Thousand Hills Cattle Company
Three years ago, Todd Churchill, the proprietor of Thousand Hills, read an interesting article by noted food-industry analyst Michael Pollan. In it, Pollan described the problem and challenges facing the US beef industry, and by the end of it, Churchill had what might be called a vision. "This article cued me to a big change coming into the industry," says Churchill. "I wanted to develop a market for grass-fed beef."
Easier said than done, of course. The idyllic image of cows grazing in a pasture is so anachronistic that it's almost laughable, especially when one considers the state of pollution-belching feedlots for cattle, and the hypoxic (that is "dead") zone in the Gulf of Mexico, created by excess nitrogen from excrement and fertilizer run-off, floating down the Mississippi from the US farm belt.
Can grass-fed beef really make a difference in such a world?
If You Build It, They Will Come
 |
| US feedlot |
 |
| In contrast with corn-fed cows on feedlots, these cattle graze freely on A Thousand Hills pastures in Fox Den Farm, Lonsdale, Minnesota. (Photo courtesy Todd Churchill) |
First, let's turn back the clock to review how the beef industry got where it is.
American agriculture was ready to roll up its sleeves after the humiliation of the Great Depression and the unifying war effort of World War Two. The so-called "Green Revolution" that took place through the fifties and sixties was not just a US phenomenon - it was a worldwide transformation of human agriculture. Pesticides, herbicides, high-tech and heavy machinery, irrigation, and high-yield cultivars for traditional crops all contributed to an unprecedented boom in farm output.
Coupled with heavy, federal subsidies paid to US farmers, the Green Revolution had an ironic effect: It drove down the prices of our most bountiful crops, namely, wheat, rice, and corn, and threatened to create a new Depression in the early fifties.
The advent of the feedlot system helped prevent this from happening. By creating massive "cow towns" alongside well-irrigated cornfields, corn farmers created the modern beef industry. According to the Kansas Board of Agriculture, the number of large-capacity feedlots grew from seven in 1952 to 140 by 1974, and grain-fed cattle increased from less than half a million in 1955 to around two million by the 1970s. Grazing cattle was abandoned for the far more efficient world of feedlots.
In 2002, the cost of corn was 50 cents per bushel less than what it cost the farmer to produce that bushel (Pollan, NYT: 2002). Disastrous as that might sound for corn farmers, that cheap price allows feedlots to purchase cattle and turn cheap protein (corn) into lucrative protein (beef).
As a result, it's not uncommon to see feedlots holding 50 to 100 thousand heads of cattle today, with literally miles of troughs and flanked by lagoons holding the thousands upon thousands of pounds of manure that so many cattle generate.
Corn-Fed
On the face of it, this might seem like a good system, economically speaking - except for one major problem.
Cattle aren't designed to eat corn.
A cow is an efficient machine, thanks to evolution. Not only does a cow have four stomachs that turn cellulose from grass into protein, it also deposits fertilizer rich in nitrogen onto grasslands and pounds seedlings into the earth with their hooves. Pasture-fed cattle are literally capable of feeding themselves year in and year out - and did so for millennia.
Feedlots broke this cycle - but not merely by replacing grass with corn feed. Through selective breeding and hormone injections to induce growth, cattle can now "beef up" in about a year. The average slaughter age today is 14 to 16 months. Sixty years ago, it was four or five years of age. Thirty years ago, it was two or three years. All thanks to corn feed.
 |
| Cattle trough-eating |
This, in turn, necessitates an earlier weaning age. Todd Churchill of Thousand Hills says that the weaning process is where the real trouble begins for the conventional US beef industry.
"A calf is weaned and then taken off to the sales barn or the feedlot," he says. "That's traumatic for the calf and weakens its immune system."
This puts every cow's immune system at an automatic disadvantage, since they soon find themselves surrounded by thousands of other cattle whose immune systems are equally hampered. "It's like taking an AIDS patient and marching them through the emergency room of a hospital. But it's not as simple as saying 'no shots," he explains. "If we want our cattle to survive, we have to give them antibiotics."
Churchill says that Thousand Hills Cattle Company never purchases from sales barns, because "they all have antibiotics in them."
Creating a Grass-Fed Cattle Company
"We had to rethink the logistics so that the cattle were less stressed out, their immune systems stronger," says Churchill, explaining how he started envisioning Thousand Hills. "I mean, this is basic animal husbandry. Healthy meat must come from healthy animals, but we don't have healthy animals in the US system anymore."
"We decided that we needed cattle raised to do what God designed them to do," says Churchill. "Eat grass."
By eating grass, cattle get the nutrients and minerals they need. He also enforces a no roping rule for his cattle. "Don't get me wrong, I love team roping. But it's no good for a sick animal. We have to reduce human interaction and let the cows be with other cattle."
He also says that soil is key. "Healthy cattle means having healthy pastures and healthy soil." Cattle raised on depleted soil are getting reduced minerals. That's difficult to correct, according to Churchill, since he feels that all the soil in the US is depleted to a certain degree. As a result, he does supplement the diets of his cattle. "It will probably be ten to twenty years before no minerals are added to our cattle's diets."
Born To Cud
Creating a grass-fed cattle operation was much more difficult than simply turning some cattle out to pasture. In part, this is because finding the right cattle is difficult these days. "Only ten percent of the cattle available today will get fat on grass alone," says Churchill.
 |
| These Red Angus and Pinscour cross-breeds are uniquely qualified for pasture-fed beef. (Photo courtesy Todd Churchill) |
This is because, thanks to the corn fed revolution, most beef cattle have a genetic predisposition for fattening on corn. "In the sixties, [the US] started switching to Continental breeds. This goes back to the French breeds, because the French prized a gamier cow, slower to mature, than the English did." By crossbreeding fattier English with bigger Continental strains of cattle, the US beef industry came up with a heavier cow (Continental) that would fatten up quickly (English). "So the crossbreeds available out there are heavier compared to the English breeds that I prefer - fourteen hundred pounds compared to eleven hundred pounds for English breeds like Galloway, Shorthorn, and Devon."
Marbling, that is, intermuscular fat, is what makes beef palatable. US crossbreeds don't have as much of it as the English breeds do, so Churchill has made it his business to learn the art of identifying cattle that will be good grass eaters. "I found a few older guys who can do it visually. I'm tutoring with them. The can go out to pastures and determine fat content by site."
For example, Churchill recently identified a herd of English Red Devons in New Zealand that are ideal for pasture. "We're not just grass-feeding our cattle. We are rebuilding our genetic pool."
A Thousand Hills
Last year, Thousand hills finished 6-700 heads to slaughter. Those are good numbers for a new operation, let alone with one as ambitious as Churchill's. Currently, Thousand Hills has 500 acres of pasture near Cannon Falls, along with several accomplished graziers working pastures near Northfield and Plainview, Minnesota, Macgregor, Iowa, and in Ashton, Wisconsin. He wants to keep his cattle with 3 to 8 hours of Cannon Falls where the processing facility is because the less time in transport, the less stressful it is on the cattle.
He also has a lengthy set of standards by which he makes his purchasing and grazing decisions. No "grass fed" standards currently exist, though Churchill believes that the Midwest Food Alliance may have the best shot at creating the strict standards that he adheres to:
- Grass and legume fed cattle only (no grain or corn fed animals); pasture-fed with no synthetic herbicides or pesticides used
- Each cow ear tagged with a 5 digit tracking number
- No GMOs in the cattle's feed
- No antibiotics
- No feed with animal byproducts
- No supplemental hormones (growth enhancers)
- All veterinarian treatments recorded and traceable by ear-tag
- Humane handling
- All farms certified by Midwest Food Alliance
- Weigh cattle every 90-100 days (toughness is usually due to no weight gain for a 90 day period)
- No sight unseen buying - all cattle are visually inspected by Todd Churchill personally
- A premium is paid to cattle coming from certified organic farms
More Info About Grass-Fed Beef
How to Shop Organic
Insider Tips for New Wedge Shoppers
