News From Around The Farm

Remember, last week I mentioned we had some exciting news about our red meat processing plant. Well, here goes...

The new plant in Leaksville will also harvest our beef, pork, and lamb - then chill the carcasses a few days before I come and pickup the quarters, etc. and bring back to my plant for further processing. Additionally, last Thursday a butcher by the name of Jake visited our farm & plant and has agreed to work with us to cut/pack our animals. Jake has 15 years of experience and brings a lot of talent to the table.

So, why would someone with Jake's talent take off to help Nature's Gourmet Farm? Actually, the answer is quite simple. He believes in the Regenerative Farm To Table model and wants to support (be a part of) our farm and what we do. We are thankful.

That means the beef we harvest next week will be further processed in our plant. That includes a few pigs mid March and a few lamb late March. Very good news indeed.

Bioreactor Composter - we have made a lot of progress building, gathering composting materials, and prepping the materials to be added to the composter.

Here is the Johnson-Su Bioreactors we have built-

We raked and hauled hardwood leaves from a friends yard this week. My 20' cattle trailer was packed about 4 foot deep from front to rear. Here, Matthew is feeding leaves into the mulcher while I keep them handy for him to grab. The job took us about 90 or so minutes to complete.

Our "finished" pile ready to be soaked and loaded into the bioreactors. It takes about 2,000 lbs of material per composter. After the biology and worms complete their work (in about a year's time) the completed product will weigh about 800 pounds.

So, why are we doing all this hard work? Its to rebuild the fungal biology in our soils that were mostly destroyed from all the rain in late 2020 and most of 2021. You see, its the fungi that really makes the grass grow without all the harmful & very expensive chemical fertilizers.

PRICES - we do not base our prices on what other farms charge or what grocery stores charge. We simply evaluate our cost and add some for profit and that's our price. That said, prices will be increasing soon because our cost have increased. And we heard today that our chicken, layer, and pig feed will increase mostly because of diesel and commodity price increases (wheat has almost doubled).

Have you ever wondered what farms in other states charge? North Carolina is very proactive in growing their small farms by holding workshops for farmers, customers, restaurants, etc. And, once a month they publish a report of prices charged by about 200 or so farms. Click here to see the latest report.

A TRAGEDY, in the recent Farm Bureau magazine they listed some Mississippi farm facts over the past century.
1) Number of Farms- Then: 272,101 Now: 34,700
2) Total Farm Acres- Then: 18.1 million Now: 10.4 million
3) Average Mid-Size Tractor Price- Then $625 Now: $30,000

Folks, I don't see it getting better. This week three local farms announced herd sellouts and another farmer told me he was quitting and selling his cows and equipment.