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April 16, 2020 By Whitney Belprez 8 Comments

Food Security: Lessons from COVID-19

Many people have asked how we (our farm) is doing in such unprecedented times. And, to be honest, I feel a twinge of guilt. Because, yes, we are essential workers – we feed people. And, it turns out, that’s a pretty important thing.

Not to mention, I can’t just turn off my lactating milk cows or ask my pigs to feed themselves – difficult when you want to take a vacation, but helpful when you need to eat.

We can’t claim unemployment but we can keep working. And we are so incredibly grateful for that.

This month, we ran into our first COVID-19 snafu – until this point, we have only felt the “good” effects of a shelter-in-place and social distancing policies.

People cooking from home and hoarding food from the grocery stores increased the demand for food that we produce – whole, nutrient-dense, healthy foods.

Back in January, we had scheduled some beef and pork to be finished this month with the butcher date of April 14th.

We got a call last week that our processor could take the beef animals but the pigs would be delayed another 10 days (until April 24th). We were disappointed (as were our customers!) but we could live with that.

Until they contacted us again (today) to notify us that they are receiving semi-loads of pork and beef from another facility that need to be processed to keep up with the meat shortage due to COVID-19.

The soonest they could process our hogs would be May 26, potentially May 19, if they could gain enough traction on their end. We called another processor nearby that we’ve frequently worked with to see what they’re schedule looked like – they said they could squeeze us in May 27 or June 3.

They described their facility as “bursting at the seams” to keep up with demand.

Obviously, an additional 5-6 weeks was pretty upsetting for us. Every day that the pigs stay beyond their scheduled butcher date costs us quite a bit in feed and work. Unfortunately, it also leads to fattier, overweight animals and more waste during the processing.

Ultimately, this hurts our customer because they will, essentially, be paying for heavier weights on hogs but not yielding much more meat (due to increased body fat rather than meat or muscle) – they will be “over-finished” and meat quality will suffer as a result.

Typically, spring is a slow time of year for livestock processing. We watch out for the busy fair season and fall harvesting.

But, because of the pandemic and the state of emergency enacted, many butcher counters at local grocery stores are closed, as are larger meat packing plants around the country.

Coincidentally, the Detroit Free Press ran this story about the oncoming meat shortage the day our beef arrived at the butcher.

Employee illnesses are forcing the closure of these large plants with animals still needing to be processed and distributed to keep up with the increased demand of the retail market in the U.S.

There is an even more unfortunate side to this story – the pandemic hasn’t been kind to farmers, as most would think. Commodities of all kinds have crashed in value as wholesale and international markets have collapsed.

For example, dairy commodity futures were forecasted to be in the $18-$20 per hundredweight range for producers this year. Many producers did not buy margin protection insurance because of these projected higher prices.

Without large buyers (think schools, restaurants, etc.), dairy farmers are currently receiving $9-$13 per hundredweight (100# of milk, equivalent to 12.5 gallons of milk) from their co-ops.

A local TV station ran a story last week profiling a farm Dan worked at regarding potentially dumping milk.

For many farmers, this is too much to bear after years of depressed prices and we are now seeing a flood of bankruptcies and closures of dairy farms. There are only so many farms that can absorb the dairy cows so most are being sold as cull cows (ground beef for hamburger in retail stores, Big Macs, etc).

This crisis is also contributing to almost every processing facility being overwhelmed at the moment. Semi-loads of animals are arriving daily at these smaller facilities to attempt to keep grocery stores stocked with meat.

This is a difficult moment in agriculture – what is the lesson?

I’m sure there are a multitude but I’d like to highlight the fact that food security is a finicky beast.

I sincerely hope life returns to sense of “normalcy” in the near future. But, I also hope that we look at our food with fresh eyes.

Food security is not found in large chain grocery stores, with widespread distribution networks, and their seemingly continuous supply of fresh food. We know now that supply can evaporate very quickly.

Food security starts at home.

In our freezers, in our backyards and in our pantries.

We cannot live entirely without grocery stores – true. But, we can make great strides to empower ourselves and take responsibility for our family’s food security.

Maybe prioritizing spending money on buying meat in bulk to stock the freezer doesn’t sound so crazy after all. Or, buying gallons of maple syrup during maple syrup season to stock up for the whole year. Or, finally starting that backyard flock of chickens for eggs. Or, buying all of your blueberries during the height of blueberry season.

It’s a crazy idea called eating with the seasons. Sourcing food in your local bio-region and taking advantage of the abundance when it naturally arrives.

Heck, maybe learning to hunt or fish or growing a few perennial food plants to stock your own freezer isn’t such a bad idea.

I shy away from the “prepper” idea that we need to have months of canned goods stowed away in our basements for a future time. But, I love the idea of becoming more involved in our annual food production, storage and preparation.

We are, personally, in a privileged position, but we’ve also spent most of our adult lives acquiring skills to feed ourselves.

Hunting and butchering and raising livestock, yes. But, also – rendering lard & tallow, baking homemade sourdough bread, canning tomatoes, jamming berries for the year, making our own yogurt, kombucha, butter & buttermilk (which we freeze, too!), heck, we’ve even made a few cheeses over the years!

Honestly, we have tons more to learn. We weren’t raised Amish, after all.

Dan isn’t adept at fishing. I have no patience or talent for gardening. We could both refine our cooking skills. The list goes on.

But, start with something.

Anything that steps towards building your family’s food security. And try to help out your local farmers, too! 😉

P.S. – We finally found a butcher (who we also love!) who was willing to get our 10 hogs in next week! Hooray!

P.P.S. – All photos are scenes from our farm & family during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order

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July 9, 2019 By Whitney Belprez 7 Comments

Dear Joel

walking-fields

I might never have found my way to Polyface Farm if Joel Salatin hadn’t refused to FedEx me one of his chickens. “No, I don’t think you understand. I don’t believe it’s sustainable–‘organic,’ if you will–to FedEx meat all around the country,” Joel told me.

Michael Pollen, Mother Jones (2006)

As some of you may (or may not) have heard, Polyface Farms has recently abandoned their farm’s core tenet of Local Community and decided to start shipping some of their products nationally. For the past 30 + years, they have served a 4 hour radius of their farm in the Shenandoah Valley with online ordering to drop points, buying clubs, and (of course) on-farm sales. Polyface Farms is the most visible and famous example of restorative + sustainable agriculture today. They have been featured in numerous books, films, workshops, and seminars and have inspired an entire generation of farmers. After reading, listening and reflecting on their decision, this is our response.


Dear Joel,

My husband and I first read the Omnivore’s Dilemma in college, and 7 seasons later, we are first-generation farmers, with 3 kids and 80 acres.

We work full-time on the farm to supply our local community with fresh milk, grassfed beef and pastured pork.

As a young, bootstrapping family with a non-existent budget, we scrimped, saved and used every birthday, anniversary and Christmas for years as an excuse to add to our library one more of your precious books or films. Every opportunity we had, we traveled in our state to experience your passion in person.

I witnessed the exhaustion on your face one evening in Grand Rapids, after giving a rousing talk that brought folks of both business and faith to their feet, clapping and cheering.

I saw the sacrifice that you (and your family) made in order for you to travel, speak and write extensively – for all for us.

milk-fed-pigs

Sacrifices that were made so that anyone could be inspired, learn and rest in the refreshing honesty of your perfectly crafted, and inspiring words that reverberated with integrity 

We owe your farm’s visibility so much – you are so many people’s first exposure to farming in a sustainable, regenerative, value-driven way. It resonates with them as it resonated with us. 

So many of our customers see what you’re modeling through movies, books and interviews, and they want to find it locally.

All that is to say, we have lived our lives and grown our business inspired by the values you have espoused for so long. 

It is because we hold you in such high esteem that we were truly conflicted by Polyface Farms’ decision to start shipping its products across the country. 

I will never criticize a business for thoughtful growth. It is, of course, completely your decision to do what is best for your business. 

However, I have to say I felt a twinge of disappointment and, dare I say, betrayal. 

And, I understand that it wasn’t entirely your decision.

evening-walk-cows

Polyface has grown into a huge enterprise with many faces and voices at the table.

But so many of us have staked our lives on the values you profess – local, community-based, regenerative agriculture.

So many of us face the same challenges in our local markets that you mentioned, from restaurants or local grocers backing out of agreements, to customers who balk at our prices.

We’ve all been there. We ARE there.

But, we have worked hard to cultivate personal customer relationships to buoy our business. We don’t rely on on-farm sales alone – delivery to urban markets is almost a given in any direct-marketing business. 

However, we own the means of distribution and delivery. It’s a vertical integration and still allows us to maintain and develop relationships and report with our customers, which is integral to any local, transparent food system.

We have also had to develop the skills necessary to build a solid website, blog, and social media pages to continue that relationship with our customers. This is something that is hard-fought in the trenches of the internet – learning SEO, algorithms, creating content, and adding marketing time to our daily chore list.

Online presence is 100% necessary to any small business, and farming is no exception. 

Through immense grace, insane luck or some combination of the two, your farm was given a platform on an unimaginable scale (without the work required by all small farmers entering the market today). 

All because you wouldn’t FedEx a chicken to Michael Pollan.

boys-clover-field

Yes, you built an incredible farm and business before him. You and Teresa deserve 100% of the credit.

But, imagine if you had shipped that chicken to Michael Pollan.

He may have tried it, given you a phone interview, written a nice piece about your farm that may have garnered some attention; maybe you would have seen a bump in sales for a bit. And that would be the end.

Instead, you didn’t.

Instead, Pollan took the time to visit the quirky farmer with the weird ideas, with whom he likely agrees on almost nothing politically, who refused to compromise his values and principles, and his world was flipped upside down.

He experienced it all – he got the vision, the views, the smells and the TASTE of what farming and food could be. What they were meant to be. 

Because you wouldn’t ship him a chicken. 

But, if your farm can’t be viable while staying true to its core values, then what the hell have you been selling everyone for the last 25 years?

Michael Pollan may have given you the platform and notoriety, but it is you who made a second career telling folks that You Can Farm.

With a little bit of elbow grease, creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit, you taught us through numerous books, documentaries, Polyface primers, speaking events, workshops, field days.

As Mickie and Travis Davis commented on your recent blog post,

“So you urge everyone to go out and FARM. Heal the land, rotational graze, don’t use chemicals, use nature. And we jump, risking everything, sweating, toiling, being called crazy by relatives, getting up early to go to the market, traveling to VA to SEE-THE-POLYFACE………..struggling to BE – LIKE – POLYFACE.

Wearing your T-shirts at our market, professing your words, changing hearts and minds with YOUR-WORDS. Selling local.

And now Polyface is the BEHEMOTH that will take away our local business.

Rome has fallen. The Idea is betrayed.

Shame Joel. Shame.”

cows-grazing

These words are not meant to tear you down.

Folks are responding out of deep, abiding love and respect for you and your work.

Because you have been the leader of the local, sustainable, regenerative, land healing farming movement. We expected better.

We actually aren’t opposed to shipping per se. We know several farms who have scaled large enough that shipping makes sense for their business. 

But please don’t call your food local anymore. Nor sustainable. 

“COMMUNITY: We do not ship food. We should all seek food closer to home, in our foodshed, our own bioregion. This means enjoying seasonality and reacquainting ourselves with our home kitchens.”

Polyface Farms (website) 2019

Your no-shipping policy (under the heading “COMMUNITY”) was one of your farms’ core principles, along with transparency, grass-based, individuality, nature’s template, and earthworms; and shipping has been an option since at least 2002 when Michael Pollan wanted that chicken.

If you can toss out that core principle, and will now be coating your food in fossil fuels as it travels around the country, how are we to believe that your farm will stay non-GMO? Maybe next year you’ll decide that GMO’s aren’t so bad and they’ll make you more profitable. 

Will you also start doing business on Sundays? 

Which values change and “evolve” for convenience and profit and which ones are the true, core principles?

Shipping is not the “natural evolution” to a local, sustainable farm business. 

Taking credit cards, having a robust website, active social media accounts, hosting farm tours – these are part of doing business in 2019.

When someone is first introduced to the “integrity” food movement through one of the innumerable articles, films, and books your farm is featured in – where is the incentive for them to “find their farmer” when they can order from the famous farm in all those films, books and articles? 

family-farming

And they will feel good about it because you still champion local, sustainable, regenerative, community-based agriculture (coated in petrol).

I understand this letter won’t change your decision.

And I know it was a painful decision. I suspect it’s not a decision that originated with you and yet you are taking the publicity (positive and negative) for the decision.

And I can imagine the excitement around Polyface about the new venture.

But, please understand why so many feel shock, grief, disappointment and betrayal at this decision. 

There are so many of us who have risked everything to follow in your footsteps and we’re left wondering which core principles you’re going to remove next.

As the defacto leader of the local food movement, you have inspired an entire generation of young farmers to shift the food paradigm.

Deeming national shipping as acceptable only means that others will surely follow suit; what gains that have been made in creating a local, viable, food system will wither away as everyone chases their tail to “keep up with the times.”

My hope is that others who were inspired by you, will resist the temptation to give in to consumer demands for “convenience” and stay true to the pursuit of a seasonal, local, and sustainable food system; but your departure from our ranks, will certainly shake the faith of many.

We wish you all the best, with love + respect // Two Sparrows Farm

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January 7, 2019 By Whitney Belprez 5 Comments

Organic Monopoly

A rogue dry cow behind our barnyard – December 2018

This is a bittersweet time for us as we welcome a few new members to our herd share from another herd share that recently closed in West Michigan.

Of course, we are always excited to add folks to our tribe – people like us who appreciate real, local food. But it is also painful because it means that the family is no longer able to operate their herd share.

Like several farms we know of, this farm was faced with a difficult decision when Dannon purchased Horizon Organic last year. Many farms with Horizon contracts also ran a herd share for additional income on the side. After the purchase, the co-op has been ruthless in finding any herd shares that farmers are operating and giving them the ultimatum – end the herd share or lose your contract.

It’s a ridiculous power game because sales of fluid pasteurized milk are down every year and many processing facilities are either dumping milk as it comes in on the trucks or putting production caps on farmers because of the overproduction problem.

So, it’s not that the co-ops need 100% of every farm’s milk.

No.

But they need to provide the sole income for the farmer, thereby relegating the farmer to serfdom. It is a tactic to simply keep the farmer in his place.

Friends of ours who milk for DFA (Dairy Farmers of America) were shocked to learn that we’ve always had diversified livestock on our farm, keeping pastured hogs and poultry along with dairy and beef stock. This would violate their co-op contract they said.

Because, heaven forbid a farmer could get a paycheck beyond his milk check or selling cull cows at the livestock auction to McDonald’s and Campbell’s Soup.

After speaking with our friends this past spring, we knew this was the position Horizon had forced them into: ditch the herd share or lose your contract.

And, what choice does a farmer have in this situation?

None.

They have invested thousands of dollars into certifying their land and animals USDA Organic. And the paperwork to maintain that certification. And all the equipment to grow and harvest and store that feed.

And all of the cows themselves! Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of productive, healthy milk cows. That they would get next to nothing for at auction. Pennies on the dollar for what they’re worth.

Not to mention the money, time and effort to maintain their Grade A certification. Countless hours and, again, thousands of dollars to meet their standards, pass inspections, and produce clean, safe milk to be processed into a milk product for store shelves – nothing resembling the fresh, REAL milk that was originally shipped from their farm.

The farmer considers all of this.

And we would have made the same, painful and tearful decision they did.

All those investments would have been wasted to go down to a dozen cows, milking just for the herd share. Herd shares don’t require Grade-A certification, expensive organic paperwork and multitudes of equipment to feed hundreds or thousands of cows. The co-ops requires those things.

Herd share members require clean, fresh, safe milk from their local farmer. And they love supporting those farmers.

And once a co-op contract is lost, it is lost forever.

Most organic co-ops have 3-5 year waiting lists for farmers to join.

And so, we are supportive in our friends’ prayerful decision to end their herd share in pursuit of keeping their Horizon Organic contract, even though they have devoted hours of time and energy to making unprocessed, fresh milk accessible to families all over Michigan.

They have developed and maintained positive relationships with MDARD, in spite of some sticky disputes over raw milk in the state.

We happily welcome many families who have been with this farm for well over a decade to our farm – talk about loyal customers!

We can’t express how much of an inspiration this farm was to us when we started our own small farm 7 years ago on 10 small acres.

And how their friendship bolstered us to expand to 35 acres of production last year. And how supportive they were of our operation MOOving home to our 80 acre farm, where our family is just minutes away and where our roots were pulling us back to.

And we will forever be grateful to them for paving the way for smaller farms like us to flourish.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Raw Milk

March 23, 2017 By Whitney Belprez Leave a Comment

Farm Move Details!

barn-two-sparrows-farmHi Everyone!

I apologize if it feels like you haven’t had an update from us in a while. I didn’t want to send anything until we had some firmer plans in place. So, this is just a quick update on our farm move!

We had the house listed for about 6 weeks this winter and decided to take it off the market for March and part of April. It will be re-listed in mid-April. After 52 showings we were getting a little tired of keeping the house and farm spotless, in addition to the normal winter farm work. The winter wasn’t kind to us in terms of farm beauty, either – instead of blankets of the beautiful snow I imagined, we had mud, rain and fog. And little to no sun. It was pretty darn ugly, honestly.     

We are officially moving mid-April to a new, larger farm! We will be located in Howard City, right where 131 North and M-46 meet. It’s a quick 35 minute drive into Grand Rapids and about 45 minutes from our current farm in Lowell.

house-two-sparrows-farmIt’s a bit of a long story, but the farm was never listed. Customers of ours had purchased the 35 acre parcel 2 years ago, kept some sheep, goats, chickens and horses there but decided it was better for them to step back from farming and rent the place out. Their current tenants are moving out at the end of March and we will be able to move in shortly afterwards.

We will be leasing that farm, then re-listing our house once we’ve moved out and cleaned everything up. Our hope is that clean barns, green pastures and an empty house will help someone envision their life here a little easier than with our livestock, manure piles and equipment everywhere. Not to mention, keeping the house in showable shape with two little ones, loads of farm animals, in my third trimester of pregnancy is an uphill battle.

The farm we are leasing to is pretty move-in ready. We’ll take about a week to build out a new milking facility but other than that, the fencing and pastures are already in, and the house is in great shape, as are the barns. It’s even on a paved road with a paved driveway! What an upgrade!

red-barn-two-sparrows-farmWe’re incredible excited to be able to keep all our calves to build a grassfed beef herd, continue to expand our Berkshire pork, and be able to expand our pastured poultry enterprises in the future – chickens, eggs, and turkeys. The biggest change for us will be starting to make our own hay – the farm comes with 35 acres of pasture but also hay equipment and a lease on a 15 acre hay field immediately across the street. This alone will cut our feed bill and increase our profitability by over $10,000/year.

When we move (likely the week of the 17th) we will have to basically shut down the farm for that week.

We will obviously still be milking cows but will not have milk available for customers. This is primarily because we have to move the bulk tank, which involves letting all the ice in the tank melt and drain out, moving the tank, refilling it with water and letting the ice rebuild to cool and store the milk. This is a several day process between all the melting and re-freezing.

fern-two-sparrows-farmSo, while we will continue to milk the cows, it will pretty much exclusively go to fattening out our pigs. (YUM) We will have no way of cooling and storing the milk for you. 

Once we are back up to operating the following week, a few things will change: 

  • The Wednesday evening Grand Rapids delivery will remain at the Fulton Street Farmers Market but the time will be extended from 4:30 – 6:30 pm to 4:00 – 7:00 pm. We hope this will help accommodate some of the customers switching from Saturday.
  • All of our current on-farm pickup will be delivered to our Lowell farm store on Fridays. We will have the milk delivered around Noon every Friday and you will have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to pick up your milk from the fridge and return jars. We will plan to continue delivering milk to our Lowell store until the house actually sells and we close on it. At that point, we will switch to a different pickup location, but still in Lowell.

fern-baby-two-sparrows-farmSo, after the move, our delivery options for milk are as follows:

  • Sunday – Howard City Farm Pickup
  • Monday – Cannonsburg Delivery
  • Wednesday – Grand Rapids Delivery 4-7pm
  • Friday – Lowell Delivery
  • Saturday – Howard City Pickup

After much discussion and planning, this is the schedule that best ensures everyone is receiving the freshest milk possible, while still maintaining convenience for you. Both are our highest priority.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us! We will keep you updated as we have more details and developments and are working to ensure the smoothest transition for our business.

Thank you for your continued support & business!

-the Two Sparrows Farm crew

P.S. While we are SOLD OUT of our spring harvest of grassfed beef we have a few piggies left that will be ready in April. Check out our Pastured Berkshire Pork page for more details.

 

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