Where the Grass is Greener:
Natural/Organic/Grassfed Beef Production and Marketing
—Wylie Harris
A lucky group of Oklahoma ranchers got a three-hour tour
of the production and marketing aspects of natural, organic, and
grassfed beef last November at the Future Farms 2004: Digging
Deeper workshop in Oklahoma City.
The workshop was led by two experts in the field: Ann Wells, a
holistic veterinary practitioner with over 20 years of livestock
production experience, and Ron Morrow, now a grazing specialist
with NRCS in Arkansas after two decades as a technical specialist
with NCAT/ATTRA and the University of Missouri.
Wells and Morrow presented an integrated view of grassfed and/or
organic beef operations, from production through processing to marketing.
For ranchers considering the switch, they prescribe a process of
whole-farm planning. That planning begins with an inventory of soils,
forage, animals, and weather. A change in any one of those factors,
note Wells and Morrow, necessarily changes all the others as well.
“Start with the maturity pattern or breed you want to market,”
advised Morrow, “and work backward into the forage production
system.” The choice of maturity pattern, however, depends
on the availability of quality forage –
the more days of quality forage, the higher-weight and faster-gain
breeds you can use.
 Grass-feeding
isn't just about cutting off supplemental feed; it requires that
animals be rotated, and frequently. By resting more of a ranch's
acreage more of the time, rotational grazing itself acts as a tool
for pasture improvement, strengthening the grasses.
Morrow recommends that at least three years of rotation precede
any pasture renovation. Rather than jump into an expensive program
of reseeding, he said, “The best thing to do is plant fence
posts.”
Both instructors emphasized that forage selection hinges on balancing
protein and energy. Cool-season grasses and legumes are so high
in digestible protein that much of their nutritive value can be
expelled in manure rather than being absorbed. And without the energy
from fiber, the animals burn existing body fat to gain weight on
the protein they do absorb.
Warm-season grasses, on the other hand, are often looked on with
disfavor for their high fiber content. But that fiber remains a
digestible source of energy up until the plants produce a seed head
– an event that can be postponed by repeated grazing.
The transition to grass doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Grassfed
animals' diets can still be supplemented when forage is scarce.
Morrow cited his own practice of feeding soy hulls, whose high digestible
fiber content maintains CLAs – a key marketing point of grass-fed
meat – as the starch in corn does not.
Moreover, calves that gain slowly on pasture can be shifted out
of a grass-feeding operation. The culling can take place at any
time during calves' growth – for instance, if they get rangier,
or show signs of stress.
Monitoring those stress signs, in addition to helping tell which
calves to cull when, is also the key to Wells' brand of holistic
herd health management.
One way to keep stress levels low is by routine handling –
frequent, calm, and consistent. That's a natural fit with an intensive
rotation management scheme.
“We need to be looking for the very initial symptom [of stress],”
such as a behavioral change, said Wells.
Moving the animals often also creates plenty of chances to spot
such symptoms, serving as an early-warning system to identify –
and, ideally, remove – the stress before it culminates in
disease. In Wells' words, “Controlled grazing teaches calmness.”
The same management changes necessary for successful grassfed
beef production – holistic management of soil, plant, and
animal health as parts of an integrated whole – can, incidentally,
bring producers nearly or fully into compliance with the USDA national
organic standards.
Unlike the organic standards, labels like “natural,”
“grassfed,” and “pasture-finished,” are
not legally defined, rather defined by individual producers. For
an anonymous consumer is at the other end of a long supply chain,
that may not be an adequate quality guarantee.
But according to Wells, the organic label is not for all producers.
Personal relationships with customers, she says, can create a trust
that serves as well as third-party verification to ensure a quality
product.
As a customer, Wells says, “I much prefer to know that my
food is locally produced.” She's not alone. A 2003 study by
the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture found that three
out of four consumers preferred food “grown locally by family
farmers,” even ahead of organic alternatives.
That's a market that Oklahoma ranchers would do well to capture.
Integration and Holism in Community Food
Security
“Integrated” and “holistic” are buzzwords
in community food security circles, but like the proverbial gift
horse, they deserve a good look in the teeth – to see what
they really mean, and how they make community food security work.
In the next issue of Field Notes:
A closer look at how rotational grazing balances the needs of soils,
plants, animals and people – to increase the health of all.
Wylie Harris is a “Food and Society”
Policy Fellow of the Kellogg Foundation and a frequent contributor
to Field Notes.
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