Nick, my co-founder, loves to start his farm field days with an illustration of the potential for agriculture in Iowa. There are 36 million acres in Iowa and 23 of those 36 million acres are currently planted as corn and soybeans. Most of the corn and soybeans aren't even used for food; a majority of the corn is sent to ethanol plants to be turned into a gasoline additive and the byproduct of that is sent to feedlots for "grain-fed" livestock to eat. Just imagine how much real nutrient-dense food we could raise on those acres instead!
By land area, Iowa is only the 23rd largest state in the Union, but it's still twice the size of Tasmania. Tasmania is a beautiful Island off the coast of Australia where a majority of the grass-fed beef in the US is imported from. I would love to visit Tasmania one day - I hear they have rich volcanic soils and a climate ideal for raising grass-fed beef which they do to perfection with great land management practices and humane treatment of animals. But then those steaks must be shipped 9,000 miles (or ⅓ the circumference of the globe) to reach Chicago. Doesn’t that just seem silly?
Let me paint an alternative picture: Nick raises 60 head of grass-fed beef from birth on his farm in Keystone, Iowa, just a few hours from Chicago, only 1% of the way around the world. He does this on just 150 acres of land. And in the 20 years that he has been doing it, wild pheasants and butterflies have returned to his farm which was once devoid of all wildlife due to the previous tenant’s use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
So let’s do some quick math. There are 36 million acres in Iowa and Nick needs 150 acres to raise 60 head of high quality grass-fed and grass-finished beef every 2 years.
So why do we need to be importing all of that beef from Tasmania? When in just Iowa alone we could raise over 7 million beef cattle for harvest each year.
Well the skeptics of my argument would point out that: 1) there is no winter in Tasmania and 2) that the infrastructure for processing grass-fed beef is state-of-the-art there. Both these points are true, however that shouldn’t stop us from building our own thriving grass-fed beef economy here in Iowa.
Yes, Tasmania's climate makes it easy to graze year-round, but with careful planning you can still raise them well in the Midwest. Throughout the winter Nick’s herd consumes baled forage (hay, other nutritious grasses) from his fields and are perfectly content to weather the sub-freezing temperatures (some might argue they prefer it to swatting flies in the summer)
There is no doubt that the infrastructure and supply chain for grass-fed beef in the US lags that of Tasmania, but we have to start somewhere, and over the last 20 years many great American ranches have proven that we are well on our way to doing so.
So, why–beyond pride in our own craftsmanship–is it important to build our own state of the art grass-fed beef industry here in the US?
Food security: as the supply chain crisis brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic has shown, when you are importing materials from thousands of miles away you have no guarantees that your product won’t be stuck in a massive port backlog. Furthermore what guarantees do we have that geopolitical conflicts won’t have spillover effects onto our food supply chain?
Climate-friendly: one of the simplest ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet is to source as much as your food as possible from farms within less than a day’s drive, and to buy food that was raised sustainably.
Support your local economy: when you buy food produced by small family farms you know that your local dollar builds soil health, invests in the integrity of small seed companies, fencing companies, smaller ag-related suppliers and mills, artisan food makers, farmers, clean waterways, cricks, and you can daydream like us. Growing local, processing local, and eating local is a powerful act of the dollar.
In future chapters I’ll share more about how we think about raising chickens and hogs the right way to expand this effort. Our journey is just getting started and we think the future is very bright… we hope you feel the same and join us to dream of a better future.
If you’re interested in what we’re doing, don’t hesitate to reach out. We are in the earliest stages of building this business and keen to be connected to anyone who’s passionate about this ecosystem - from farmers, to new hires, to potential partners! And if you’d like a sneak peek at the quality of our beef, test us out via Nick’s existing website www.wallacefarms.com. Wallace Farms will be our first supplier, and we know you won’t be disappointed. We welcome your feedback at contact@99counties.com.