Peanuts, flax, sprouts and avocados: It's not the menu at a health
food deli, but the menu inside some barns. What's more, many farmers
experimenting with these gourmet feeds are growing the ingredients
themselves.
Take Russ Kremer, the Missouri pig farmer whose operation served as the inspiration for the trend.
Kremer hasn't bought commercial animal feed in 30 years. Instead, he
grazes his hogs in a pasture, and grows (or buys from neighbors) grains
and legumes to supplement their nutrition.
Kremer and some of
the other farmers developing specialty feed say they are willing to
shoulder the extra cost and time to produce it because they're turned
off by conventional feed mixes. The conventional mixes are what most of
the hogs in the U.S. consume, and can include commodity corn and
soybeans, blood protein, animal waste and rendered fats, according to
Kremer.
Kremer also runs a co-op where farmers can pool
resources to mill their own feed. "We opt for grains like barley and
oats as often as possible, because most corn and soy is now [genetically
modified]," he says.
The scarcity of non-GMO corn and soybeans is what led hog farmers Kelley and Mark Escobedo of to experiment with peanuts.
Using their own 1950s-era mill, the farmers combine peanuts, peanut
hay, and oats to boost the animals' protein intake and overall health —
especially important because they raise their animals without
antibiotics. The resulting meat has a delicate, nutty flavor that has
helped them attract a loyal customer base willing to pay a higher price
for the meat. "I've never had anyone come back and say it's not worth
it," says Escobedo.
She and other farmers even take custom feed
requests. Case in point: One restaurant shaped a special meal around a
single hog that the Escobedos fed avocados (along with the peanut-based
feed) for the last 6 weeks of its life.
"The meat was soft and
delicious," Escobedo recalls. "It was the most delightful dinner I've
ever eaten." (Pot-fed pigs are getting similarly rave reviews in
Washington state, as .)
Farmers are supplementing animal feed
with other ingredients found in gourmet kitchens, too. To boost his
animals' immunity, Kremer uses . To add omega-3 fatty acids, many cattlemen are adding the to feed. And Nigel Walker of California's Eatwell Farm not only grows his own wheat to feed his egg=-laying hens, he also for added nutrition.
Even as farmers learn to market meat from animals raised on special
diets, only a small percent of consumers are willing to pay extra for
it. A pastured chicken fed with homegrown grains, for instance, can cost
as much as $20 to 25, compared with $10 for a conventional chicken in
the grocery store.
The cost to farmers, in terms of both
dollars and time, also remains significant. Kremer says he can afford
homegrown feed because he saves money on veterinary care since he
doesn't use antibiotics. His pigs also have a higher survival rate than
average (just 1 percent mortality compared to nearly 5 percent
industry-wide). But his operation is also much smaller than average, so
the risks are different from a large hog operation.
Jack Lazor, author of the forthcoming book ,
and owner of Butterworks Farm in Vermont, says homegrown animal feed
has fundamentally transformed his farm. Lazor supplements his dairy
cows' diets with homegrown grains and feeds his laying hens kelp and
soybeans he grows and roasts himself, using a developed by Polyface
Farm's Joel Salatin. The birds gain more weight, and the eggs are
yellower, but more important to Lazor is the sense of being in complete
control of what he calls the "craft of farming."
"When you're
feeding an animal you can tweak it one way or the other based on the
herd or the season," he says. "Plus, it just adds more meaning to your
life."
by Twilight Greenaway
1. Summarize this article; identify the thesis statement and supporting evidence.
No comments:
Post a Comment