A store added much to our farm sales efforts

By Cliff McConville and Anna Lipinska

Opening our on-farm store in May 2016 was one of the best things we have done to grow our farm business and stabilize our customer base.

After starting our grass-based farm in 2011, initially we were taking only online orders for grassfed beef and pasture-fed broilers, eggs and pork, with pickup appointments scheduled at our house in northwest suburban Chicago.

In spring 2012 we started offering raw milk through a herdshare program, with customers picking up their shares from the barn refrigerator on assigned days. Soon we began leaving eggs, yogurt, honey and meat orders in the barn fridge for herdshare customers on an honor system.

December 3, 2021July 12, 2022

Relaxed intensity works for this grazier

Greg Nowicki manages well, but doesn’t push too hard

By Joel McNair

Athens, Wisconsin — When it comes to direct marketing his grass-finished beef, Greg Nowicki says “that’s just not me.”

Each year Greg does sell a few wholes, sides and quarters to local folks. Marketing much more than that from this rural north-central Wisconsin locale would require more sales effort than he is willing to expend. Slots at local processing facilities are booked up many months into the future, thus providing a major hurdle to growing any direct sales venture.

So Greg chooses to ship at least 80% of his cattle through the Wisconsin Grass-fed Beef Cooperative and its Wisconsin Meadows label.

November 1, 2021July 12, 2022

Farming in the midst of humanity

All Grass Farms thrives in suburbia

By Joel McNair

Dundee, Illinois — Housing subdivisions. Strip malls. Stoplights. Traffic at volumes that can make leaving the driveway a harrowing adventure. Your farming nightmare is farm business nirvana for Cliff McConville and Anna Lipinska.

Asserts Cliff, “I would not put a farm anywhere besides an urban area. That’s where the people are.”

While most farmers probably don’t feel that way, Cliff does have a point in regard to the business that he and Anna are running. Where else but in the midst of a nine-million person metropolitan area could a grass farm ring up $1.7 million in annual direct sales out of a two-car garage with just $20,000 worth of upgrades?

August 1, 2021October 19, 2021

Cooperative meat venture growing

Grass Roots Co-op connects farmers, processors and markets

By Martha Hoffman Kerestes

Clinton, Arkansas — About a decade ago, a group of graziers producing and marketing meat in Arkansas started trying to address a problem. Demand for their production was growing, but delivering products, hauling animals to processing, and soliciting sales were taking a large part of their time.

“We started looking for a different model,” says Cody Hopkins, one of those graziers. “We were all experiencing the same problems.”

They wondered if there would be a way to share some of the marketing logistics, thus enabling the farmers to do what they do best: managing livestock and poultry.

May 1, 2021October 19, 2021

Practical genetics: knock out the props

By Allen Williams

Genetic selection is often complicated and confusing for many livestock producers. We try to decipher numerous trait measurements. We pour through and try to interpret breeding values and EPDs. We like to use weighted or adjusted values for various traits. In the past couple of decades we have added DNA marker technology to the mix.

We read breed promotion literature, look at the glossy pictures in breed association catalogs, and ask neighbors and friends what they are using. Some of us pay attention to sale barn owners and operators, feedlot managers, the packer or processor, the lender or whoever is selling us something.

January 1, 2021October 19, 2021

Why we built a baleage dryer

By Nathan Weaver
First in a series

The seed for a mechanical hay drier was planted in my mind by an article in the May 2010 issue of Graze. On a visit to northern France, Joel McNair had talked with Jean-Luc Gaugain about his system for drying loose hay.

Jean-Luc’s system captured solar energy from air heated inside the black, steel roof and walls of his barn. This heated air was forced through loose hay to finish the drying process of forages that had been harvested at 30-35% moisture.