Items Tagged With Geography

World's Columbian Exposition: Chicago, United States, 1893

Thoughts from Ulla:

The Midwest is possibly the most fertile place on earth. Glacial deposits blessed the Midwest and particularly Iowa with prodigious amounts of highly productive top soil. Our ascendancy to becoming THE world power can be traced to the productive agricultural might of the Midwest, and the freedom it gave us to industrialize and no other town has been impacted more by the riches of our agricultural bounty than Chicago. Chicago was the center for commodity trading and the financial center of the Midwest where cattle and hogs were brought and fattened and slaughtered in an unprecedented factory-like manner. The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards processed more meat then any other place in the world from the Civil War until the 1920s reaching its peak in 1924. Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” chronicled the slaughterhouses to the horror of a newly industrialized America, in many ways Michael Pollen’s the Omnivores Dilemma has done the same for this generation; bringing the horrors of our modern day feedlots to the homes of suburban America. Our beef production is now controlled by four large packers who exercise control over the whole process of bringing beef to our plate, this was true back in our gilded age and policy makers where able to wrestle control back to help protect workers and customers. Sinclair’s book changed America he intended to shed light on industrial labor and working conditions, but food safety became a national obsession. Sinclair talked of workers falling into rendering tanks and being ground into "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard". Americans where aghast, coupled with the high death rate of slaughterhouse workers and the exploitation of children and women and the fact that foreign sales of American meat fell by one-half impelled governmental action. Does this sound familiar? Koreans refusing our beef, immigrant children being used in meat packing plants and Americans becoming obese on unhealthy fat? This is true today and I think we have a unique opportunity to take the power back from the consolidation that has happened, we did it back then, why not now?


Notes from Franny on the Union Stockyards:

The Union Yards were established in a purchase of 320 acres of swamp land in 1864 by 9 railroad companies that saw a great opportunity in a consolidated railway shipping center taking the bounty of the west to the east. Originally, live cattle were shipped from the Stockyards east to local markets and local slaughterhouses where cattle production was waning. Pigs, on the other hand, were slaughtered at the Stockyards from the beginning; their meat was shipped salted, smoked, and cured.  In the early 1880’s, the entire cattle industry changed when an engineer friend of the Swift company invented the refridgerated railway car. This was the key to creating the 1st vertically integrated business where could be bought live (on the hoof), slaughtered, and shipped to butchers in local markets. The Armour Company and the Swift Company were among the largest holders of this vertically integrated businesses centered at the Union Stockyards and their hold across the many stages of production and distribution gave birth to the still present tension between small processor and large processor, producer and packer, and nameless slaughterhouse worker and corporate giant.

People noted that the Stockyards were in the truest sense a human machine.  They employed human labor to disassemble the animal parts.  At the time, machines were not capable of dealing with such raw and non-uniform materials as animals, so humans became the working pieces of the machine, setting an example for the marvelous organization of machines to come, machines that would propel American Industry to it’s height of might.  With 2,000 workers and roughly 38,000 animals killed per day, the development of organizational efficiency was key in creating a sustained center of processing that would feed the growing and hardworking American populace. The division of labor saw it’s day in Chicago at the Stockyards at  the turn of the century, and this division of labor model has since trickled into factory systems across the world. 

Although it was called the Union Stockyards, any attempt at starting unions were oppressed by the big operators. There were two Unionizing attempts, one of which was lost in a strike.  It wasn’t until Congress passed the Wagner Act in 1935, which encouraged collective bargaining, that a union was formed by workers at the Union Stockyards.

The stockyards did, however, offer employment to millions of immigrants over the years who dreamed the American dream. Chicago was a marvel as it grew more than any other city in the World in one generation, and this, as Ulla stated earlier was given to it’s place as an agricultural trading center sitting at the crossroads of a country’s farmland and newly industrialized cities.

The Mobile Processing Unit (MPU) was developed by the Lopez Community Land Trust on Lopez Island in Washington State.  The MPU is a 26 ft-long trailer that carries a state of the art processing facility for slaughtering livestock on the farm. The mobile facility is inspected by a USDA representative, allowing the meat to legally be sold to consumers, restaurants, and stores directly from the farmer.  The unit is operated by the Island Grown Farmers Co-op, and rented out by Lopez Island farmers. In the absence of local slaughter facilities, most farmers and ranchers must ship their cattle hundreds of miles, often across state lines, to have their cattle processed.  The transport is costly, often stressful for the animals, and prevents many farmers from being able to sell their meat locally.  The MPU offers a localized solution.

The Lopez Island Community Land Trust (LCLT) operates a program for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) under which the MPU was developed.  I had the opportunity to interview Henning Sehmsdorf, owner of S&S Homestead Farm on Lopez Island.  Sehmsdorf served as director of the Lopez Island Community Land Trust and chair of the SARD committee when the concept for the MPU was initially developed.

What kind of options did farmers on Lopez Island have for selling beef locally before the MPU? Were citizens of the island able to eat grass-fed beef raised on the island?

 As far as I know, the only option people on the island had to eat grass-fed beef, was to buy a live animal and have a local butcher slaughter it for them. The usual procedure was for farmers to sell quarters of more of a beef animal to customers and then hire a state registered (not USDA-inspected) butcher who would come to the farm and slaughter the designated animal there. With the USDA-inspected mobile unit, the farmer has the additional option of selling to restaurants, local food stores, institutions such as the local school, at farmers' markets, as well as by the piece off the farm.

Do you think, with the cooperation of the USDA, that the MPU has the potential to revolutionize beef production and distribution in America?

 With the cooperation of USDA, the MPU could indeed revolutionize beef production and distribution in the U.S. by making it possible for small farmers to supply the food needs of their own communities. Today the bulk of beef production, processing and distribution is in the hands of some five giant corporations, to the detriment of food safety and of the quality and nutritional wholeness of meat products. Huge feed lots create largely unregulated bio-hazards (ground and air pollution), and they waste non-renewable energy. Large-scale food production produces cheap food but not good food, and it strips local communities of their own resources, while laying waste to the environment. If the USDA would prioritize small-scale, local food production, it would revolutionize how meat is produced and distributed in America, namely by making the type of small-scale infrastructure exemplified by the MPU generally available in rural communities throughout the land.

How is the MPU another step in reducing agricultural dependence on non-renewable energy in this country?

Use of he MPU by itself does, of course, not guarantee that the animals slaughtered have been grass-fed. The unit is available to organic as well as non-organic producers, who may raise and finish their cattle on grass or on grain, as they see fit. As a biodynamic producer who raises cattle entirely on farm-produced feeds, meaning grass-based forages, and uses only fertilizers produced from the manures of the animals, I am convinced that such methods also are the most energy-efficient and least dependent upon non-renewable energy since grass is grown using the inexhaustibly renewable energies of the sun. So the question whether the MPU could be "another step in reducing agricultural dependence on non-renewable energy" needs to be answered in the context of how individual farmers produce the animal to be slaughtered.

What kind of difference have you seen in the lives of the farmers and consumers of your community since the MPU was developed?

I do not have statistical data to answer this question; but anecdotal evidence tells me that the majority of consumers on our island continue to prioritize price, choice and convenience over food or ecological quality in purchasing meat for their tables. There is, however, a growing awareness in the community of how important our personal food choices are in shaping not only our personal health, but the economic and social health of our communities, as well ecological health. Direct sales off the farm are strong. What is needed are more small farmers who know how to produce healthful food in an ecologically responsible manner, and more consumers who understand the importance of such food, and are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

How does the Lopez Community Land Trust see the development of the MPU as part of their mission?

I am no longer a member of the board of directors of the Lopez Community Land Trust, and therefore cannot speak for how the Land Trust currently thinks about the MPU in the context of its mission.  [See note below from Sandy Bishop, Executive Director of Lopez CLT]  However, I was a director of LCLT and chairman of SARD (Committee on Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development) when the MPU project was proposed (in fact I brought the proposal to the land trust and pursued it for a couple of years before funding could be found). At the time, the argument for LCLT to adopt the project was that it would support local, small-scale agriculture and community-based food security, offer nutritionally superior meat to local consumers, and improve animal welfare (by making shipment of slaughter animals to feed lots and off-island slaughter facilities unnecessary).

Note from Sandy Bishop: The goal of the Lopez Community Land Trust is to build a diverse, sustainable island community, specifically through programs that primarily support low-income households with the following integrated purposes: 

a. To acquire and hold land in trust in order to provide for permanently affordable housing. Homes shall be built and lands shall be used in an environmentally sensitive and socially responsible manner.
b. To provide permanently affordable access to land for such purposes as quality housing, sustainable agriculture and forestry, cottage industries and co-operatives by forever removing the land from the speculative market.
c. To develop and exercise responsible and ecological practices, which preserve, protect and enhance the land's natural attributes.
d. To serve as a model in land stewardship and community development by providing information, resources and expertise.

The MPU serves LCLT's purpose in several ways: it helps to maintain Lopez Island’s diversity by supporting small local meat producers who care deeply about their animals and the community of people they help feed.  The MPU also models sustainable community development by providing information, resources and expertise and is a responsible and ecological response to the ever faster disintegrating state of options for humane, safe animal slaughter.   

A life-long rancher and writer, Linda Hasselstrom is the award winning author of several books of non-fiction and poetry including, Between Grass and Sky: Where I Live and Work, Feels Like Far, Land Circle: Writings Collected From the Land, Windbreak, Bison: Monarch of the Plains, Dakota Bones, and the Wrangler Award winning Bitter Creek Junction, among others. Linda was also the co-editor with Gaydel Collier and Nancy Curtis of the Wind Anthologies, a three-book collection of writing by Western women. From the intimate perspective of one who has spent most of her life working outdoors on her family ranch in South Dakota, Linda’s writing reveals a deep knowledge of what it means to make a life from the land and to be part of a third and forth generation ranching community on the High Plains. In describing her work as a writer she says, “I began studying and writing about rural and ecological problems from my own experiences in the Great Plains…. As my knowledge expanded, I encouraged ranchers and farmers to adopt better practices to help keep more rural people employed in agriculture. I wanted to help inform the American public about the ruinous costs to all of us of the kind of development we've seen in agriculture over the last fifty years.”

The Grass-fed Party Platform states a strong support for artists and storytellers “who reflect agrarian life, the history of the land, and the people who have dwelled on it,” believing that this storytelling is, in itself, an important and effective form of landscape preservation. So after reading one of Linda’s essays in Ranching West of the 100th Meridian, I contacted her for an interview, feeling that her rare wisdom would offer great insight to issues we discuss here, while her work demonstrates a form of preservation that we advocate for here. She writes: “I consider my primary responsibility to be working to preserve the territory I love, including not only the land but its inhabitants, human and otherwise, and their stories."

In this interview, Linda was able to share her thoughts with us on the changing landscapes of High Plains ranching communities, language in the ethics of ranching, and the work she is doing both as a rancher and writer to aid in the preservation of the prairie.


What is lost in a rural community when a family ranch is sold into
development?

1. Intimate and long-term knowledge of the ecology of the area.

2. Knowledge of the human strengths and weaknesses that supported and
enhanced the community cooperation and allowed neighbors to work together
for mutual survival.

3. To put this another way, I'll refer to a note from a friend, Hobie
Morris, whose column "The Musings of a Simple Country Man" in the West
Winfield (N.Y.) Star of Nov. 19, 2008, concerned "How Rural People Survive
in Tough Times." Hobie lists some of the recent news in his neighborhood:
the chicken-n-biscuit bake sale benefit for Ken and Kate, the Whitaker
Benefit for FOOD King, the Annual Firemen's Dinner. Hobie says that when
tough times strike his neighbors and friends, the built-in community support
system responds immediately and generously. "Helping others is a fundamental
belief in rural New York-and America," says Hobie, adding that "It's a
historical fact that rural Americans far better survived the horrible
conditions of the Great Depression in the 1930's." In some rural areas, he
suggests, recessions are not only nothing new, they are a permanent way of
life, so rural people learn by trial and error to live within their means.
Rural people, he says, survive better because they are multi-talented,
without a college degree; they can fix a car, cut wood for heat, grow
gardens, fix broken pipes or lawn mowers. If they don't know how to do a
job, they ask a buddy, and barter for his expertise.

My observations of subdivision and ranchette clusters indicate that little
of this kind of cooperation happens there- at least so far. Perhaps a
deepening depression will remind people that clusters of homes in the
country used to be villages where everyone worked together to survive.



What positive changes have you seen in your ranching community in your
lifetime?

More women are being acknowledged as making important contributions to all
phases of the ranching life, especially our interactions with the public.
Women have always been essential, of course. The minister at my father's
funeral was a woman, which would have horrified him. She said ranching began
when God established a garden "over east in Eden," but ranching really began
when God created woman to help man.

More ranchers are speaking out in public about their work, trying to educate
urban dwellers. More ranchers are banding together in groups to work for the
political change they need. Perhaps the media is paying more attention, or
perhaps there are simply more media outlets that are connected in some way
with rural life, and part of this can be attributed to some of the changes
we deplore: people moving into the country who don't know its history. They
ask questions, and many of them are just as interested in adapting and
learning as their ancestors- like my cobbler grandfather, who became as good
a rancher as it's possible to be.



How is your work as an artist/rancher essential to the preservation of
ranching itself?

In my writing, I try to explain and show how important the prairie is, not
just to a few ranchers who make a living here, but to the country. I was
horrified to learn recently that some of my friends, faithful readers of my
books, still think grass-fed beef is "tough." I've distributed a dozen copies
of Jo Robinson's book Pasture Perfect, and will be distributing more, as
well as quoting her more often in my own writing, and referring people to
her web site and others that discuss the perfection of grass-fed meat.

Do you think the custom of "western silence" is a barrier to sustainable change in the cattle industry?

Yes. Ranchers are bundles of contradictions. We'll leap to help strangers
in trouble, but we don't share information enough. Many of my neighbors are
automatically suspicious of anything connected with the government-despite
being willing to sign up for various benefits. We insist that we believe
what we can see, but while we'll go to a Stockgrowers meeting, we won't go
near the Sierra Club. But I hear stories of exceptions to all these comments, and I know that ranchers who want their ranches to continue being part of the landscape are working hard to broaden their perspectives and learn from others. Sometimes it’s hard to find the time, and know who to trust.



What measures are you currently taking to improve or manage the ecosystems
of your land?

1. My land is leased to neighbors, and the leases impose certain
restrictions:

--limit the number of cow units that can be placed on each pasture,
depending on the condition of the grass;

--prohibit shooting coyotes or poisoning prairie dogs or other animals, and
require that hunters walk to hunt only legal game. I make sure neighbors
know it is illegal to shoot predatory birds and the herons which have a
rookery along Battle Creek.

--require weeds be controlled by cutting rather than spraying chemicals.

2. With the help of the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory, I have fenced a
riparian area along the only flowing creek on my property, Battle Creek near
Hermosa, South Dakota. Cattle are kept out of the area to protect wildlife
habitat and the creek banks.

3. I am encouraging and paying for the replacement of invasive alfalfa with
native grasses on my hayfields.

4. I encourage grazing hayfields for pasture rather than harvesting hay
where feasible, saving fuel and damage to ground.

5. In each writing retreat I conduct at Homestead House, I furnish reference
materials about the shortgrass prairie and its flora and fauna, and talk
about how a well-conducted ranching operation can enhance and protect
wildlife habitat. I allow and encourage resident writers to hike alone or
with me through the pastures to observe conditions for themselves.



As a rancher, do you feel an intrinsic moral obligation to the well-being of
your land and animals?

Yes, but I'd never put it that way in talking with my neighbors. Sadly, I
think most of them would be embarrassed and deny "an intrinsic moral
obligation" even while they felt it. So much in our relationships regarding
the land depends on language, and of course I don't expect well-educated
people whose language includes those terms to try to adopt another language
to speak to ranchers- that would be interpreted as "talking down to them"
anyway. But some of the ranchers I know would think they were being pompous
if they used those terms.

My dad never went to church, though he made me go with my mother, and
occasionally he'd talk to us about what we got out of the experience. He
said he hoped that God understood that while we were in church, he was out
taking care of God's land and cows, and that God would count those labors
just the way He supposedly added up hours spent in prayer and other
Christian works.

Photo of Linda on her Land in South Dakota by Tamara Rodgers

Mark's grass-fed farm in the Ozarks.

We met Grass-fed Party member Mark Hudson in September at a Cowcus in New York. Mark had come all the way from Arkansas for the Cowcus! We found out that Mark was in the process of starting a small grass-fed farm in Southwest Missouri, the heart of Ozark country. The land he currently owns was settled by his great-grandparents in the 1860’s when his grandfather drove cattle over from Georgia and Tennessee to the Ozarks and met his wife, a woman of the cattle owning Caddo tribe. They established a farm together, which stayed in Mark’s family until the 1950’s. Mark, who grew up on an adjacent farm, recently bought part of the old family farm, which had changed hands in the 50s.

Tell me a little bit about the farm you grew up on. Did your family raise grass-fed cows?

 Our cattle were on grass; however, the majority of the calves were weaned and sold as feeder cattle. This is on land my father purchased in the 1960’s. Until the early 1970’s most of these light calves went to the wheat pastures in Kansas for finishing. Typically, during the 30 days prior to slaughter, grain was provided. As a kid we ate grass-fed beef from our own cows. I remember wishing we could eat the plastic wrapped supermarket beef, but I’ve since realized how much better I had it.

When my ancestors came to this area in the 1860’s they brought cows. Their calves were weaned and tuned to grass. They also grazed the mountainsides for acorns to supplement their diet. Old folks around here say, “A good acorn meant fat cattle in the spring.”

After 1 to 2 years, the fat cattle were driven to market. My Grandfather drove cattle to markets in Kansas City on horseback. They were all grass-fed. At first to Kansas City and later to the railroad in Crane, Mo. They were truly grass-fed for over 100 years.

As a kid did you see yourself owning your own farm one day?

 Yes. I always planned to continue and expand the farming operation. FFA and 4-H were a significant part of childhood on the farm.

Have you been able to do that?

While working as a grain inspector I established a farrow-to-finish hog operation. I grew grain, mixed feed, farrowed pigs and finished to 245 lbs. With high input costs and low returns, the operation was not sustainable.

Three years ago land next to our family farm came up for sale. This land was part of my great grandfather’s place. I purchased this acreage and am in the process of reclaiming pastures and installing improvements.

I spent a few years looking for a bank that would give me a loan to buy the cattle. Because grass-fed cattle need more time to grow, I wouldn’t be able to make a payment for at least 2 years. I finally found a local banker who knows me and helped me buy the cattle. It took a few years of looking.

I am establishing all pasture without chemicals and using the most environmentally sensitive practices. The USDA Conservation Service is very helpful in this area. I recently gained funding through the federal EQIP program. It basically helps pay for wells and fencing to keep cattle out of natural springs and to put native grasses back on the land. I have until November 2009 to finish my improvements.

What is ecologically distinctive about your part of the country?

 One distinction is in the Ozarks we have some of the highest carrying capacity per cattle per acre, given to the grasses, soil, and climate. We get about 2 snows per year. Grass is growing all year round. My cows will graze native warm weather grasses in the winter and cool weather grasses such as clover fescue in the summer. We also have hardy cattle for four seasons grazing.

What kind of cows are you raising?

I’m raising Charolais and I just bought a new herd of Black Angus Heifers from a local farmer, so I know their history well. I know what they’ve been eating. They’re bred so they’ll be calving in February.

What are the biggest issues in your region?

 The biggest issue is the market for the live grass-finished cattle. Where can I take a live grass-fed cow and sell it? We can’t process meat and sell it to anyone without a USDA certified facility processing it, and most of those are own by the big 3 packers. I couldn’t just bring in 30 cows. I consider myself a wholesale producer meat on the hoof. We never had control, before the packers, it was the government – they bought and processed the cows.

If the USDA would ease up, I could produce any grass-fed beef cheaper or for as much as a feedlot. If we truly had a Grass-fed America, I could take my calf to a sell barn that would have a way to process it or pack it as a grass-fed product without shipping it to a feedlot. The 2 sell barns within a 50 mile radius of my place run about 5,000 to 6,000 calves per week.

I was trying to find out what to do with my cattle that will be ready in 2010. I have friends who own restaurants, but because I don’t have a USDA processing facility to process them, legally I’d have to sell them as live cows to the restaurants owners, who would be in charge of processing them. I’m committed to it though. I’m raising them. I’m raising grass-fed cows and what I do with them I’ll have to figure that out when the time comes.

I’m very excited about our new administration. Our cheep food policy in the US has had many benefits but it has created the subsidized corn/feedlot/agri-busness we have today. It is imperative that we revisit our food policy as build new energy and economic policies.

Race King is the hard-working ranch manager at the La Cense Ranch.  When I talked to him today, he had just come in from getting more straw bales out to the cows for shelter from the wind.  He said that it had been below zero last weekend, getting down to 30 below at night, and they were preparing the best windbreaks and strawbale shelter for the cows and calves in the lowlands.   In this interview, Race talks about the La Cense Ranch, the value of rotational grazing, how grass-fed practices preserve the heritage of ranching, and the quality of character found in the ranching community.

What makes the La Cense Ranch unique?

I think it’s a combination of many things that make us unique.  It’s the landscape, the size of our operation, the managed intensive grazing, the high quality forages found in our area, the low-stress animal handling, the natural resources available for the wildlife that provide a natural well-balanced system, the Angus genetics, the time honored ranching practices we utilize.  One of the big things we have is the strong commitment from the people here at the ranch, from the management to the people out doing the every day things.  We have an operation where we can raise the animals, and package them and send them on, and that’s very unique.

How is grazing necessary to maintaining a healthy ecosystem on the La Cense Ranch?

Well first of all, we’ve been able to use managed rotational grazing to increase plant health and plant density while increasing grass production on the ranch and additionally have a positive impact on the creeks and streams.  It’s just not realistic to not rotational graze.  It’s totally necessary.  Otherwise we’d have rampant wildfires.  Grazing needs to be managed and we do that by allowing rest periods between grazing.  We believe grazing is important for the overall health of the landscape.  If we can ensure a good quality pasture to where it stays healthy, we will also help the wildlife as they pass though.  They’ll have good quality forage, with our warm and cools season grasses.  With the managed grazing, we’re also able to put more pressure on noxious weeds.

How did you know you wanted to go into the ranching profession?  Did you grow-up on a ranch?

I did.  I grew up on a family farm and ranch operation.  From a very early age I knew that my passion lied in ranching.  I liked working with livestock.  I admire the strong moral character and work ethic of ranching.  I enjoy it, and it allows me to raise my family in the midst of that, and it’s something they can share as well.

What barriers may prevent other Montana ranchers from being able to produce or sell grass-fed beef?

I think the biggest thing is the marketing side of it.  I think many of the ranchers in the state could produce the product.  The costs are a little higher, but we could get more out of it.  As the market grows I think there will be more who could step up and produce it.

When we talked recently, you said the La Cense Ranch is “preserving the heritage of ranching.”   What wealth lies in the heritage of ranching?

Well it’s part of our lifestyle.  My family has been involved in agriculture as have a lot of us in this country.  When you step back and look at how to do things in a more sustainable manner, and then you do research on the history, you’ll find out you’re doing it a lot like they did fifty, or a hundred years ago.  We’re focusing more on the range and the pasture.  We really have become grass-farmers, if you will.  If you look back, they had a little bit of hay put up for feed in the winter and that was all.  I think this is how we’ll be able to preserve the heritage.  It’s allowed us to come back to the roots of ranching.

There have been technological developments that have allowed us to blend old and new and come up with a sustainable concept.  And with that, we’re able to lower costs, we have less inputs, and we can increase animal health and performance.  There have been some good technologies to build on the roots of our heritage.  I think the bottom line is that ranchers and farmers in this country are good people; we care about our animals and the quality of our products.  As we produce more of these sustainably raised products, people will be board and more family farmers will be able to switch over to sustainable production.   People will have to pay a little more to get this, but for now we’re satisfied to reach a few folks who share our philosophy.

What do ranchers bring to a community?

Well first of all, ethics, values, they’re just strong people.  If you live in a small town it’s nice to have the scenery, but it’s the people around us who affect who we are.  It really takes a whole community to raise a child and the kids who come out of these communities do a great job wherever they go.  There’s a strong work ethic they come out with. 

 The number one industry in Dillon and Montana is still agriculture.  Not only is it the heart of the economy, but it's also socially who we are.  I guess you’d say it’s the backbone.  I don’t want to see us getting to the point where all our food is imported.  I know the people who are making our food and I think that it’s important to keep that industry here in America.

La Cense Ranch cowboys and kids at the recent Ranch Christmas Party, photo by Armelle Buvron