Turns out that milk from grass-fed cows has significantly more of something called conjugated linoleic acid (which may create insulin resistance in the body) than grain-fed cows. Some researchers will add that cows fed on grass are just plain healthier. Cows may love grain but it’s not great as a steady diet.

Smart farmers don’t just turn animals loose on pastureland; they follow a process called rotational grazing.

Goats Are Your Offensive Line

Jen Dustin and her husband, Phil Leahy, of Leahy Farm in Lee, Massachusetts, will tell you that Step One is clearing brush, especially the invasive species. This is most efficiently done with goats—nature’s own brush-clearing machinery. They’ll eat the bark right off the trees if you’re not careful.  Only when the goats have cleared up overgrown fields will Jen and Phil bring in their cows.

Phil makes sure that his herd of Milking Devons only spends a couple of days on any one area of pasture, so they’re always on fresh grass.

Like a gardener working on a massive scale, he knows that when you cut back a plant—as grazing does naturally—it stimulates growth.  The pastures are more productive, the animals healthier and the milk they produce is apparently more nutritious and tastier. And if the cows don’t nibble the grass all the way down to the ground, they are less likely to ingest parasites, which would require medical intervention.

It’s more work to do rotational grazing; Phil and Jen are constantly moving electric fences powered off a car battery. They’re fortunate to have enough land to feed their herd. But many farmers are limited by acreage in how they feed their animals.  Grain becomes a necessity or a supplement if pasture is limited.

Helping the Farmer Next Door

Do you live next to a farmer raising animals for dairy or meat? Do you have open land that is lying fallow? Consider leasing that land to your neighbor. You’ll get a nice tax break, a nominal cash payment and fresh meat and dairy. And the inevitable manure factor can be mitigated when a right-sized herd is moved frequently.

More Reading

Baloney Science on the Perils of Meat

Grass-Fed Beef from Pasture to Plate

Let’s Have a Fair Food Fight

You can almost hear Dick Cheney saying “organic food is a nice personal virtue for the radical fringe, but it’s not going to feed the world.” Actually, when you level the playing field, organic (and more importantly, sustainable) food comes out on top.

The fact is organic farmers don’t receive federal subsidies the same way conventional farmers do. Organic and small-time farmers receive “specialty crop grants” that are measured in thousands rather than in millions of dollars.  Sad truth: If you’re not growing corn, wheat or soybeans, you get the merest of crumbs from the federal table.

Myth: Organic Food is More Expensive

Today, organic food does cost more than conventional food. Watch an organic farmer hand-weed a row of carrots and you’ll immediately know why. Smaller organic farms require more time, attention and labor to get produce to market.

By comparison, conventional farmers have certain advantages. Rather than using the age-old practice of crop rotation to keep soil healthy, they can apply cocktails of synthetic fertilizers and herbicides to fields.

An organic farmer, by comparison, might mix up 200 pounds of old pasta salad, 100 pounds of rotting lettuce, and other assorted odds and ends to create a rich and fragrant compost.

Conventional farmers receive subsidies in the Farm Bill: more than $3 billion per year for corn and wheat alone. Unsold food will be bought up by the USDA for school lunches. One calculation estimated the national all-in subsidy for industrially grown agriculture at $80 billion per year. That’s $725 per American household.

Crappy food is certainly cheap in America. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition determined that a dollar buys 1,200 calories of potato chips, but just 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit.

Paul Wigtsen, produce buyer at the Culinary Institute of America, has doubled the amount of produce purchased by the school without increasing thebudget. His secret? Go local. Sure local produce can cost 5% to 20% more than produce shipped across the country. But, according to Wigtsen, with local fare there is “no trim, no waste. With California, you loose ten or twenty percent in kitchen prep.”

Myth:  Organic is My Only Healthy Option

Under some circumstances, food grown sustainably and purchased from a local farmer can be cheaper than organic food shipped in from China or California.

You know what local means: Your food shouldn’t travel further than you typically go on a vacation. But what about “sustainable”?  To me, sustainable means that you can raise food in perpetuity without doing harm to your land.  Sustainable farming principles often are closely aligned with organic principles, so you’re getting food that is healthier for all concerned.

In fact, organic has become so associated with elitism and higher prices that some farmers have stopped touting their organic growing practices. They prefer to have you taste the difference and let you determine whether it’s worth the cost.

Myth: I Can’t Afford Organic.

So let’s start with a simple truth: organic and sustainable food reflects the true cost of growing food. Then let’s find a new way to shop for organic and sustainable food when you dine in and dine out. Not every time—just more often.

If you have a choice, consider mixing and matching. See a great deal on tomatoes at the farmers market? Buy way more than you need, then make some sauce and freeze it. Love those organic grapes from California? Stock up when they’re on sale in the supermarket. No need to get uppity, either: Toss in a head of lettuce from Mexico or California’s Central Coast every so often, just because it’s cheap and easy. And to stay clear about the value of the work that goes into putting food on your plate, grow your own.

When you dine out, ask about that steak. “Is it local?  Organic? No? Natural? It’s not?  Well okay. Is there anything local on the menu? I really like supporting local farmers.” Don’t get all preachy; just ask for an alternative.

Big food companies are coming around. As part of its ongoing commitment to “real food” using “simple ingredients,” Hellmann’s (“America’s favorite mayonnaise brand”) recently announced that its “Light Mayonnaise recipe in North America will feature 100% certified cage-free eggs in the United States,” because, as Jamey Fish, Hellmann’s senior brand manager, said “people are increasingly attuned to what’s in their food and where it comes from.”

Protect America’s Independence! Sing the Star-Spangled Banner!

Still need convincing to buy local?  Barbara Kingsolver, in her book Animal, Vegetable and Mineral wrote:

“If every US citizen ate just one meal a week that was composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by 1.1 million barrels every week. Small changes in buying habits make big differences.”

So it’s not longer elitist to eat organic or sustainable food. You’re supporting energy independence. You’re a true vegetable-eating patriot.  And you know what? Your food will actually taste better.

Further Reading

Great Questions to Ask Your Farmer

“It’s the Sustainability, Stupid.”

Encourage your grocer to carry more organic products with this helpful form.

Robin Cockerline of Whippoorwill Farm in Lakeville, CT said “there is an amazing rhythm to farming, and scenes of indescribable beauty.”  For author and grower Michael Ableman, farming was just like falling in love. “Nature seduced me,” he wrote in his book, On Good Land. “When that intoxicating, blinding draw faded, a deeper relationship formed.”

Farmers enjoy what they do more than most of us.  A Gallup-Healthways poll of professions found that farmers came in fourth in terms of overall well-being.

Source: Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index

Judy Flint, who works as a personal consultant for NY Farm Net, said that farmers are “incredibly hard working.  Just really good people who love what they do, and being their own bosses even when they are working at the whim of the weather.”

Most farmers just squeak by financially, and yet they continue to love what they do.

The Pressure Can Be Overwhelming

So many things can go wrong.  The weather, a tomato blight, a tractor engine seizes up, an employee walks away at the absolute worst time, the freezer fails—and takes $10K in beef with it. The fact is that farming can be “a heartbreaking way to earn a living,” says family farmer Paul Wigsten. “It’s a horrible addiction. Probably worse than heroin.”

And sometimes you don’t see an alternative.

Robin Cockerline feels that dairy farming can be the worst. “With a dairy farm you never have the feeling that you’re getting anywhere. Once that drain starts emptying, it is hard to get it to go the other way.  It’s not unusual for a farm to be carrying $40,000 in accounts payable, due in 30 days. You’re always juggling. There used to be beautiful farms in the Northeast. All the money got drained out to pay bills. The pressure is unbelievable.”

Helping Farmers in Crisis

More than 20 years ago farmer-suicides in the Midwest went through the roof. Farm Net was established in New York in just six weeks to help farms and farmers stay healthy and profitable.  According to Ed Staehr, Executive Director of Farm Net, “over 90% of the farms we work with not only stay in business but actually expand. A great amount of what we do keeps rural communities going.”

Farm Net fields 6,000 inquiries each year from farmers, agribusiness, the Farm Bureau and Farm Service Agency, and other agencies. They have been experts at identifying signs of stress. Their 50 part-time consultants, including social worker Judy Flint, are brought in by a farmer’s hotline call, a family member, a neighbor, or a staffer at Farm Credit or the Farm Security Administration.

“Personal and financial lives” said Staehr, “are often so intertwined.” That’s why Farm Net is uniquely focused on the personal as well as financial aspects of farming. “While many questions can be answered over the phone,” he adds, “most of our work is face to face.”

Budget Cuts Endanger Lives, Livelihoods and Legacies

Imagine you’re a fourth generation farmer.  Despite your best efforts, your farm is failing. The legacy of the family farm is also a burden: You’re not just failing yourself and your family; you’re failing generations past.

Generally, farmers really don’t like to ask for help. “They are so proud and autonomous,” notes Flint. “And they believe that if only they work harder they can get it to pan out.”

When you’re under that kind of pressure, it’s ideal to have someone come in with an objective viewpoint.

But at this critical juncture Farm Net’s budget, which supports a small full-time staff and 50 part-time consultants, is being cut again.  Two years ago the budget was $600K. This year the proposal is to reduce the budget to $384K.  While the State is not the sole funding source, many grants require a match. Cut $1,000 from the Governor’s budget and the impact could be three times that amount.

What You Can Do

Digital Contact: Ask that funding be restored to Farm Net. It takes 10 seconds to complete the form.

Personal Contact: When you interact with farmers, show respect for their products and awareness of the value that they bring to our lives. Little things like “my, that’s a beautiful carrot.” Or “how in the world did you grow heirloom tomatoes? Mine have been a total disaster.” Or as one convert to grass-feed beef wrote on this site “That was the best steak I have had in my life.” We should never forget that a farmer’s hard work, ingenuity and—yes—love, puts food on the table.

What is different for farmers? Perhaps it’s just that being responsible for life pays tremendous dividends.

Farmers care for their animals and their crops. They’ll scratch a calf’s head, break the ice on the water trough in the dead of winter, raise crops from seed to harvest. Wendell Barry in Bringing It to the Table quotes Terry Cummins, the author of Feed My Sheep, on what its feels like to provide husbandry.

The feeling inside sort of just happens, and you can’t say that this did it or that did it. It’s the many little things. It doesn’t seem that taking a sweat-soaked harness off tired, hot horses would be something that would make you notice. Opening a barn door for sheep standing in a cold rain, or throwing a few grains of corn to the chickens are small things, but these small things begin to add up in you, and you begin to understand that you’re important.

You may not be real important like the people you read about in the newspaper, but you begin to feel that you’re important to all the life around you. Nobody else knows or cares too much about what you do, but if you get a good feeling inside about what you do, then it doesn’t matter if nobody else knows.

I do think about myself a lot when I’m along way back on the place bringing in the cows or sitting on the mowing machine all day. But when I start thinking about how our animals and crops and fields and woods and gardens sort of all fit together, then I get that good feeling inside and don’t worry much about what will happen to me.

But when you start to think of animals as protein and nature as a force that can be controlled, then something switches off in your brain, and you can make decisions that are good for business but not so good for animals and people. As we look to a new decade, it will be good to think about how we can reengage with our food in positive and sustainable ways.

Healthy Animals Are Raised on Pasture

We like to raise healthy and happy animals, who spend as much time as they want in the pastures. Our chickens are a seasonal business, from spring through late fall, to ensure that they have grass as a big part of their diet. The pigs have access to the barn in the winter to stave off the cold, and they eat a lot of alfalfa baleage in the winter as well as an organic grain and soy mix. For the rest of the year they are rooting up marginal fields or woodlots. The cows graze the fields as long as the grass grows, after which they enjoy the alfalfa baleage and hay that we put up for the winter.

Our British White and Murray Grey cattle were bred to thrive on grass. These heritage breeds have never adapted to the feedlot system that forces hormone-filled cows to eat grain and forget about grazing. A grass-fed diet ensures meat that is tender, tasty, high in omega-3s and hormone free. Since our pastures are certified organic, our cows are eating grass completely free of herbicides and pesticides.

In essence, we are trying to turn back the clock—to produce meat and poultry that tastes as good as it did several decades ago before farms got turned into factories.

Heritage Breed English White Cattle

To place an order visit our online store or send us an email. Your order can then be shipped via UPS or picked up at the farm.

To visit:  Best to call ahead.  Here are our coordinates.