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Food for the Family
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With help from a Western
SARE grant, Joleen Marquardt of Pine Bluffs, Wyo., started a
pastured poultry business on the family farm. While raising
poultry on pasture is prevalent in the East, Marquardt has shown
that a sustainable chicken operation is viable in the West.
Photo by Philip Rosenlund. |
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Another positive aspect of raising poultry on pasture is the assurance
growers and their families have of eating well.
“I haven’t bought meat from a grocery store in years,”
Kentucky farmer Chuck Smith said, “and I hope I never have
to.” He knows exactly what his animals eat and is assured
– because he and his family do it themselves – that
the animals are processed humanely.
“I know what we are feeding our family when we pull a chicken
or a steak from the freezer, and there aren’t a lot of people
who can say that anymore,” he said.
In a manual intended as a decision-making guide for farmers, Anne
Fanatico from the National Center for Appropriate Technology summarizes
the experiences of 35 southern farm families who participated in
a pastured poultry education project funded by SARE. Between 1996
and 1999, the families enrolled in a Heifer International course
geared at helping limited resource farmers earn profits and achieve
a better quality of life.
After training, each family received funds to help them get started
with the new business. The farmers recorded income and expenses
for the project – as well as the system’s impact on
their lives. Partly because the new pasture-based system allows
them to work directly with animals outside, earn modest profits
and provide food for the family, 27 of the project’s 35 participants
continue to raise range poultry for home use and for sale to growing
customer bases.
“Not only did we make a few dollars, but I am veryhappy
that we can open the freezer and see 40 chickens we can eat,”
said a Kentucky producer quoted in the NCAT manual, available from
ATTRA at http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/pasturedpoultry.html.
Community Benefits
At least six families in a traditionally low-income community
in Illinois have re-charged their finances by adding range poultry
enterprises to their farms. Farmers in Pembroke Township in north
central Illinois were so inspired by their experiences testing alternative
poultry systems that they formed the Pembroke Farmers Cooperative
to share poultry pens, a refrigerated truck, a livestock trailer
and, not least, production information.
Jump-started by two SARE grants, awarded as part of North Central
SARE’s efforts to target funds to underserved groups, the
Pembroke farmers experimented with both free-range and pen methods.
“Through this project, I learned how to raise a healthier
chicken in a process that is more economically beneficial,”
said Irene Seals, a producer grant recipient. “Raising pastured
poultry is now a major part of our operation.”
With help from the Kankakee County USDA-Farm Service Agency director,
they located a small-scale processor to slaughter and package their
birds, complete with the co-op label. With processing secured, the
families are able to sell their product within the county or, for
an even better premium, in Chicago.
“It’s a system that I felt really fits their lifestyles
and the community,” said Merrill Marxman, the FSA director.
“We started it as a USDA outreach effort to what we saw as
an impoverished community, and now the co-op has its own headquarters.”
After perfecting his pastured poultry system, partly with help
from a SARE producer grant, David Bosle set up an apprentice program
for aspiring chicken farmers in Nebraska. He taught them everything,
from how to build pens to how to butcher the birds – and got
help processing his chickens along the way. Over the last few years,
he has hosted between four and 10 farmer apprentices every processing
day.
“After getting the SARE grant, the least we can do is share
information with people,” he said. “The information
is free, but they help me kill chickens.”
Bosle is also designing an Internet course on raising pastured
poultry for his central Nebraska community college.
The Ways of Conowingo, Md., enjoy farming and raising livestock,
from poultry to rabbits to beef cattle, on pasture. Robin Way says
the family also finds merit
in attracting customers from their community to experience an integrated
farm.
“People are losing small, diversified farms,” she
said. “We try to manage the farm like its own little community,
and we invite people to come see what we do – how the animal
was raised and how it’s processed. We’re proud of what
we have and how we raise them.”
Not only do customers pick up meat right at their farm, but the
Ways hosted 3,000 people during their county’s “Family
Day at the Farm.”
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