This reminds me that the realrevolution in cattle has not yet begun. But this shows us that it is real. This shows us that industrial beef cannot compete with grain fedbeef. What has kept it out of the markethas been costly distribution. Today, theinternet allows the farmer himself to become the direct distributor. My point is that farm gate pricing can go headto head with industrial beef so long as the farmer processes the meat right upto packaging.
The abattoir is quite happy toslaughter and hang the meat for a fee. That way he does not tie up his capital in inventory. The butcher called in will also do it all fora fee. Most important is that two necessarymarkups are avoided all related to satisfying the initial capital paid to thefarmer.
Far more important is that thefarmer controls the product directly to the consumer and can vouch for it.
What the producer is left withare selling costs and that has all changed with the internet and the acceptanceof private labeling. Meat is actually aperfect product for farm based marketing. First it can be frozen if unsold and it can cut to order in front of thecustomer at the farm or as packaged product at local stores.
In this manner it becomespossible to keep the premium low. My friendwho operates turkeys supplied packaged cuts and sausages that competed nicelyin fresh butchered case.
Uppingthe steaks: How grass-fed beef is reshaping ag and helping the planet
By Christopher Weberhttp://grist.org/food/upping-the-steaks-how-grass-fed-beef-is-reshaping-ag-and-helping-the-planet/
Bartlett Durand is the rare local-food entrepreneur who has notrouble turning a profit: Durand’s Black Earth Meats processes andsells grass-fed beef, and these days grass-fed beef sells like crazy.
Located near
“Chefs have been trained in the box beef codes and don’t alwaysknow where the meat comes from on the animal,” Durand explains. “A chef willsay, ‘I want a filet de round.’ My butcher will say, ‘What the hell is that?’”
Grass-fed beef, like “filet de round,” is a concept that eludespeople outside the beef industry. So a little background is in order.
In the months after birth, a calf drinks the rich milk of itsmother. Once weaned, it might be lucky enough to follow mom around the pasturefor a little while, munching grass — but sooner or later, it is customarilysent to a feedlot to be fattened on grain, a process somewhat like tossing ananimal on a full-tilt assembly line. Cows left to fatten in the field are theones that become “grass-fed beef.” They gain the same weight, but moreslowly, taking up to 14 months more, and yield a leaner beef. Somefarmers of grass-fed beef are purists and leave the cow in the pasture till theday it dies. Others “cheat” by giving the cow a month or two of grain at theend, but in the comfort of the barnyard, not a 10,000-head feedlot. Durandsells both kinds.
Durand is a trim 45-year-old who has deep roots in agriculture. Hisgrandfather was a geographer who studied milksheds. “I was a vegetarian incollege because of how meat was raised and handled,” Durand recalls. When hemarried into a farm family, he started helping out and ultimately quit his jobas a lawyer to pursue food full time.
In the $79-billion beef industry, his company is miniscule. Fourgiant companies control 80 percent of the beef market. “A reallybig kill for us would be 50 cows in one day,” says Durand. “A smallpackinghouse processes 1,500 to 3,000 a day.”
Yet his business has the customers to grow. Black Earth buys cowsfrom 78 farmers. To keep up with demand, Durand must convince them to raisemore cows on grass alone. He must also lure new farmers to the field. Andfarmers, though intrigued, are justifiably wary. Is grass-fed beef a fad amongchefs and yuppies destined to peter out, or a major new market?
Folks like Durand are betting on the latter. They believe thatgrass-fed beef — which cuts out both feedlots and the resource-intensivepractice of raising grain just to feed cows — can catalyze a great change inAmerican agriculture.
As FredKirschenmann, a sustainable farmer and noted agricultural scholar, says:“Putting cattle back on pasture will be the beginning of more resilient, lessenergy-intensive farming systems that are more likely to survive in our futureof higher energy costs, unstable climates, and depleted fresh waterand mineral resources.”
Risky business
Because of the farmer’s extra time and investment, grass-fed beefis intrinsically more expensive than feedlot beef. That extra cost gets passedalong to consumers. In my neighborhood supermarket, I found conventional roundsteak on offer for $5.49 a pound. The same cut of steak from Black Earth wentfor $13 a pound.
Such premium prices represent an economic opportunity for farmers,but only if they survive a risky transition to what remains a rarified, nichemarket. Tom Martin of MountainLane Farm in
For Martin, both farming and marketing grass-fed beef have provendifficult. “It’s a work in progress and a learning process,” he explains. “Withgrass-feeding, there’s a lot of science, but there’s some art to it, too.” Forinstance, grass-fed farmers must learn to “listen” for the cows to tell themwhen it’s time to rotate to a fresh pasture.
“Not knowing where the next check is coming from is a littledicey,” he continues. “It’s been a struggle to make the relationships. I feellike locally, people still look at the price and say, ‘That’s too much.’”
Greener pastures
Like other farmers I talked to, Martin made this economic gamble inpart because he values the environmental benefits of grass-feeding.
Grazing pastures provide habitat for lots of creatures, not justcows, from bigbluestem to prairiechickens. When managed properly, they can storecarbon [PDF] in much the same way that a forest does. Finishingcows on the range eliminates the need for concentrated animal feedingoperations, or CAFOs, which sullywater quality fromlittlecreeks all the way down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf ofMexico.
Moreover, a well-managed, ecologically diverse rangeland holds upin drought conditions, according to Greg Judy, a farmer who grass-feeds300 cows in Rucker, Mo. “We’re going to have enough grass in the fields tograze all winter long,” he says, “even though we had no rain for 130 days thispast summer.”
Some folks will protest that the
“We have to remember that raising animals in confinement means wehave to raise lots of corn and soybeans to feed them,” says Kirschenmann. “Alot of that land could be used for grazing on perennials and raising alfalfafor forages, which would have significant ecological benefits.”
To hear some apostles of grass tell it, though, grass-fed beefbegins and ends with taste. Todd Churchill, a farmer who owns Thousand Hills CattleCompany in
But by that logic, even the most immaculately cultivated grass-fedsteak becomes an all-or-nothing taste-test that hordes of Americans will failbecause they grew up on the uniform, greasy taste of feedlot burgers.
The cows that become those burgers taste the same because, from onefeedlot to another, they eat the same thing: industrial feed made from grainsand soy. On the other hand, the grasses on rangeland can vary quite a bit,making grass-fed beef much more heterogeneous and thus something of an acquiredtaste.
“Some people will say it tastes a little gamey,” says Durand. “Youmay get an occasional wild flavor in there, a little extra flavor. This is whatbeef was prior to 1960. Once people understand that’s what it tastes like, theylove it.”
Beefing upproduction
No one keeps reliable statistics on the production of the grass-fedbeef. One agricultural consultant estimates thatin 2009, grass-fed netted $380 million — or 0.005 percent of the totalU.S. beef industry.
The hot sales of grass-fed have piqued the interest of cash-starvedfarmers. Cheap corn is part of what makes feedlots so profitable, and rightnow, because of the drought, corn prices are sky high. As Churchill notes,“I’ve had several farmers in the last month call and say, ‘I’m tired of losing$100 a head putting my cattle in a feedlot. Tell me about your model.’”
Farmers are drawn to small, boutique beef companies like ThousandHills or Black Earth because of their established brand and clients. Yet theymust make significant changes in their operations for the partnership tosucceed.
Black Earth, for instance, refers prospective farmers to an agricultural consultant tohelp them through the transition. The consultant may recommend fortifyingpastures with native grasses, reducing the herd size, adopting new grazingpatterns, moving fences, or all of the above.
Durand offers tutorials as needed. “We had a farmer come in who hadbeen growing conventional steers with corn,” he recalls. “He brought us hisfirst grass-fed steers, and they were poor quality. He took them out of thepasture too early. We had to really work with him on different types of foragecrops he could grow for the cows. It takes a farmer who will listen and respond.”
“They have to think differently,” says Greg Judy. “There has to besome education teaching them how to stockpile forages and plan through adrought. There’s a lot of management to it.”
Farmers are expert managers — but as such, they tend to eschew bigrisks. And this is the conundrum that haunts the grass-fed beef industry: Dofarmers believe in grass-fed enough to bet the farm?
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