The phone lines and Internet site for the Wholesome Harvest Farmer Coalition have been morning-to-night busy during the last couple of weeks. The group bands together 41 small-farm families in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota who raise organic livestock and pool their resources to make organic beef, chicken, lamb, turkey, duck and goose available online and at grocery stores.
Mad cow concerns are spiking more than interest. Sales are up, including orders from large wholesalers, restaurants and such stores as the Whole Foods outlet in Madison, Wis. Chicago-area Whole Foods stores placed their first orders last week.
The controversy will continue about whether one cow in Washington state is the extent of this current crisis or, as some activists like to say, “the other hoof is yet to drop.” But Wholesome Harvest founder Wende Elliott is sure her group is ahead of the curve in either case.
“Organic certified meat provides the traceability and production systems today that legislators and others are debating will take years to put in place or be too expensive,” Elliott said last week on her cell phone between sales calls in Minnesota. “Organic meat eliminates the preconditions that are believed to have caused mad cow disease. Organic livestock are never fed animal byproducts.”
Those animals are fed 100 percent vegetarian diets of organic certified plants. Plus, the animals must be in top physical condition throughout life, since illness or use of antibiotics disqualifies an “organic” label.
Traceability is an integral concept for the Wholesome Harvest farmers. They anticipate that consumers will appreciate–and eventually demand, if all goes to plan–knowing the origins of their ground beef or chicken breasts.
If you buy a Wholesome Harvest product, you can identify the farm family and where the animal was raised. The coalition offers to provide laminated photos of the families to post with the products, though just a few retailers have actually done so. It’s also possible to figure out where the animal’s food was grown, right down to the field plot number and source of the seed.
“It’s a direct local food system and completely different than the usual way of large food retailers buying from large food companies and wholesalers,” Elliott said.
Elliott and husband Joe Rude moved back to central Iowa in 1999 after years in the New York City area. They decided that they wanted to raise their children in the Midwest and that feeding them chemical-free food was a priority. Rude always hankered to be a farmer, so the couple’s 120 acres near Colo (a town of 700) is a dream come true. They raise organic chicken, lamb, duck and turkey with plans to become cattle farmers this year.
Elliott, who worked for freight companies out East, quickly decided it was an opportunity to put her marketing and logistics-management skills to work. “I realized the local [organic] farmers didn’t know much about managing the supply chain.”
The coalition started with a few families in 2001 and now has more than 70 farm families on a waiting list in states ranging from Montana to Ohio. Growth will come as Wholesome Harvest gets more access to wholesale and retail markets. Consumers can arrange monthly shipments at www.wholesomeharvest.com, but Elliott’s master plan clearly targets big wholesalers and grocers.
“Our nation’s cheap meat has a dangerous price,” said Elliott, who has three children, ages 6, 5 and 1. “When I pay extra for organic, I think of the animal on a pasture of a family farm, not in a confinement building or corporate feedlot that is cranking out millions of pounds of meat at the processing plant next door.”
And that’s even without considering the possibility of more diseased cows. Traceability takes on an added meaning if you consider that the U.S. Department of Agriculture tested a mere 20,000 cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) last year while 35 million were slaughtered. Japan tests every cow and steer sold for human consumption.
Elliott and her farmer-partners get solid support from the State of Iowa and Iowa State University. Especially valuable are the government and university efforts to establish organic processors, distributors, labelers and certification organizations so the system sustains itself.
What Elliott and other organic livestock operators hope for most–mad cow news or not–is a helping hand from more of us.
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“It’s an extra chore for consumers to investigate the brand of meat they are buying and what system it represents, but consumer demand is the only way retailers will diversify their stores,” said Elliott. “Shoppers can make it happen the fastest.”
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E-mail Bob Condor at [email protected]. Send health and fitness news to [email protected].