Evening Session - Producer Showcase¶
The Northeast Pasture Consortium Conference annually holds this session to showcase pasture-based farms of note from the hosting state. This year we picked two farms that grass feed their cattle from start to finish to get the unique fatty acid composition that comes from pasture raised beef and dairy products. Hedgeapple Farm is a beef farm that grass feeds and finishes weaned cattle that they get from neighboring cow-calf operations. They sell the meat produced as grass-fed and -finished at their farm store. Clear Spring Creamery is a grass-only fed dairy cow operation that has an on-farm milk processing plant. They sell their milk products at local farmers markets in the Baltimore-Washington DC area and at the farm. Both farms have found a good niche market for their farm products being close to a metropolitan area that have many consumers with better than average disposable income and willing to purchase a perceived more healthful meat and dairy product. They have a high interest in whether fatty acid composition differ-ences between pasture-raised and confinement-raised ruminant meat and milk products are real and truly beneficial health-wise. These farmers are not selling commodities; they are selling value-added meat and milk products with the intent of increasing farm income.
Genetics for Producing Grass-Fed Beef
Scott M. Barao*, Ph.D.
Scott M. Barao*, Ph.D.
How to do Everything Wrong and get it Right
Mr. Mark Seibert*