Everything He Wants to Do is Illegal

How has the public’s attitude toward your products changed in the last few years? Do you find it easier to sell grass-fed meat now?
Public awareness is definitely up. In the 1970s when I was selling grass-finished beef and pastured poultry, nobody had even heard of the word “organic,” much less “grass finished.” Now, thanks to New York Times bestselling authors like Jo Robinson and Michael Pollan, the awareness is huge.

The market limitations are primarily twofold. One is the supply. The artistry and choreography required to move animals around on palatable pasture year-round in any given bio-region takes years to learn. This is not cookie-cutter rations formulated from annuals stored in a big grain bin. The producer deals with on-farm variables such as seasonality, wet, dry, hot, cold, genetic physiology, minerals and a host of others. Beyond that, the Food Safety and Inspection Service has successfully annihilated most community-based, appropriately sized abattoirs (slaughterhouses) and criminalized on-farm processing. This is by far the major impediment to the local integrity of food.

That’s all on the production/processing end. The second market limitation has to do with entry-level requirements for major marketing channels. From liability insurance to net-90-day payment to slotting fees, large buyers share a Wall-Street business mentality. That mentality aggressively shuns competition, especially from little innovators. But every time industrial food hiccups with recalls and more diseases, another wave of opt-outers hits the local, integrity food scene. Exciting times.

On Being a Farmer

When did you decide you wanted to be a farmer? 
As early as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a farmer. I love growing things. I appreciate the emotional steadiness of animals. Every day when I go to move the cow herd, they are glad to see me. The pigs always come over to talk. None of these critters ever asks you to fill out licenses or threatens litigation. They never talk behind your back or conspire to overthrow you. And to watch the land heal, with ever-growing mounds of earthworm castings, is better than any video. Indeed, walking through a dew-speckled pasture in the early morning after a blessed nighttime thunderstorm, the ground literally covered with copulating earthworms — what could be more magical than that?

I had my own laying hen flock at 10 years old, pedaling eggs on my bicycle to neighbors, selling them to families in church. The fast-paced, frenzied urban life disconnected from the ponds, the trees and the pasture never held much allure for me. Go away? Why? Where? I think I was planted here. I think God tends my soul here. It’s not for everyone, but it satiates my soul with wonder and gratitude.

What’s changed about your philosophy of farming over the years?
Like all geezers, I’ve learned a lot just through experience. Because I’m a third generation-Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist lunatic I don’t have a conversion epiphany to share. I’ve just always been weird.