful take on building a triple-bottom line farming business, complete with stories of over a dozen farms we admire. Until then, enjoy my previous posts and farmer interviews, buy some of the great books off my website library, and have a productive, abundant, safe and healthy season! See you in a couple months.....

Values-Based Butchery

Author's Note: This was a short blog post I wrote for the nascent organization of craft butchers called The Butcher's Guild. They have an Oath that they ask each of their members to commit to. I used that Oath as a framework for this short article about how they can bring more values and meat ethics into their craft and businesses as butchers and meat purveyors. Thanks for reading!

 

As a Butcher’s Guild member you take an oath to uphold certain values as you practice your craft and run your business. What does it look like to embody these values as it pertains to the sourcing of your meat and how you present it to your customers?

Heart: I maintain integrity in relationships with customers and vendors. Relationship integrity means several things- transparency, fair pricing negotiations, upholding quality, and being truthful about your challenges. In short, it is about honesty. Are you telling your customers the full story of your meat products? Are you using words that obfuscate the truth or ones that explain exactly how the animal was raised, where it was raised, and who the actual farmer is? When you say “local”, what does that mean exactly? When you say “natural”, what are the actual practices behind that word? Being clear about what your definitions are will help educate your customers and will demonstrate your integrity. Commit to that honesty.

Source: I aim to support local, sustainable farms and practice whole animal butchery. It can be challenging to call up several different farmers to order meat, but have you even tried? Are you willing to build and strengthen relationships with farmers who are upholding your values and need time to produce the volume that you need? Or do you flit around buying a little bit here and there but not making that commitment to see a farmer grow to scale? Do you buy meat from a local farmer for special events but then go back to your ‘regular’ meat middleman the rest of the time? What is preventing you from making that commitment to the local farmer? Make sure you define what local and sustainable means to you so you can be transparent, as mentioned above. Go visit the farms in person so you can improve your understanding of animal production practices. Ask questions, dig a little deeper. If an animal is raised in confinement in Canada and fed conventional, GMO feeds and then slaughtered in your state and processed into sausage, don’t call that local, don’t call that sustainable. Be truthful about what it is and work to find more values-based sources closer to home. 

Hand: I strive to improve my knife skills and knowledge of the trade. You know this one better than I do. But consider that being a skilled and knowledgeable butcher starts at the farm. Understand how animals are raised and killed and maybe even participate in that process so you can appreciate all the details, logistics, and energy that goes into meat production. Learn to have reverence for the animal whose life was given for the meat in your walk-in- this will encourage you to work even harder to utilize the whole animal to it’s maximum value and reduce waste wherever possible. These actions will not only make you a more conscientious butcher but also a better ambassador for the meat you are selling.

Voice: I am an active community member and encourage a healthy food system. Being an advocate for a healthy food system must start with how you eat yourself, how you work with your supply chain, how you communicate your values and educate your consumers. Every dollar you spend is a vote for the food system you want to see. If your dollars are going to investor-owned corporations, confinement animal production, farms that feed conventional, GMO grains, or those that exploit their workers or turn their contract farmers into serfs, than that is the farming system that will remain the status quo. If you want to see a more diversified, family-operated, grass and pasture-based, non-GMO and non-chemical food system, than put your time and money into it. If your regular suppliers are not upholding all the values that you strive for, communicate to them what you would like to see. Then commit to work with them through their transition to more sustainable practices. We will all be better off for it.

Have Goat, Will Travel: Vanguard Ranch, Virginia

As a military kid, Renard Turner moved around a lot. Not the kind of life conducive to witnessing the rhythms of farming nor having much of a chance to be involved in it. Nevertheless, in California where his family settled for a few years, Renard got a chance to join his high school’s Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter and he excelled in the agricultural science classes the school provided. He went on to work a couple decades in the medical field, but still held the dream of farming in the back of his head.

After a time living in Washington D.C., he and his wife Chinette decided to move out to the country, and found the verdant rolling hills of central Virginia calling them. Gordonsville is ideally located within a 2-hour drive of several large population centers, great for anybody trying to make a living direct market farming but far enough away not to just be an over-priced bedroom community full of unaffordable “ranchettes”. The Turner’s started out as homesteaders, trying to be as self-sufficient as possible and even building their own house from scratch.

They first dabbled in sheep and even ostriches, but settled on meat goats about 8 years ago. The forage base was not right for grass-loving sheep and the ostriches were mean and simply not enjoyable to raise. Their land was a mixture of pasture and forest with quite a bit of browse and weeds- perfect for goats.

Right from the beginning, Renard knew that he had to direct market his goat meat and get the highest and best value for it. He simply wasen’t going to survive selling goats at auction or to a wholesaler. He stumbled upon the idea of a mobile concession trailer after a long conversation he had at the Virginia State Fair with a lemonade concessionaire. Renard learned that this lemonade man and his family spent half the year traveling to fairs and festivals and the other half of the year fishing in Florida- not a bad life. Renard figured the concept might work for him too- spend part of the year traveling to fairs on the weekends and the other half of the year focusing on farm projects and production.

Even though goat meat is the most widely consumed meat on the planet, Americans seem a bit slow to pick up eating it as habit. Still, Renard has no trouble selling it- once people try a bite of one of his samples he often sets out, they inevitably end up buying a whole plate. Renard has perfected some delicious goat recipes that appeal to a broad swath of people, including goat burgers, goat kebabs, and curried goat. He travels to county and state fairs, food festivals, music festivals, and other events with his concession trailer. His wife often comes along and helps him cook, and a couple part-time employees that do most of the selling and money collection. Most meat producer’s jaws are going to drop when I tell you this next tidbit. I asked Renard what an average pound of his goat meat sells for after he transforms it into these value-added meals- “Around $36-38 a pound, on the conservative side”. Listen to more of our interesting conversation about goat breeding, pasture management, direct marketing, value-added processing, and more by clicking on the button below.

RenardTurner-VanguardRanch

Renard with his goats and herding dog.

The Turners new hoophouse is full to the brim with organic vegetables, ingredients they use in their ready-to-eat meals.

Some of the Vanguard Ranch goats- Kiko & Valero maternal lines crossed with a Myotonic buck.

Photos courtesy of the Vanguard Ranch website.

 

Planning for Success: Crown S Ranch, WA

Husband and wife duo Louis Sukovaty and Jennifer Argraves are farming on Louis's childhood homestead in the Methow Valley of north central Washington. These former engineers both had the pleasure of growing up on small, self-sufficient farms as children and wanted to provide the same rich experience for their kids. So they left the concrete and long-hours of the city (Seattle) and joined the soil and long-hours of the country. Their dedication to long-term planning, intensive research, and a willingness to experiment has created a successful, diverse farming business and a model of sustainability.

On 150 acres of pastures, crop fields, and forest they are raising several species of livestock and poultry, grains and hay crops, as well as organic vegetables, rotating them around in a 7 year cycle. In their farmstand cooler you might find grassfed beef, grassfed lamb, pastured pork, pastured turkey, and pastured chicken and eggs. You can also find organic vegetables and new ready-to-eat meals such as tamales, shepherds pie, or chicken soup all with their homegrown ingredients. You don't have to drive all the way out to the farm though because Crown S Ranch delivers around the Puget Sound region with an innovative meat CSA, as well as to a few small retailers and a couple farmers markets. They have no intention to "feed the world", just feed families in their region with really good, healthy food. In their minds, the 150 acre farm model that they are creating can create food security and food safety around the country, and help get more people into farming while creating sustainable livelihoods. They invite customers and wanna-be farmers out to their farm through internships and a small little cabin they renovated for their unique "Haycation" program. Unlike a traditional B&B experience, they encourage their "Haycationers" to get involved on the farm, help collect eggs, and learn a little about where their food comes from. Creating those connections with consumers helps them better understand the food system and want to become more invested in it.

Listen to my interview with Jennifer as we talk about their families's committment to soil health, humane animal care, teaching the next generation, and creating resilient systems of production that produce more food per acre while building fertility for the future. 

JenniferArgravesCrownSRanch

 

Photos above courtesy of Crown S Ranch- www.crown-s-ranch.com

Of Curds & Whey: Amaltheia Organic Dairy, Belgrade, Montana

Unconventional farmers tend to like to prove that the impossible is possible. The word "can't" is simply not a member of their vocabulary. In the high mountain pastures of Sue and Melvyn Brown's farm near Belgrade, Montana a beautiful interplay of passion, frolicking animals, and a closed nutrient cycle is being carried out with delectable cheeses and pork as the end results. They are proving the naysayers wrong.

First the Brown's started a commercial goat dairy in Montana, the first of it's kind. Then they built a cheese plant where they produce an array of soft cheeses when no one else in the state would. Then they got it all certified organic because that is their belief system of how animals should be raised and the land stewarded. However, they still did not have a productive way to utilize all of the whey that is a product of cheese-making. So they then added pastured pigs to turn the whey into meat which they sell in stores around Montana. They also have figured out how to turn their animal manure (that which isn't deposited directly onto the fields) into a high-quality organic compost that backyard gardeners and organic farmers both utilize. This is a great example of what is called "complimentary enterprises".

Amaltheia Organic Dairy grows almost all of their own hay and grains in addition to the pastures that the animals rotate around on. This helps to reduce their feed costs and also reduces their dependency on the transcontinental shipping of feed grains that many other livestock producers require. They have restored riparian habitat on their farm and are eagerly exploring renewable energy technologies that will increase their sustainability. They have won awards for their ecologically-friendly, low-waste practices and for their delicious cheeses. The Brown's are also committed educators, hosting over 1,500 people a year on their farm, many of them schoolchildren.

Listen to this 45 minute interview with Melvyn Brown to hear more about how they got started, navigating all of the layers of regulations, and more. Perhaps it will give you a few ideas to 'ferment on'!

MelvynBrown-AmaltheiaOrganicDairy

Photos above courtesy of Sue & Melvyn Brown from their website- www.amaltheiadairy.com

 

Treat Em' Right: Building for Healthy, Happy Animals

We have visited a lot of farms this year and peered at hundreds more as we drove past them in our RV. Sadly, so many of the beautiful, functional barns and outbuildings of our nation's farms are falling apart, caving in, and melting back into the earth. Farmers of today are trying to rebuild that infrastructure, often with limited financial and labor resources. Other than the famous Amish barn-raisings, our rural areas and farms often lack the people power to build anything grandiose and lasting. We have quite intently as a nation depopulated the country-side.

Likewise, the vast majority of farmers today are renters- they don't own the land they farm. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that they will build anything permanent and probably not in their best interest to do so unless the landlord offers to pay for the infrastructure. We faced this same situation when we farmed and had to build everything portable because of the annual flooding that was getting worse and worse each year as the creek filled up with sediment from excessive farmland erosion in the watershed. Additionally, building portable structures facilitates the practice of rotational grazing, something we feel is essential for good livestock husbandry. Build it right for good management. Permanent structures sometimes lead to poor management and manure build-up in one place.

Here are a few structures we have built over the years (I say "we" but it was mostly my husband. I provided design feedback and set some screws but that was about it).

Mobile Hen Houses (for nesting & roosting) out of old cotton trailers & recycled metal roofing.

Inside of cotton trailer coop after cleaning out the straw. The end of the trailer contains a water system connected to handing bell waterers accessible underneath the trailer. Keeping the water inside keeps it cool and prevents algal growth.

Mobile roosting house for laying hens. We believe hens should roost separate from where they lay, which helps keep the poop off the nesting boxes. This one resides at Soul Food Farm, CA and was made from a Farm Tek frame & tarps with homemade wooden skids & roosting bars. Roosting only needs to be 4-5 inches off the ground- which prevents hens from pooping on each other.

Mobile shelter for pigs. Made of mostly recycled materials stripped from other broken down structures exept for the 4x6 wooden skids.

Another version of mobile pig shelter, just tinkering with design to see which one holds up the best and the pigs utilize. Again, mostly recycled materials except the 4x6s.

Three different mobile pig farrowing house designs, using old grain tanks and recycled metal roofing. The high board at the entry helps keep the piglets inside for the first week so they will focus on feeding and getting stronger. The sow can come and go as she pleases. A wooden bar on the inside provides a sheltered corner for the piglets to prevent them from getting rolled on by their momma.

All of these structures above were built for less than $200 dollars each (in new materials) and should last anywhere between 5-10 years with only minor repairs. More importantly, they all will improve the lives of the animals that use them, providing shelter, safety, and the ability for us humans to move them around the land. What are you tinkering with?

From Monopoly to Many- How Do We Do It?

"They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization."  Declaration of the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly, Sept. 30th.

This is the declaration that the Occupy Wall Street activists have made regarding our food system. It is just one of the many gross inequities they see perpetuated by our corporate dominated so-called democracy. Of those that know about the occupations taking place all over the country, the majority  agree or sympathize with the cause, while a few think the protestors are just out-of-work complainers. (Funny how in Libya we call them "Freedom Fighters" and in our country we call them lazy whiners. Mmmm....). Anyways, how can you turn a complaint into a solution? Let's get busy talking....just keep the conversation civil. I don't want to hear any platitudes like "Life isn't fair", ok?

Here are my humble ideas, built upon a bit o' input from my blog readers. I start at the personal level (self) and then expand out from there into different spheres of influence. This is by no means rocket science, but rather a little food for thought-

The Personal

• Buy Organic and/or low input foods (avoid potential poisons)
• Buy High-Welfare animal products (avoid negligent, cramped, & unsafe animal production)
• Buy Local & Small (avoid monopolies, avoid food miles which produce air pollution & contribute to climate change)
• Buy Family-Farmed (avoid monopolies, huge corporations, anonymous shareholder farming)
• Buy from Independent Grocers & Restaurants, especially those that purchase local & organic ingredients (build local economies, avoid monopolies, avoid potential poisons)
• Don't use poisons in your own yards & gardens (avoid potential poisons)
• Invest your money in local, organic farms (build local economies, decrease opportunities for monopolization, keep the potential poisons out of your back yard)

The Neighborhood/Community

• Organize a farmers market, food buying club, CSA drop site, or food cooperative in your neighborhood or town (build local economies, avoid food monopolies)
• Get your local schools, parks, and towns to stop using pesticides in their landscaping, road maintenance, etc. (avoid potential poisons, avoid the monopolies that are producing the poisons)
• Share extra food from your garden with your neighbors, especially the poor (build resilient, local economies, avoid corporate food monopolies, spread health & wellness)
• Teach others in your community (local schools, churches, clubs, Scouts, etc.) how to produce food without poisions (avoid potential poisions, build local self-reliance)
• Build a diverse group of community stakeholders to form a Food Policy Council, a tool for implementing local-level change for a more sustainable, diverse food system that better meets local food security needs (build local food system, avoid monopolization of our food supply)

The Political

• Support the states and townships that have passed laws to disallow corporate ownership of farms and farmland (this does not preclude family corporations such as LLCs). Encourage your county, township, or state to do the same.
• Lend your voice to changing the rules how GIPSA (Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyard Administration of the USDA) regulates the meat packers which will help break up the huge meat packing monopolies that put a stranglehold on family-farmers across the country. Read here for more detail.
• Support the restrictions on pesticide use and the banning of the pesticide Bad Actors (which are those that are known or probable carcinogens & aquatic toxins, according to peer-reviewed science). Use the Precautionary Principle as a basis for pesticide science instead of "innocent until proven guilty", as is the current model.
• Support laws that limit the revolving-door between corporations and goverment agencies (like former Monsanto VP now heading the FDA!). This might limit corporate power in our so-called Democratic process.
• Support the Dept. of Justice investigations into meat packer and seed company monopolies. Encourage the DOJ to do their job and break up the monopolies. Don't buy from those monopolies (Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, Cargill, ADM, Bunge, Smithfield, Tyson, Dean Foods, Walmart, etc.) and instead support the myriad of local and regional businesses that supply our farm inputs and purchase farm commodities.
• Support a complete overhaul of the Farm Bill, reducing payments to large corporate agribusiness and instead building a system that supports the proliferation of more sustainable family farms!

 

Now what do YOU think? Anything to add or delete, in your opinion?

Goodness From The Grass Up: Misty Brook Farm, MA

What does it mean these days to start a farm from SCRATCH? Who are the bootstrappers?, those who pull up their businesses from their own resources, ingenuity, and small bit o' capital, combined with a heaping does of PASSION?

Brendan and Katia Holmes epitomize bootstrappers- they are first generation farmers working to produce quality, organic food in central Massachusetts- an area with expensive land and a dwindling number of commercial farmers.  Raw milk from their herd of 25 Jersey cows is the backbone of their business, not only generating the majority of their revenues but also dictating the management of most the land they rent- over 200 acres on 14 different properties!  It takes that much land to run a truly grass-based dairy and to grow, harvest, and put up all the forages the cows will need when a blanket of snow covers all their fields.

The sound of their dairy cows rushing into their new 12 hour pasture, tearing off a mouthful of tall, succulent grasses and clovers, barely pausing to chew a bit before they wrapped their lips around the next clump, was almost deafening.  If cows could squeel with excitement like pigs, we would have needed ear plugs.  You can see some of that beautiful grass in the picture above with a proud farmer showing off her Jersey genetics.  It takes Katia or Brendon only 15 minutes or so to set up a new fenced pasture, move over the water trough with a float valve for automatic filling, and open the gate for the anxious cows behind it.  As a result of their high-intensity, short-duration grazing they have turned once overgrazed and overhayed pastures into species rich, verdant, and most importantly- nutrious forage for their 100% grassfed cows.  You read that right- Misty Brook's cows are fed exclusively on green forage either when it's growing in their fields for 7 or so months of the year or with stored baylage, silage, or hay that they try to put up all on their own.  Their cows looked healthy, not 'ribby' like many grassfed cows I have seen on this trip, and their rich milk has a golden color from their plant rich diets. Jack Lazor, their former employer and mentor from Butterworks Farm in Vermont, would be proud.

In addition to milk and cheese, they produce beef, pork, eggs, broilers, grains, and vegetables, all certified organic.  They sell most of their goods through CSA, including a new All-You-Can-Eat whole diet CSA, and a self-serve farm store.  And they do this all on rented land.  Hopefuly one day that will change- this is one farm that Massachusetts is lucky to have around producing healthy organic (& biodynamically) grown foods.

Here is our inspiring interview below:

MistyBrookFarm8.11.11