Lexington, KY - If you're planning to hoof it across central Kentucky's cattle pastures this year, don't forget your pedestrian prophylactics.
They were the prescribed footwear on a mid-April field day in Bourbon County, and to me they were a surprise. I've walked among lots of livestock and hiked lots of pastures since I've been writing about farming issues - mostly on organic farms, or those at least bent on sustainable practices. And even with the relatively heightened awareness and concern on those farms about herd health and invasive weeds, I was never asked to bag my feet before entering. About 50 visitors hit four farms in the course of the field day, and all were expected to don fresh booties at each stop, to diminish the possibility of transferring nasty microbes from one farmer's Angus herd to another or delivering stray weed seeds to pristine pastures.
It was an understandable and laudable practice, but still it caught me by surprise. My previous experience had led me to believe that heightened awareness was the special province of a select few farmers - the organic and sustainable fringe/hippie types. I was also surprised to hear the more conventional Bourbon County cattle farmers who led the tours talk about their efforts to minimize or eliminate their use of commercial pesticides and herbicides, the rotational grazing and composting that keeps their pastures productive without commercial fertilizers, and the focus on genetics and nutrition that help keep their cattle healthy so they can minimize their use of antibiotics and growth hormones.
Things have changed.
I'm not willing to venture that every one of Kentucky's 29,000 cattle farmers is as enlightened as the four on the Bourbon County tour appeared. However, I am willing to believe that if the tour's sponsor, the Kentucky Beef Council, highlights such operations, it's a signal that once-fringe values are being embraced by the mainstream.
And that gets me back to the subject I've been chewing on, like a cow with her cud, over several columns now: the recent deal the Kentucky Department of Agriculture's Kentucky Proud marketing program struck with Minnesota's PM Beef Global, Inc.
I resisted believing the benefits of this deal would accrue to anyone other than PM Beef's owners. Then I learned their brokers are paying higher auction prices to Kentucky cattle farmers able to prove their cattle are black-hided Angus in good health that were born, raised and weaned in Kentucky. The prices aren't astoundingly better - two or three cents per pound, according to the farmers I contacted - but when you consider PM is also willing to buy larger-than-average calves, the difference can be as much as $60 per head, which means a lot in the often-marginal cattle business.
I wondered why the deal had to involve an out-of-state beef processing company, and then I learned the arrangement can't be replicated here and still put the product on store shelves and in restaurants at competitive prices. Kentucky does have enough competent small and custom meat processors spread across the state to handle this program's projected 400 head of cattle per week, but none at the moment could handle that number alone, the way PM's Minnesota facility can.
That "efficiency" makes PM the winner even four states away, even though it hinges on trucking costs remaining low. If the cost of diesel doubles or triples, that advantage evaporates. The same is true in regard to finishing the calves on corn and grain in Iowa.
Veterinarian Simon Timmermans monitors the calves' development as a consultant to both PM Beef and Alltech. He described the feeding regimen and the reasons for Alltech's inclusion of yeast products and minerals such as selenium in the cattle's feed. It boosts the uptake of nutrients, he said, and suppresses infections, reducing the need for antibiotics. He also said the northern Iowa location of the three feedlots being used makes for a more healthful diet because the corn there is of higher quality than the corn raised and fed to feedlot cattle in the less fertile states of the southern plains.
I still had to figure Kentucky Proud was undercutting its own pedigree by introducing a product that competed directly - with all its large-scale agribusiness advantages - against those cattle farmers and small processors who've chosen to deliver truly local Kentucky beef, raised and finished right here, but I no longer believe the competition's all that direct. Most cattle raised to slaughter weights and direct-marketed to consumers here are finished on grass, which purveyors wisely use as a selling point. Consumers know the difference, and not just the difference in prices.
Department of Agriculture Communications Director Bill Clary told me Kentucky Proud believes there's room on store shelves for both kinds of product, and he said the program supports both with equal enthusiasm because Kentucky farmers and small businesses are benefitting under both approaches.
I have to concede on these points. Kentucky Proud isn't deviating from its mission by giving its seal of approval to the Alltech Angus project, because at least some Kentucky farmers and Kentucky-based agriculture businesses are being served. And the project appears to be selecting cattle with traceable lines and verified health records and finishing them in controlled and monitored conditions. These efforts speak to a cattle farming and beef industry embracing more careful practices.
Still, I am a local foods proponent, and the Kentucky Proud Alltech Angus beef coming out of this program isn't local. Its success will be fueled by the diesel for the trucks that take the cows to Iowa, Minnesota and back, and for the tractors on the Iowa farms where their feed is raised, in addition to the likely use on those farms of petroleum-based fertilizers.
That's not a sustainable approach in a fuel-hungry world, and you can't soft-pedal that fact - not even in a pair of plastic booties.