Defining Ourselves

As the word spreads about our little farm, it is interesting to see who contacts us.  We get all sorts of questions and requests from people.  If I get a call from somebody wanting to order a pig, I will always ask how they would like the pig processed.  (Cured or fresh ham etc...) Once in a while, before I have a chance to explain their options, a customer will eagerly give me their order.
"I would like 100 lbs of bacon, 12 pork chops, and the rest ham."

While this may seem humorous to those who understand a little bit about the various cuts of meat, it is somewhat reflective of how disconnected from our food our general population has become.  If I could grow a pig that would yield 100 lbs of bacon, I would be a rich! : )  I don’t want anybody to feel bad if they are one of the customers who tried to place an order like the one above.  We welcome all questions and want to be perceived as approachable.  I just offer it as an illustration that part of our role as the farmer is to help educate our customers about their food.  This is not something we foresaw when we decided to offer the food we were growing for ourselves to others.

Because the supermarkets have their meat processed a little different than what we offer, some customers don’t always know what to do with certain cuts.  The frequently asked questions we get are what do you do with a ham hock?  (Hollie will be posting a delicious ham and bean soup recipe soon.) What do you do with a beef soup bone?  What is the difference between cured ham and bacon and fresh ham and bacon? (Another post coming soon.)

Side Note: We are working on improving our website with a FAQ section and adding recipes, ideally at least a couple for each type of cut.

It is actually fun and rewarding for us to share a little bit of what we know with others.  We always try to remember to offer the disclaimer that we are not chefs!

Speaking of chefs, we have had a quite a few restaurants contact us wanting to buy our meats.  As a small farm this can be exciting and overwhelming.  For example, we have had companies like Creminelli Fine Meat and Café Rio who could potentially purchase thousands of animals per year express interest in purchasing from us.  We have also had smaller local restaurants contact us and inquire about our meats.  In these instances we have had to decide who we are as a farm and where we want to go.  We love getting out and meeting with our customers on a Saturday morning.  However, from a business perspective, having customers like Creminelli and Café Rio could offer some big opportunities.  It pleases us that companies are starting to show interest in buying local, humane, and natural meats from sustainable family farms.  (I hope I don’t get in trouble for posting this, but we have decided to supply Creminelli with a very small supply of pork as they test the market with delicious sausage and salami made from heritage breed pork.  Look for it this holiday season.) 

At this time we really aren’t interested in supplying the bigger customers with all of their meat needs.  For one, we don’t have the resources.  There isn’t a processing facility in Utah that could handle the quantities.  It would require thousands of acres of land and gobs of money.  In principle, we would like to see Utah be able to raise all of its own food which will require more farms and certainly farms bigger than ours.  It would be good for the economy, residents, environment, and animals, and it reduces dependency on one source which reduces vulnerabilities.

Working with restaurants can be a little tricky.  Chefs are used to ordering by the cut and getting terms on their purchase.  We try and carefully explain that we are a farm and not a processing/distribution facility nor are we a bank.  I could be wrong, but it seems that some chefs want to be able to offer buzz words like “local, natural, humane, family farm” on their menus but don’t understand what it means to work with and buy from a local family farm.  For us, these aren’t just buzz words but rather principles that we live and work by.  As a small family farm, we can’t just sell one cut from an animal.  What would we do with the rest of it?  We don’t have the time to go and find a home for each cut of meat.  Unfortunately, some of the local restaurants don’t care to work with us once they find this out.  (It really isn’t that unfortunate in a business sense, since we can’t keep up with orders as it is; just in principle.)

Other local chefs like Colton Soelberg with Communal Restaurant in Provo have been wonderful to work with.  They understand what it means to buy from local family farms.  They have even adjusted their menus to utilize the entire animal.  We hope to work with more restaurants like these in the future.

Some people contact us pretending to be customers but are actually interested in setting up a farm similar to us.  It is actually really funny when this happens because they will ask a few general questions and then slip in a very specific question that only a farmer would care about.  I usually will just ask if they are interested in farming and if so, what questions specific to farming they have.  We do not view it as competition.  We wouldn’t even be able to raise enough meat to support our little town of Vernon.

All of these people help us define who we are.  They require us to make decisions that we wouldn’t have made otherwise.  I suppose like anything else in life, figuring out who we are as a farm is a journey. We will likely try things that work and others that won’t work.  We are learning to structure ourselves better.  By this I mean having guidelines that we operate by.  We have limits and cannot accommodate every customer’s request.  We try and be flexible but can only do so much.  This year we sold out of turkeys very quickly.  We simply don’t have the room to raise anymore than the number we have offered and it is very difficult to tell our customers that we won’t have any more turkeys this year.  We could put some turkeys on a neighbor’s land, but this would strain our time running back and forth several times a day.  We hope that the land we are trying to buy will work out.  This will allow us to raise a lot more turkeys next year for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We have had several requests to raise guinea fowl, geese, ducks, sheep, goats, etc… While we would love to do more, at this time we are choosing to focus on our current offerings.  We can easily spread ourselves too thin.  We enjoy what we do and want it to stay that way.         

Random Thoughts

In case you can't tell by the lack of blog postings....we have been rather busy lately.  Cold and Flu season has also taken a toll on the family.  As soon as one person gets feeling better somebody else is coming down with something else.  The animals are very inconsiderate and expect to be cared for even when we have been sick. : )  Some of the sickness is undoubtedly brought on by Hollie and I burning the candle at both ends.  We are learning to plan better and work more effeciently.  We have also learned many times the value of having the right tools for the job.  Sometimes in an effort to save money, we have made decisions that ended up costing more money and heartache than investing in the right tool to begin with would have cost.  I am sure most people can relate to that. 

We recently built a series of pens and chutes that now allow us to load and handle the pigs much easier.  Our neighbor Jeff who is 16 years old, designed the whole system for us.  We told him that we needed to build the system using as much material that we had on hand as possible.  He designed the whole thing in Google SketchUp.  Jeff and his dad, Richard, are the ones who mill our feed for us.  They do a fantastic job using grain and alfalfa grown right here in Vernon and make our whole operation possible. 

We can now herd the pigs into a large pen and weigh them one at a time.  Depending on their weight, we can either load them directly into the trailer or into one of three pens.  It is saved us a lot of time with the last group of pigs we took to the butcher.  The whole family is needed to operate it however.  Hollie will herd one pig from the large pen onto the scale.  Hans (5 years old) runs the gates on the scale by pulling sliding gates up and down with a rope on a pulley.  The scale is a 2' by 4' cage with a sliding gate on each end.  Hans opens the first gate to let the pig on the scale.  Once I have recorded the weight, he opens the second gate to let the pig out.  The pig is now in an alley where by swinging another gate, we can steer him onto the trailer or into one of the three holding pens.  On the last group of pigs, we decided to sort all the pigs first and then load the heaviest pigs onto the trailer all at once.  I would run ahead of the pig coming off the scale and open the appropriate pen depending on the size of the pig.  Dane (4 years old) then gets behind the pig and shoos the pig through the gate I am holding open.  If Dane didn't shoo the pig, it would likely just start rooting around in the soil.  Once we had the 15 largest pigs in one pen, we then unlatched their gate and herded them onto the trailer at once.  The pigs load much easier in a group than one at a time.  We like this as it helps keep the stress level down for both the pigs and the farmers.  A few apples in the trailer quickly convinces the pigs that they want to load in the trailer on their own.  We were able to weigh 45 pigs, sort them into three holding pens and then load them on the trailer in a little over an hour.  It worked like a dream.  We literally couldn't have done it without Hans and Dane.  Sometimes we wonder if we work too much.  However, we felt reassured when at the end of the day, Hans said, "This is so much fun working together.  I wish we could do this everyday!"  When we were all done, they each got some money for their work which made them even more excited.  Of course then they started looking at us with dollar signs in their eyes asking what else we needed to get done.

We recently picked up the beef from a couple of our steers that we had taken to the butcher.  I was so excited that as soon as it had been loaded in the freezer I pulled out some T Bone steaks and grilled them.  We were in heaven.  It is so flavorful and delcious!  We are very happy with the results.  Normally if I get too much fat in a piece of steak, it kind of gags me.  The flavor of the fat is just disgusting.  However, with this steak, it was beautifully marbled and the fat was the best part!  I couldn't believe how good it was.  I know corn fed beef is popular with many people.  I honestly believe that if they tried some of this grass/alfalfa fed beef they would never go back.  Today we grilled up some hamburgers which is the first ground beef we have tried.  We took the ground beef and formed patties with it.  We gave the patties a dash of salt and pepper and threw them on the grill.  I couldn't believe how fresh it smelled as it cooked on the grill.  We sauteed some onions that we served on the hamburgers.  The burgers literally tasted like steak.  Right after we finished, my brother in law stopped by.  They too had just grilled up burgers for dinner with ground beef they bought from Costco.  He saw an extra patty still sitting out and asked if it was from our steers that we just got back.  He said he wanted to try it.  He couldn't believe the difference in our beef.  He came to the same conclusion that it tasted like steak.  I guess it goes to show that when you raise animals humanely, give them a diet that they were designed to handle, and then process it right that you can get results that most people aren't used to.  Our beef was dry aged before being carefully packaged by a very reputable butcher shop.  For those who have placed their beef orders you can look forward to a real treat when we get your beef order to you.

I jumped from sorting pigs to our beef, and now I will jump again.  We have 400 chicks on order that will be arriving soon.  We are excited to try a couple of different kinds including the heritage breed Plymouth Rock that is featured on the Slow Food Ark of Taste program.  We will also be raising two breeds of chickens that have been bred from old European breeds along with old American breeds.  These breeds are the Red Ranger and the Naked Neck.  They are carefully bred to be raised on pasture similar to France's Poulet Rouge program.  The Red Ranger will offer a superior flavor coupled with good growth rates.  The Naked Neck is often regarded as the premier eating bird because of its superior meat texture and very thin skin which crisps to perfection when roasted.  Once we have had a chance to raise each of these three breeds, we will combine our experience raising each kind with our customers' feedback and preferences before choosing just one or two to raise continuously.

As you can see, there is a lot going on.  We are trying to keep up with our orders which has helped us decide to buy a bigger farm.  After hearing no from just about every bank, we are hopeful of a USDA loan that will help us buy more land, build a slightly bigger house than the current 800 ft2, as well as a small barn for storage.  We found a pretty good deal on 20 acres, but it doesn't come with very much water.  We will have to apply for water over the next few years to have enough for a decent pasture.  Everybody else we have talked to in Vernon wants anywhere from $7,500 to $24,000 an acre for irrigated farm ground.  This just doesn't make sense from a farming perspective.  Even the $7,500 an acre land would take years of working for free to break even.  I suspect that there are landowners who are trying to retire on the sale of one piece of land.  While we are probably crazy to farm, we are not crazy enough to farm for free for the next 15-20 years just to pay for the land.  Hopefully the 20 acres we are looking at will work out.  Or maybe some long lost relative I didn't know I had has left me in their will and I am about to inherit a beautiful farm.  : )

We look forward to this spring, when it greens up a bit and we have chickens and turkeys out on the pasture.  We will be sure to post pictures of the chicks and the progress they make.  We appreciate the support we have had from our enthusiastic customers.


PS.  IF YOU WANT A TURKEY THIS YEAR, ORDER SOON!  We will be placing our order soon and won't be able to order after that. 

 

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

In case you didn’t see it, we were recently featured in the Salt Lake Tribune with a very flattering article written by Kathy Stephenson who is the Food Editor at the Tribune. You can read the article here. Right after that, Stephanie Brubaker who writes the popular blog, Stephmodo.com wrote about her recent order with our farm which you can read here. As you may be able to imagine, this brought a flood of business that has us sold out until early summer. We are also in talks with a couple of larger businesses who could easily double or triple our pork and poultry sales should we decide to pursue these offers. Hollie and I have been very busy just sorting all of the orders we have received. We are not talking about hundreds of orders but a solid 50+. For a small family farm like ours, this many orders keep us hopping as well as feeling somewhat overwhelmed.

As we have explained before, we started our farm only intending to raise our own food and perhaps a little extra to sell to help offset the cost. It has grown like a wildfire! We have been caught up in the momentum and now find ourselves in a bit of a pickle. If we grow anymore, it will require more time than our part time schedule will allow. In order to support ourselves full time, we would need to quadruple our sales. With all the leads we have, we could likely reach this within 1-2 years if not sooner. However, we are also very limited on space. Currently we run our entire operation on just three acres with the cows on leased ground. We are already fully utilizing the land we have and would have to buy more acreage to grow our farm. Most of our money is tied up in animals and we would need to borrow money to buy the land. If we are making a land payment, we would need to double our current sales bringing our total increase in production/sales to five times our current level. We can’t grow without the extra land and time and we don’t have extra land and time because we can’t grow!

Of course there are solutions to this predicament. One is to stop where we are at or even scale back a bit. Another is to seek out funding in the form of a large agricultural loan or seek investment funds. (I don’t like borrowing money nor do I care to answer to an investor.) Another option is to try and find a new job elsewhere in Utah where farm ground is cheaper making it easier to keep more animals while still supporting my family with a steady paycheck and benefits. This way I could just buy another house that comes with more land.

I would like to grow our farm as that is the ultimate dream. My entrepreneurial spirit tells me to grab every opportunity and run with it, take out a loan or find an investor. My body on the other hand, tells me to slow down, I am exhausted. The past few weeks have brought me little sleep. I stress about responding to emails, returning phone calls, updating the blog, finishing the website, sorting orders, taking care of the animals, managing the land, finish applying for more water rights, trying to talk every neighbor into selling me more land at a price we can afford, keeping a steady supply of feed for the animals, projecting sales so that we have enough animals to keep up with orders, contact vendors about ordering chickens and turkeys, figure out where the electric fence is grounding out, finalize with the State of Utah and USDA about processing poultry on the farm, etc… On top of farm duties, I have my full-time job, I am a member of our town council and town treasurer, teach the teenage Sunday school class, and most importantly am a husband and father.

Hollie and I are very passionate about farming the way we do which is why it is hard to not pursue it with all our might when there are so many people interested. It isn’t a high profit venture. Raising heritage breeds costs a lot more than commercial breeds. The heritage breed animals are more expensive to purchase, are slower growing and therefore require more feed. The feed itself is more expensive since we refuse to use slaughterhouse wastes in our feed, as well as donuts, breads, restaurant scraps and other cheaply attained foods. We always buy the highest quality feed we can find that has been raised locally and sustainably. But once you bite into our beef, pork, chicken, or turkey and taste the flavors and feel the moisture and tenderness you realize that it is absolutely worth it.

Since our article in the Tribune we have had several farms or interested future farmers contact us about what we are doing. Mostly they are just trying to find Berkshire pigs to breed because they see the prices we charge without learning about the way we farm. They mistakenly think that we make lots of money, that we are simply marketing ordinary pork using catchy terms like humane, free range, grass-fed, and heritage breed. For the record, last year we lost money. In fact, most of the year we used our own money to help cover the animals’ feed costs to the tune of $800-$1200/month on a very average salary. (You can afford this when you live in an 800 ft2 house) : ) It wasn’t until recently that the animals started paying for their own feed. We hope this year to see our first profit. We have learned first-hand, why most farms offering similar products charge $7-$10/lb. We hope that we are correct in our belief that we can raise our meat utilizing ethical, sustainable, and responsible farming practices while keeping prices at a level that the average family can afford and still be profitable. We welcome anybody who is interested in similar farming principles. We wish every farm in Utah would be conscientious of animal welfare and sustainable farming. There are actually many farms who take very good care of their animals; many just aren’t interested in advertising themselves as such or growing more than they have. I suspect they may be in the same situation we are.

We have been very fortunate with our farm’s growth due to the numerous opportunities we have seen simply fall in our laps. We hope that as we struggle to know which route we should pursue that the best option will again fall in our laps. We recognize that there are many talented and skilled people out there and welcome any ideas or suggestions you may have. While I am tired and sometimes stressed out, we absolutely love what we are doing. Hollie has figured out a good way to relieve the stress she feels when the pigs give her a hard time. She simply marches into the house, opens the freezer and begins cooking pork chops for dinner! We are thrilled and honored to play a small role in raising food that so many of our customers are so passionate about. We encourage others to join us in raising gourmet quality, humane, and natural meats. We sincerely appreciate the huge response that received from the recent publicity. We also want to thank the Tribune and its staff especially Kathy Stephenson as well as Stephanie Brubaker. 

We would also like to thank Crystal Keating a recent photography major graduate for visiting our farm and sharing the beautiful pictures she took for her senior project.  We look forward to her new coffee table book titled "Ripe" which features farm to table farms in Utah.  You can preview her book here.

UPDATED: New Website, Family Packages, and Meat CSA!!!

www.ChristiansenFarm.com

CSA's have been growing rapidly across the country. They offer consumers and farmers the opportunity to work together and mutually benefit. The way a CSA works is the customer pays up front for the year's harvest. This money is prudently used by the farmer to help pay for costs associated with farming. The farmer has enough cash to avoid loans and saves in interest. This is often passed on to the customer in lower costs and/or larger share of the harvest.

We would like to offer our customers the chance to save money by investing in their food up front with our Family Packages and Meat CSA shares! This will help give us the cash flow we need to operate for the year. Please help support our farm and our farming methods by buying one of our Family Packages or CSA shares. Encourage your friends, family, and coworkers to do the same! Your health will benefit, our local economy will benefit, and animals being treated humanely and raised naturally benefit by enjoying a good life. If you are like us and believe this is the way all meat should be raised please show your support.  Buying your meat now will save you on monthly grocery bills while spoiling your family with premium, clean, healthy meats.  Tax returns are coming and this is a healthy, delicious way to use some of that extra money.

Beginning in 2010 we will be offering three sizes of Family Packages as well as CSA shares. Each size Family Package is designed to provide meat for a family for one year. A small Family Package is sized for a family of two. A medium Family Package will provide for a family of three to four. A large Package will provide for a family of five to eight. These are ball park estimates and each family will want to evaluate their own needs. You choose when you would like your beef and pork delivered. The chicken can be delivered all at once or in increments through the months of May-November. Turkey will be delivered in November.

We understand that not everybody has a large deep freeze or even room for one.  If this is the case, then a CSA share may be a better choice for you.  One CSA share will give you 10 lbs of meat per month.  This may include beef, pork, or chicken.  We will try and always give you meat from at least two animals and will disperse the premium cuts the best we can.  Please keep in mind that a beef only produces so many T-Bone steaks but a lot of hamburger.  Regardless, it is all of the highest quality.  If you have a larger family or like to eat meat, then you may want to buy two or three shares depending on your needs.  Each share is $50 and must be purchased in increments of 6 months at a time (Total of $300).  If you buy one year at a time, we can offer a discount of $25 for a total of $575.   CSA shares will begin in May but we encourage you to purchase now as we will only offer 30 shares to begin with.  After that we will go to a wait list.  At that point we will evaluate if we can handle more CSA shares. 

Although our prices are similar (and often less) than that you would pay in the grocery store, we can't compare them as they are not even the same product. We offer gourmet quality meats. We raise non-commercial heritage breeds, that are raised ethically and sustainably, fed premium 100% vegetarian feeds, handled humanely, and processed in clean owner operated facilities. As always, we never use antibiotics, hormones, or any other chemical. A quick Meat CSA Google search will reveal what a value we are offering as most of the results will show prices anywhere from $7-$10/lb. We are pleased to offer our CSA shares at $5.00/lb of actual cuts and just under $4.00/lb for Family Packages.

Below you will find the amount of meat included in each Family Package. The lbs/month and $/month is listed to give you an idea of how much meat you will be receiving. We do not deliver these amounts monthly, nor do we charge on a monthly basis. All the beef in your share will be delivered at one time, the same is true for the pork and turkey. You can pick up your chickens in one delivery or pick them up throughout the season (May-November). Once you have placed your order, we will contact you to get a few preferences. For example with the pork, you can choose if you want the hams and bacon smoked/cured or fresh. You will also get to choose between breakfast sausage and ground pork.

We are constantly hearing from our customers that they didn't realize how dramatically different and delicious pork could taste. Having raised our own beef, turkey, and chicken by the same standards as our pork we have discovered the equally dramatic difference in our own beef, turkey, and chicken. We are excited to share this with our customers by offering these products in 2010. Get ready for meats that are clean, moist, tender, and loaded with flavor! Prepare to experience what beef, pork, chicken, and turkey were meant to be.

A CSA Share will include:
10 lbs of a combination of Pork, Beef, and Chicken every month for the length of time purchased.  (If you are interested in a Heritage Turkey, you will want to order this separately.

A Small Family Package will include:

1/8 Beef (Around 50 lbs of cuts)
1/4 Pork (Around 35 lbs of cuts)
1 Whole Turkey (Around 15 lbs)
12 Whole Chickens (Around 50 lbs)

This totals around 150 lbs of meat for $588. This will give you a little over 12 lbs per month of gourmet quality meat for $49/month or just $3.92/lb.

A Medium Family Package will include:

1/4 Beef (Around 100 lbs of cuts)
1/2 Pork (Around 70 lbs of cuts)
2 Whole Turkeys (Around 30 lbs)
24 Whole Chickens (Around 100 lbs)

This totals around 300 lbs of meat for $1176. This will give you about 25 lbs per month of gourmet quality meat for $98/month or just $3.92/lb.

A Large Family Package will include:

1/2 Beef (Around 200 lbs of cuts)
1 Whole Pork (Around 140 lbs of cuts)
3 Whole Turkeys (Around 45 lbs)
36 Whole Chickens (Around 150 lbs)

This totals around 535 lbs of meat for $2100. This will give you about 45 lbs per month of gourmet quality meat for $175/month or just $3.92/lb.

Our website is very much in its developmental phase but now allows for online deposits, and payments.  Check it out and let us know what you think!

http://www.christiansenfarm.com/

Pig Date at Viking Cooking School

The "Pig Date" at Viking Cooking School was a ton of fun!  We learned from the master as we watched Executive Chef Jim Light work his magic in the state of the art Viking Kitchen.  We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know some of our loyal customers better.  We spent around 4 hours cooking, talking, and enjoying ourselves.  The highlight of the evening of course was eating that absolute best meal, I think any of us had ever had the pleasure of eating.  As the farmer, it was thrilling to see the potential that our pork has when it was prepared by somebody who knows what they are doing.  One of the crown roasts was provided by us and the other two, Jim had bought elsewhere.  Hollie and I felt a sense of pride when everybody there could easily identify which roast came from us.  The marbeling that our pork posesses is easily identifiable.

We were also surprised to see Kathy Stephenson, Food Editor at the Salt Lake Tribune there.  She interviewed Hollie and I and will be featuring our farm in Wednesday's (Jan. 6, 2010) newspaper.  We are flattered to be included in the newspaper and look forward to any response it may bring us.

As I mentioned we enjoyed a wonderful meal and were excited when we found out that we get to take home the recipes!  Hopefully, we will be able to plan another event later this year. We would like to give a special thanks to Jim and his crew for hosting such a special evening. Here are some pictures from our Pig Date!

PS. Check our post again in a couple of days for an exciting announcement!  (Hint: Meat CSA)

 

 

 

Winter Farm Activities

Winter was supposed to slow down. So far we are still very busy! Here are some pictures of the latest activities on the farm.

Here the pigs are huddled in their deep straw beds while sleeping in on a snowy morning.

Marlin our neighbor is always willing to come over with his tractor since we pay him in pork!  Here we are loading a 2,200 lb bag of grain from the makeshift hoop shelter to the back of the truck.  In the front you can see our new pasture is coming up nicely.  It is dormant and will hopefully take off in the spring.

Here I am filling the feeders.  No augers on this farm, just good old fashioned muscle power.  When coworkers ask if I want to go to the gym with them, I explain that I work out at home. 

Here we are leaving Gary's Meat in Payson with the pork from 20 pigs.  You can see how our 1 ton truck is sagging in the back.  I think it may be time for a refrigerated trailer.

Here we are with a line of customers waiting for their pork.  We had 44 customers to deliver to and somehow every one of their orders seemed to be in the bottom of the stack of boxes! : )  We sure appreciate everybodys' patience while we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off. 

Our kids were so patient on Saturday.  We woke them up while it was still dark and loaded them into the truck at 6:30 am.  We then drove to the butcher and loaded the pork.  We drove around with our deliveries which went very smoothly thanks to efforts put forth by our customers to meet us.  Afterwards, we ran our weekly errands.  The kids never complained the entire day.  We arrived home exhausted around 9pm.  Hans and Dane helped me unload the remaining pork and get it into our freezers.  They were concerned and repeatedly told me that the pork needed to get in the freezers so that it would stay fresh for our customers.  Hans informed me that we only get one chance to impress our customers with the quality of our pork which is why he was helping me.  That way he explained our farm could keep growing.  He has no doubt overheard Hollie and I talking.  Not bad for a 5 year old.  This truly is a family farm.

Food Inc and Thoughts on Organic

We just bought the movie Food Inc and finally watched it over the weekend.  Another movie called Fresh, which I posted about here was better.  It had less finger pointing and focused more on solutions to our food problems.  While I highly recommend Food Inc, I would like to point out that my main gripe with Food Inc is that it presented some of the problems in our food industry and then offered a few solutions which in my opinion are weak.  One solution offered was writing your congressman.  I may be young and naïve, but the 5 or 6 times I have taken the time and effort to write a congressman about a concern, I didn’t even get a response!  Not once!  Our lawmakers are the very people who have allowed their morals and ethics to be tainted by large ag and biotech companies to the point that our food industry is what it is today. 

The film also encouraged consumers to buy organic labeled products almost with the assumption that buying organic labeled foods was the solution.  In other words, trust in a label that was created and is regulated by the very organization (USDA) that the movie is criticizing.  The movie clearly highlighted that the USDA has some major issues that make it difficult for consumers to trust the USDA.  These same issues trickle down and have a profound impact on the organic label.  Primarily the USDA cannot be trusted because it is controlled by politicians and lobbyists.  The National Organic Program (NOP) is the division within the USDA in charge of regulating the USDA Certified Organic products, labeling, enforcement etc…  They consist of a very small staff when one considers the amount of organic food out there.  The NOP actually relies on Accredited Certifying Agencies (ACAs) to do the inspections and certifications on farms.  For imported organic foods, foreign ACAs are subcontracted to inspect the foreign farms.  There are certainly not enough staff members to ensure that all foods labeled organic have been appropriately labeled. 

Even if a product has been appropriately labeled, most consumers still don’t fully understand what they are buying.  For example, most consumers don’t know that there are actually three levels of “Certified Organic”.  The first level is for products that are 100% Organic.  The second level is for products that are 95% Organic. The third is for products that are at least 70% organic.  The first and second levels are allowed to carry the famous “USDA Certified Organic” label that we are accustomed to.  The third level can describe it’s product as “organic” or “made from organic ingredients” on its packaging.

Next, foods (especially produce) labeled “USDA Certified Organic” are often imported from other countries.  This is especially true when fruits are out of season in the US but still available in the store.  A country like China who is becoming a larger supplier of our produce every year does not allow foreigners to inspect their farms.  How convenient.  Instead of the NOP not allowing Chinese food to be labeled organic, Chinese companies have popped up who will certify on behalf of American operated ACAs.  Last year when the NOP audited 30 ACAs in our country, 15 of them were placed on probation and given 12 months to improve of lose their accreditation.  That’s 50% in our own country!  Imagine what the subcontracted foreign ACAs are like when they are managed by the American ACAs of whom half aren’t compliant themselves!  If a farmer in China isn’t organic compliant and the subcontracted Chinese ACA decides to look the other way, who is there to ensure the integrity of the label and the safety of our food? 

This really bothers me as there are many, small, well intending farmers in our country who work very hard and pay a fair amount of money to use the USDA certified organic label on their products.  Now they have to compete against foreign countries who don’t play fair and deal with incompetent ACAs.   I have posted on this blog before; organic is not always everything we hope it is.  Nor does it ensure the welfare of animals.  Teaching a consumer to trust in a label will leave many consumers mislead about the food they are eating.  I believe consumers feel so good about buying food that is labeled organic that they become complacent.  They don’t bother to see how many thousands of miles the food traveled.  They don’t bother to see how the animal was treated.  What is organic about 100,000 chickens having their beaks cut off so they can’t peck each other and then raised in a dark building that is so unsanitary that workers have to wear respirators? Oh yeah, the food they ate was certified organic. 

Showing a consumer where their food comes from and how it was grown is in my opinion the only way to truly know what it is you are eating.  Buying local is the easiest way to see where your food comes from.  It gives the opportunity for the consumer to communicate with the farmer/grower and have a say in their food.  (This is more effective than writing your congressman.)  Buying local generally offers the freshest and most nutritious foods.  It benefits the local economy and therefore the consumers themselves.  It is usually less processed because fresh food tastes good and is in demand.  Old food does not taste good and must undergo processing to make it taste better.  

In no way do I mean to trash organic foods or scare anybody out of eating them.  Nor am I saying we need more inspectors and more government regulation.  What I am saying is that consumers need to learn more about where their food comes from.  I think organic food is wonderful!  The best is when it is grown locally.  I would rather buy a Utah grown non organic pear that was tree ripened and fresh and therefore nutrient dense and know that I will need to wash the pear extra good to help clean it of any residual chemical, than buy a pear that was picked green and has been in transport for 6 weeks on the slow boat from China under who knows what conditions or who or what has touched it that may or may not be organic even though I am paying twice the price of the Utah pear because a Chinese subcontracted ACA decided it met organic requirements.  I think most would agree in principle.  But is this principle reflected in our purchases?

I would have liked to see the movie focus more on learning where your food comes from and getting to know and support your local farmer.  That being said, the movie does raise awareness and we have certainly had an increase in business as a result of the movie.  There is a tremendous amount of good information that will help people begin to see what is unfortunately the tip of the iceberg.  The story about Wal-Mart buying hormone free milk as a result of consumer demand is a promising step in the right direction.  Even though Wal-Mart did this for money rather than a moral obligation the net result is good.  Hopefully people don't see this film and think that everything is okay with the dairy industry.  There is a still lot of work to be done with animal welfare/treatment, as well as making raw milk easier to obtain. 

I recently read, "The Appeal" by John Grisham where a large corporation is able to "buy" a state Supreme Court justice.  Although it is fictional, the story clearly outlines how easy it is for big business to buy their way out of (or into) any situation.  Seeing how the big ag guys had maneuvered their way into political offices was certainly eye opening.

Okay, enough ranting for a while, I will get back to posting more about the farm.  I have a lot that I have been thinking about that I wanted to get out there.


At Christiansen’s Hog Heaven we are committed to providing our customers with the freshest, healthiest, nutrient dense pork and beef (and hopefully soon poultry) possible.  We do this through pampering our animals.  We handle them gently and provide nutritious feeds they are designed to handle.  We never use antibiotics, hormones, or growth promoters.  If you want to see where your food comes from, come out and see.  It travels a very short distance from our farm to the butcher shop and then to your home.  Our feeds are all grown in Utah which support other farmers.  Our animals live a happy life which is reflected in the undisputed quality of our meat.  It is clean, local, and healthy.  It is beyond organic even though we are not certified.  It is everything you want in your food.  No labels are used here, our food speaks for itself!