Local beef gains consumer confidence
Grass-fed cattle help support rural towns' economies
Dec. 14, 2006
Sarah Kessinger
Harris News Service
At a rural spot in Ottawa County, ground beef is in demand. But it isn't sold from a giant supermarket. It's supplied, rather, at the farm of Jim and Kathy Scharplaz. Their sale of grass-fed beef directly to consumers has grown into a healthy business during the past decade.
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| Jim and Kathy Scharplaz relax on their grass-fed cattle farm in Ottawa County. Tom Dorsey/Salina Journal |
In downtown Lawrence, a small cafe serves and touts a hamburger made with beef supplied by a farmer not far from town. Local Burger caters to diners who aim to support their local economy and want to know where and how the meat was raised.
In tiny Frankfort in Marshall County, customers drive from Kansas' larger cities to pick up frozen organic beef processed at Welch Brothers Meat Co., the state's only certified organic meat locker. The roasts, steaks and plastic-wrapped hamburger come from a nearby farmer, who grazes her cattle on native prairie.
The Schar-plazes, Local Burger and Welch Brothers exem-plify local and regional food systems that, although once predominant, have mostly vanished.
Local beef, raised on pasture rather than at large-scale feedlots, supports a local meat locker and, in turn, a small town's economy.
The local food trend is most evident at farmers markets, where some Kansas producers sell their frozen meats.
But vendors of grass-fed and organic beef say health-conscious consumers and chefs at upscale restaurants seek them out through word of mouth, the Internet or at local food stores such as Prairieland Food Cooperative in Salina and People's Grocery in Manhattan, and, increasingly, through supermarket chains.
Kathy Scharplaz tells custom-ers her cattle are vegetarians.
"We're real concerned about mad cow disease, so there are no animal byproducts fed to our cattle whatsoever," she said. "We keep them on the pasture 365 days a year."
To supplement the grass, her husband feeds cattle locally grown hay and milo. The animals are raised without hormone implants and without antibiotics.
Much of their herd is sold via today's conventional route to a feedlot, but some cattle are retained for butchering at a locker plant in Glasco, north of Salina. There, it is aged for 10 days to add flavor and tenderness and sold under the Prairie Natural Beef label.
Prairie Natural customers tell Scharplaz they like to know where their food comes from.
"Where that might not be the case with breakfast cereal, with produce and meat I think people are starting to get a little trepidation," Scharplaz said. "I think people want to have greater control of quality."
The main difference in the meats processed locally and commodity meat sold through supermarket chains is the flavor, she said, from the aging.
The Scharplazes also believe that locally grown and small-scale processing is good for rural community economies.
Rodney Jones, a farm management economist with Kansas State University Extension, contends there's no difference in the safety of meat from grass-fed cattle or cattle raised through the normal commodity route.
But to a growing segment of consumers, the origin of beef determines whether or not they'll bite. Information about the origin of a top sirloin or hamburger has become a standard on some restaurant menus.
"The end customer is the driver of all of this," Jones said. "If they feel that's a better way or their perception is it's a better way, the market will start doing it that way."
Spreading the risk
To some, local food suggests a more reliable and secure supply line.
Ironically, western Kansas, long referred to as the "breadbasket of the world" for its ample wheat and beef production, now is seen as a "food desert" by some, said Rhonda Janke, a Kansas State University agronomist who studies small food systems.
With the closure of rural grocery stores, residents often must drive several miles to buy food. The lack of local markets hastens the region's depopulation.
In more populated places, however, when a problem erupts -- such as the national halt of packaged spinach sales this fall because of E. coli contamination -- Janke hears local market growers say their sales go up.
"It points out the flaws in our industrial system," Janke said. "One packing plant affects 26 states -- that is concentration. Why don't we have 26 plants in 26 states?"
Lessons of the prairie
There is a model of food production in Kansas that embodies security, Jerry Jost said. It's called the prairie.
Jost, special projects director with the Kansas Rural Center at Whiting, points out the variety of plants and wildlife on a prairie, which thrives through diversity.
The same should be the case in a human food system, he said.
"With many different production models, one large system isn't vulnerable to a particular threat," Jost said. "You spread your risk around with multiple production models."
Jost helps small farmers get their products to market.
"I think small producers are important to the food sector," he said. "They're nimble and can respond to needs faster than the large-scale production system."
The emerging grass-fed market is an alternative to the most common scenario, where thousands of cattle are raised in close quarters at feedlots.
Again, it's a small market, responding to consumers demanding leaner meat and who want to know how their beef is raised.
"It's not a meatpacking assembly line that moves 400 animals through an hour, where mistakes are more easily made, and to shut it down is harder," Jost said. "Potential harm is greater because supply is so much greater."
Our farm aerobics
Farms that raise organic beef are few in Kansas, and their herds total only about 600 animals.
Those who raise cattle on such farms, which pay for costly certification by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, do it without implanting hormones in cattle or adding a steady diet of antibiotics to their animals' feed. They also feed their herds with grains and grass grown without chemicals.
Such small-scale production has health advantages for humans and cattle, said Nancy Vogelsberg-Busch, a Marshall County farmer who raises organic beef cattle and markets it under the label of Bossie's Best.
"An organic farm helps keep our streams free of harmful agricultural chemicals," Vogelsberg-Busch said. "The soil is well-balanced and lets the rain soak into the soil, thus helping to prevent soil erosion."
Healthy, safe eating involves more than the food, she said. It's also about the environment in which it is raised.
"Just like folks who believe in preventive health care, I try to raise my cattle like I have raised my kids, with a healthy diet and plenty of exercise," Vogelsberg-Busch said. "My cattle are healthier out on the fields moving around, grazing, instead of being locked up in a corral. Kinda like getting kids outside to do chores. I call it our farm aerobics."
Concerned that urban customers connect with the source of their food, she invites them to visit her farm.
"I like knowing my cattle and my customers. I like bringing them together. They help take care of each other, and they both help take care of me," she said. "Farming organically has helped me be a fit farmer -- physically, mentally, spiritually and financially."
