Give 'em a Chance, Steers Will Eat Grass

[Guest guest]

New York Times

 

June 1, 2005

Give 'em a Chance, Steers Will Eat Grass

By KIM SEVERSON

Ghent, N.Y.

 

FROM his roomy shed three hours north of New York City, a

chocolate-brown calf can see acres of Hawthorne Valley Farm's prime

grassland.

 

As soon as he's big enough, maybe in a couple of months, the calf will

be free to roam the fields. For two years, feeding on as much summer

grass and winter hay as he wants, the calf will grow into a 900-pound

steer.

 

During that time, his manure will help the people who run Hawthorne

Valley Farm fertilize a dozen acres of vegetables. His grazing habits

will keep the pastures vibrant. And when the time comes, the steer

will become dinner for a month's worth of shoppers at the Greenmarket

at Union Square in New York City.

 

The premium price they will pay - $5.99 a pound for ground beef and as

much as $19.99 for tenderloin - will be plowed back into the farm's

budget.

 

It's a food chain, Manhattan style.

 

Although vegetables and fruit grown near the city have been the stars

of the Greenmarkets for almost 30 years, pork, beef and lamb from

local pastures are fast becoming the new darlings of the stands. New

Yorkers, who are among the nation's early adopters of culinary trends,

are learning that there is more to meat than uniform grain-fed slabs

laid out on plastic trays.

 

Citybound cooks have discovered that the fat, porky glory of a braised

Gloucestershire Old Spot shank or the deep-orange yolk of an egg

gathered from a chicken in the spring can tie them to the land and the

season as deftly as spring peas or a good New Jersey tomato.

 

" One of the crimes of industrial agriculture is that we've moved all

of the animals off the land, " said Steffen Schneider, the manager of

Hawthorne Valley. " There's something about green grass and cattle that

goes together. "

 

The number of beef cattle raised on pasture is less than 1 percent of

the 33 million animals slaughtered in the United States each year,

said Jo Robinson, an author who runs eatwild.com, devoted to the

grass-fed movement. But it's a fast-growing slice of the beef pie:

four years ago, she said, only about 50 farmers were dedicated to

raising grass-fed beef for market, and now there are over 1,000.

 

Since 2000 the number of Greenmarket farmers selling pasture-raised

protein - eggs, beef, lamb and pork - has grown from 9 to 25. All the

animals are raised no more than a half-day's driving distance from New

York, and by Greenmarket rules the farms must be small and

independently owned.

 

The farms are sustainable, which means essentially that none of the

animals eat on feedlots and that they spend time outside, where their

waste helps fields and pastures stay healthy. They are given no growth

hormones, and antibiotics only when they are sick.

 

Over 80 percent of the farmers who sell at Greenmarkets, both meat and

vegetable vendors alike, say they would be out of business if they

didn't use the Greenmarket model. Smaller family farms just can't

compete with larger industrial operations that sell to supermarkets.

 

Local pasture-raised animals are so appealing that some people who

once shunned factory-raised meat are adding beef and pork back to

their diets. Alyssa Bonilla, a 45-year-old Hawthorne Valley Farm

customer from Sunnyside, Queens, is one. She buys stew meat and liver

for her family from the farm's stand in Union Square.

 

" These are decent people, and they aren't abusing their animals or

their land, and I want to express my gratitude to them, " she said.

" I'm happier when I eat it. "

 

Gabrielle Langholtz, the marketing director for New York's Greenmarket

program, was a vegetarian until recently. She visited Flying Pigs Farm

in Shushan, N.Y., she said, and realized that sustainable agriculture

is about more than just keeping chemicals off the carrots.

 

Ms. Langholtz spent a couple of hours in the fields with the pigs and

the chickens. She saw that the pastures were cleaner because the

chickens picked grubs and bugs and the pigs rooted around in the

brush, helping turn unusable land into pasture.

 

She ended her stint as a vegetarian that day with pork and chicken

barbecued by Peter Hoffman, the chef at Savoy in SoHo.

 

Beyond the politics that pits big agriculture against small farmers,

health is driving the sustainable meat market. Although the body of

science comparing grain-fed beef with grass-fed is small, some studies

show that pasture-raised meat can be lower in total fat and higher in

omega 3's, conjugated linoleic acid and other helpful fatty acids.

 

At Hawthorne Valley, Mr. Schneider started selling steaks a year and a

half ago after customers and farm families expressed concern about mad

cow disease, the use of growth hormones and other consequences of

large-scale meat production.

 

Although for years the farm had been selling ground beef from Brown

Swiss dairy cows past their production prime, Hawthorne Valley began

breeding Black Angus bulls with its dairy stock to produce animals

better suited to giving steaks than milk.

 

The meat has a markedly different fat composition from that of

conventional corn-raised beef. It has a cleaner mouth feel and the

tang of minerals. Comparing the bold taste of corn-fed meat and the

subtle flavors of pasture-raised beef is a little like comparing the

big, plush flavor of a California cabernet with the lean, delicate

notes of a French Burgundy.

 

And flavor is what pasture-raised meat is all about for many cooks.

 

" I buy the sausage because I like the taste of it, " said Joan Hurley,

70, as she finished up a purchase at DiPaola's turkey stand in Union

Square. DiPaola is the most prolific of the Greenmarket meat sellers,

with stands at more markets than any other.

 

Ms. Hurley, who lives near the market, often pan-fries a few patties

of the mild turkey sausage for dinner or roasts some chicken from

Knoll Krest Farm in Clinton Corners, N.Y., which is also known for its

fine eggs.

 

" I'm not fanatical about organics, but more and more it matters who

I'm buying from, " she said.

 

Knowing the source might be the most important point for shoppers

looking for good meat, said Gail Evans, business manager of The

Stockman Grass Farmer, an 11,000-circulation monthly that is the bible

for people raising animals on pasture.

 

" Some people do a really good job, and some don't, " she said. The

breed, the way the animal is cared for and the way the meat is handled

after slaughter all can make a difference.

 

Despite the fast growth of the fan base, it's not easy selling meat at

the city's farmers' markets. Fruit and vegetable farmers stack their

peaches in lovingly arranged rows. Golden chanterelles tumble from

baskets. Piles of sweet corn beckon.

 

But the meat is shoved into coolers or buckets of ice. Dancing with

sanitation regulations and a lack of refrigeration, vendors have to

sell most meat frozen no matter the season. Keeping it frozen is a

challenge, for both seller and shopper. And a frozen steak or chicken

can lose moisture and have a slightly spongier quality than fresh.

 

In some ways, refrigeration is the least of the farmers' problems.

Raising animals on grain in controlled spaces is a reliable pursuit.

Growing animals on pasture is much more volatile. There is grassland

to manage and weather to worry over. Certain breeds of cattle grow

faster and taste better on summer grass than others.

 

Pigs need an unending supply of grain mixed with fresh fruits and

vegetables. Chickens and geese are prolific layers in the spring, but

slow down in the winter. And they still need to be fed, even when

they're not producing, which takes money.

 

Breeding is at the heart of a good plate of sustainable meat. At

Flying Pigs Farm in the Battenkill River Valley, Michael Yezzi and

Jennifer Small work with three breeds: Tamworths, Gloucestershire Old

Spots and Large Blacks. Because the pigs get so much exercise and eat

lots of mineral-rich plants, their meat is redder than commercial

pork, with nice marbling. The thick layer of fat has a clean, rich

flavor that gets silky in cuts that take a lot of braising, like a

shank or a shoulder.

 

The 150-acre farm is next to the land Ms. Small grew up on. She and

Mr. Yezzi bought it in 1997 to keep it from being developed. Five

years ago, they decided to raise three pigs. They love pork and needed

a way to manage the brush around their house.

 

The next year they raised 14 pigs and took their pork to the

Greenmarket, selling at the Borough Hall site in Brooklyn. Manhattan

chefs jumped at what they were producing, so they went up to 57 the

next year. Last year they slaughtered 200 pigs.

 

That kind of success is welcome, but keeping up with demand is tough.

 

The breeds the couple raise are rare, and the pigs don't grow as

quickly as more commercial breeds. Because they grow so slowly, it

costs more to raise them.

 

And the piglets are hard to get. Most people who raise pigs on small

farms like to get piglets in the spring, feed them on grass and fresh

vegetables all summer and then slaughter them in the fall. So

competition for spring piglets is tough.

 

Mr. Yezzi buys them in the fall, too, but they are more expensive to

raise in the winter, when there is no fresh forage and the water

freezes in the trough. They eat more in the winter, and they need more

bedding.

 

Then there's the difficulty of finding a place to slaughter the

animals that is close enough so that transportation costs don't eat

into the profits and long drives don't add to the animals' stress.

 

Ms. Yezzi and Mr. Small, whose practices are certified humane by a

nonprofit organization called Humane Farm Animal Care, take most of

their pigs to a government-approved slaughterhouse about 20 minutes

away. The costs for such careful treatment mean that the couple pay

more than $200 a pig just for slaughtering and processing.

 

The extra labor, the extra time and the land required to raise the

rarer breeds, along with the higher processing costs, mean that the

couple are paying almost 10 times as much as their competition at

larger commercial operations in the Midwest, Mr. Yezzi said.

 

That's why a pork chop can cost $11 a pound. But it's a price that Mr.

Yezzi's customers don't seem to mind paying.

 

" The Greenmarket customers are well educated on food issues, " he said.

" They know what they want. "

 

As for bearing the higher cost, Mr. Yezzi suggests that they use the

egg measure. How many eggs do you eat: maybe two dozen a month? Mr.

Yezzi's eggs cost $4.50 a dozen, which can come to an extra $40 or $50

a year.

 

" It's not really that much in the swing of the things, " he said. " I

tell people, 'You can pay me, or you can pay your doctor.' "