Farming

American Meat

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 07:00:00 +0000

American Meat Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/01/2013 - 00:00

Nancy Averett

Can American agriculture make a shift to sustainable farming? Graham Meriwether (Engl’02) spent time with farmers across the country in search of the answer.

While Graham Meriwether (Engl’02) made a documentary about sustainable meat farming in America, he traipsed through grassy fields with chickens, cows and pigs, following one of the country’s most progressive farmers, Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farms in Virginia.

But when he sat down to edit the film in his Manhattan office, Meriwether realized he needed to contrast Salatin’s innovative methods with those of mainstream farmers.

“Joel kept talking about conventional farms,” the 33-year-old says. “And I realized we didn’t have any footage of those kinds of operations.”

After making dozens of calls to conventional chicken, pork and beef producers, a few invited him to their farms. What he found transformed his documentary and highlighted the complex ways in which meat is produced in America.

His 85-minute film American Meat, which took four-and-a-half years to make, examines sustainable and conventional meat farming, revealing the ways in which consumer demand fuels the industry, both toward and away from sustainable agriculture.

When Meriwether visited Salatin, the farmer held out handfuls of composted manure from his cow barn for Meriwether to sniff.

“We’re standing here among hundreds of tons of cow manure and what do you smell?” asks Salatin who appeared in Michael Pollan’s 2006 best-selling book The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Penguin). “Nothing!”

The manure doesn’t smell because it was turned into compost by Salatin’s pigs. He rotates the pigs into his cow barn in early spring, after sprinkling the manure-and-hay-covered floor with corn. The pigs root for the corn, turning the hay and manure into compost. It’s just one of his agricultural inventions that uses animals’ natural instincts.

“I was really drawn to his inventions,” Meriwether says. “He’s invented a whole system of agriculture unlike any other.”

In contrast, when Meriwether toured industrial farms he discovered animals kept inside large temperature-controlled barns that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build. Farmers feed them corn, inject them with antibiotics and battle huge waste problems.

None of that surprised Meriwether.

But the conventional farmers did. They were humble, hardworking and, because they’d signed contracts with large multinationals that required them to invest in expensive infrastructure, they were struggling mightily, especially during the recession.

“Many felt they had to sign those contracts in order to hold onto farms that had been in their families for generations,” Meriwether says. “Talking to those guys totally changed my perspective. I realized there aren’t good farms and bad farms.”

Take Sam Talley, who raises chickens in Siler City, N.C., for the multinational corporation Pilgrim’s Pride. Talley has large barns with computer-controlled temperature systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build and maintain. When the recession hit in 2008 and U.S. meat exports plummeted, Pilgrim’s Pride cut back on its suppliers. In the film, two of Talley’s barns are empty, costing him more than $17,000 every month they are without chicks.

“Graham did a good job of showing that sustainable agriculture is the better way to go without vilifying those who have gone the route of conventional farmers,” says Susan Prolman, executive director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “Everybody who eats meat should visit a farm and see the work that goes into it and see what’s involved.”

Although the film is dominated by farmers, Meriwether speaks with chefs, grocery store executives and fast food CEO Steve Ells (Art’88),founder of Chipotle Mexican Grill that opened in 1993 in Denver. Today, there are 1,200 Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants serving à la carte burritos and other casual Mexican fare. Since 2001 100 percent of Chipotle’s pork is sourced from farmers who raise pigs sustainably.

In American Meat, Ells speaks glowingly of the taste of grass-raised pork and disparagingly of a conventional farm he once visited.

“It was a dirty, smelly, cruel place,” he says. “So I decided that we would only buy pigs raised humanely, given access to pasture or raised in deeply bedded barns and that weren’t given antibiotics or growth hormones. . . . I put this pork in all of our restaurants, and the response was great.”

Ells’ restaurants have helped fuel large-scale demand for sustainably raised meats. When Chipotle started purchasing naturally raised beef in 1999, it could hardly find any suppliers that met Ells’ standards. The company spent time “poking, prodding, convincing and occasionally applying guilt to ranchers,” according to its website, to encourage suppliers to meet naturally raised standards.

Yet, the film points out that such meat is considerably more expensive than what most U.S. consumers are willing to pay, in part because it can be more labor intensive and because of the government-funded agricultural subsidies for conventional farms that total in the range of $10 billion to $15 billion a year. These federal subsidies are designed to ensure a stable food supply while providing farmers a safety net from fluctuations in the market or weather.

Whether or not the majority of American agriculture can make a shift to sustainable farming is a big part of the film. Only a small percentage of U.S. farms today would be considered sustainable, a term that generally means food raised in a way that limits environmental impacts.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture does not keep statistics on sustainable farms, but it does for organic farms. In 2008, the USDA’s most recent organic farm census, there were 15,000 organic farms out of a total of 230,000 farms, four times what it was in 1990.

Yet, it’s unclear whether enough young people today are willing to go into agriculture and adopt sustainable practices. The average age of an American farmer is 57.

Meriwether interviewed several 20-something farm apprentices at Stone Barns farm — located 25 miles from Manhattan — as they herded sheep down a tree-lined lane and gathered brown eggs from the grass.

“There’s this whole new resurgence of young farmers,” a young man in a seed cap says in Meriwether’s film. “And I really want to be a part of that.”

Meriwether hopes his film will inspire young adults to farm. From October to April he’s traveling to 10 states, including Colorado, as part of a Young Farmer Screening Series.

Just as American Meat explores ways to reinvent agriculture, Meriwether reinvented himself through the film. The Michigan native studied poetry at CU but, after taking a film class his last semester, he decided video might be more lucrative. He relocated to New York City, co-founded Moose Productions and spent three years directing, producing, shooting and editing video for such clients as Al Jazeera English, PBS and A&E.

In 2006 he watched the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which he found informative but disappointing in that it failed to give solutions to the environmental issues it raised. At the same time, he was feeling unfulfilled as a field producer for The First 48, a documentary television series about homicide.

“There were a lot of sleepless nights, and I had to wear a bulletproof vest,” he says.

He quit his job, started a nonprofit called Leave It Better to focus on creating solution-oriented stories of positive environmental change and decided to make his own environmental film.

“I wanted to focus on the good people were capable of instead of the worst,” he says.

American Meat cost close to $250,000. Meriwether applied for grants, ran a Kickstarter campaign and maxed out credit cards to pay for it. Among other things, the project inspired him to think about his own return to the land.

“One of my goals is to have my own farm in five years,” he says. “There’s something valuable about knowing the food you’re eating.”

Photos courtesy Graham Meriwether

Can American agriculture make a shift to sustainable farming? Graham Meriwether spent time with farmers across the country in search of the answer.

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At the Table with Steve Ells

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 06:00:00 +0000

At the Table with Steve Ells Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/01/2011 - 00:00

Clay Evans

Steve Ells (Art’88) vividly recalls the day in 2000 when his eyes were opened about factory farming.

He was visiting a hog farm in Thornton, Iowa, with Paul Willis, co-founder of San Francisco-based Niman Ranch, which farms, processes and distributes natural meat from humanely raised animals. Ells saw free-range hogs foraging, grunting and socializing, acting, in other words, like hogs.

“I was thinking this was typical,” says Ells, founder of Chipotle Mexican Grill, the phenomenally successful chain of restaurants that focuses on a la carte burritos and other casual Mexican fare. “Paul told me the scene was rare, that 99 percent of all pork is raised in factory farms.”

After researching factory farms, he discovered hideous exploitation of animals and abuse of the environment.

“I didn’t want my success or Chipotle’s to be based on that,” he says.

In 1993 Steve Ells (Art’88) founded Chipotle Mexican Grill, which now boasts 1,100 restaurants and more than 26,000 employees. The company aims to be friendly to the environment and supportive of food producers and farm workers. Shown at right is the Chelsea London location.

So in 2001, eight years after it was founded, Chipotle began serving exclusively Niman Ranch pork, followed by commitments to provide natural and humanely raised beef, chicken and dairy products. The company also has launched efforts to be friendly to the environment and supportive of farm workers.

His efforts have paid off. Last year the company had a net income of $178 million with 1,100 restaurants and more than 26,000 employees.

But Ells’ commitment to creating simple, tasty food made with fresh ingredients and integrity goes back even further than that first farm visit. Ells, who turns 46 on Sept. 12, says his mother always had gardens and served fresh vegetables and salads in their Boulder home.

Dinner was “an event,” he says. “It was often simple and straightforward, but . . . there was a sense of community.”

In junior high school he pored over cookbooks and cooking articles. By the time he reached Boulder High School, he was practicing his burgeoning cooking and hosting skills on a few lucky friends.

1993
First Chipotle opens at a former Denver Dolly Madison ice cream shop.
1999
McDonalds invests, allowing company to grow from 16 locations in 1998 to 500 in 2005.

2000
Starts serving naturally raised pork.

2002
Starts serving naturally raised chicken.

2006
Goes public on New York Stock Exchange. McDonalds divests.
2007
Stops using cheese or sour cream with rBGH (bovine growth hormone).
2009
Ells testifies before Congress to eliminate use of antibiotics in ranching.

2010
85 percent of Chipotle’s beef and all of its pork and chicken are naturally raised. First London restaurant opens.

“Those were the first really grown-up meals I had,” recalls Gina Yarusso Skene (Dance’89), who met Ells in junior high. “He actually read Bon Appétit.”

Ells attended CU-Boulder to study art history. His first apartment on University Hill was a “real dump,” but he was still able to lure friends with food and drink. He says he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do after graduating until his friend, Cindy Gueswel (Engl’88, MEdu’93), suggested he attend the famous Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.

“I went because it was something to do besides going to graduate school or starting a real job,” Ells says, laughing. “But really, I was pursuing my passion for learning more about food and wine and restaurants.”

His apprenticeship under culinary superstar Jeremiah Tower at Star’s restaurant in San Francisco cemented his commitment to simple, fresh food. Tower, the original chef at the famous Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., was one of the pioneers of French-influenced California cuisine and an early promoter of sustainable, locally grown ingredients.

After studying under Tower, Ells returned to Boulder eager to start his own French-style restaurant. Lacking the funds, he remembered the California taquerías where he’d eaten burritos with everything on the inside — the ultimate fast food — and sketched out plans for Chipotle, the humble Mexican-style restaurant that was going to pay for the fancy French restaurant.

Chipotle, which is Mexican Spanish for smoked, dried jalapeño chili pepper, opened with little fanfare in Denver in 1993. But the concept took off, and within three years Ells had opened five more Denver locations. In 1999 the first Chipotle restaurants opened outside Colorado in Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio. The “everything on the inside” model, with an emphasis on grilled meats and a choice of salsas, made Chipotle not just popular but a forerunner of copycat chains.

But Ells says the company’s ethical stance sets it apart from those that came later. In addition to working to serve natural meat from humanely raised animals, Chipotle led the industry in 2004 by using zero-trans-fats frying oil. It also works to preserve the environment.

For example, since 2010 Chipotle has set a goal of using at least 50 percent locally grown products in season and is exploring buying beans that are grown with “no till” anti-erosion methods.

“The bottom line is that Chipotle . . . does the right thing because that is the kind of company we are.”

More recently the company has added fair treatment of farm workers to its menu. It helped negotiate a penny-per-pound pay increase for tomato harvesters in Immokalee, Fla.

Despite all those efforts, almost unheard of for a fast-food restaurant chain, Chipotle has received some criticism for its refusal to sign a “Campaign for Fair Foods” agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an organization of Latino, Mayan Indian and Haitian workers in Florida. A small group of CU students protested Ells’ commencement speech in Boulder last spring over the issue.

Ells says it’s not a fair critique.

“Chipotle has always supported the CIW,” he says. “But the CIW wants us to sign a contract that would let them control Chipotle’s decisions regarding food in the future. It would be like you giving to a charity, and then the charity protesting you for not signing a contract forcing you to do what the charity tells you to do in the future.

“The bottom line is that Chipotle . . . does the right thing because that is the kind of company we are.”

Ells credits CU for giving him the ability to “look at the world in a broader way,” which has underpinned his entire career. And at a time when college is increasingly seen as mere vocational preparation for a high-paying job in finance or technology, Ells stoutly defends the importance of the liberal arts education.

“It’s really a luxury to be able to spend four years at an institution like CU where you can sort of be indulgent, go to lectures, read and study and think,” he says. “That’s really something. People in school should savor those years.”

Photos courtesy Chipotle Mexican Grill

Steve Ells vividly recalls the day in 2000 when his eyes were opened about factory farming.

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Ranching Fever Takes Hold of ’em

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 06:00:00 +0000

Ranching Fever Takes Hold of ’em Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/01/2010 - 00:00

Brian E. Clark

Latigo Ranch

When Randy George (ChemEngr’71, MBA’78), left, and Jim Yost (MAnth’67, PhD’72), right, met in Boulder during the late 1960s, they had no idea they’d end up running a guest ranch together in western Grand County, Colo.

But since 1987 they’ve been operating the rustic Latigo Ranch, an 82-year-old spread near Kremmling, Colo., that offers stunning views of the Continental Divide.

��ý�Ļ��Ʒors dine in a historic log lodge, eat delicious meals prepared by Randy, take nature walks with Jim and go on trail rides — including overnight pack trips — with him and his skilled wranglers.

When the pair graduated from CU, they headed in different directions.

Randy, a New Jersey native, worked as an engineer for several years in Minnesota, Texas and Indiana.

Jim headed for South America with his young family — and stayed for a decade — to do anthropological research and Christian missionary work with the Waorani people in the Ecuadorean jungle.

He continues to visit the tribe, recently publishing an article in the National Academy of Sciences about the Waorani.

It didn’t take Randy long to get back to Colorado. By 1975, he was working as mountain manager at the Eldora Mountain Resort.

“I missed this state a lot,” says Randy, who worked at Eldora for three seasons while completing an MBA at CU. Later, he became manager of the C Lazy U, another Grand County guest ranch.

Eventually he reconnected with Jim, who returned from Ecuador in 1982. A native of Colorado Springs, Jim had led mule trips up Pikes Peak as a teenager.

“Working with Randy while I figured out what I wanted to do was a natural,” Jim says. “Truth be told, I’d always wanted to run a ranch.”

They raised their families at the Latigo — each has three kids — and the partnership is still going strong.

“The secret to our success has been to not let the smaller things derail us,” Randy says.

Jim concurs, noting they both have a lot of skills in a variety of areas, so they can cover each other.

“And that’s allowed me to go back to Ecuador for my research,” he says. “From my perspective, the partnership has been great.

When Randy George and Jim Yost met in Boulder during the late 1960s, they had no idea they’d end up running a guest ranch together in western Grand County, Colo.

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