Items Tagged With Grassfed Party

The 2nd Grass-fed Party New York City Cowcus brought a lot of like-minded people together for conversation, drinks, and excellent food last night. Among the attendees was a grass-fed beef producer from Arkansas, a documentary filmmaker who is working on a film on grass-fed farming, a man who works for the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, a woman who works for the New York State Governor’s Office, a young woman who has worked on organic farms in Oregon, and many others who were passionate about the Party and making our food sources sustainable. We talked about grass-fed farming and food ALL night!  What struck me most about everyone at the Cowcus was that although we all had different reasons for supporting the Grass-fed Party, we all could agree on how exciting and promising grass-fed farming is.  Whether as farmers, cooks, environmentalists, policymakers, teachers, or business people we could all agree on one thing: grass-fed farming provides real solutions to so many problems. Whether we were talking about its health benefits, or its environmental benefits, or even its benefit to family farmers and rural communities, each conversation inspired me to think about how important it is to inform more Americans about grass-fed farming. Our hope for this community site is that it will become a platform for people across the country to talk about grass-fed issues.

Here are some of the topics covered at the Cowcus last night:

The need to create better access to fresh foods within walking distance of more homes in urban neighborhoods.

The potential to create more economic balance between upstate farmers and New York City eaters.

The need for more financial support from banks or the government to help new grass-fed ranchers make a start at a viable business.

How can we bridge the gap between the need for providing healthy foods for the hungry and the growing movement that advocates artisanally produced foods?

How can small farmers achieve a fair share of farm subsidies when faced against the powerful lobbies of big agribusiness?  Can a political leader address this problem and make a change in the status quo?

Dear Grass-fed Party Members,

Last night, as I watched the returns in each state, I saw a victory emerge for a man representing the Democratic Party.  The Grass-fed Party congratulates Senator Obama and Senator Biden on their win, and I believe that they will go on to address Grass-fed Issues during their time in the White House.

We know this is just the beginning for the Grass-fed Party. We brought new issues to this presidential race, issues that called for a great belief in the welfare our land, our animals, and work of small farmers and ranchers.  For the first time, a Party has emerged with the sole purpose of representing agriculture.  This, in itself, is historic.

I am grateful to you, my Grass-fed supporters, for helping me understand the issues that are important in your lives.  The future success of the Grass-fed Party depends on keeping the fire of this conversation alive.  We must remember the persistence of groups such as the Grangers and the Farmers Alliance.  We must remember that their politics became influential in policies made by larger parties, and that their influence is still felt today.  I have confidence that the Grass-fed Party is capable of this measure of impact, but know that this type of change must first take hold in our kitchens, in our colleges, and on our farmland.  In this, we will embrace the true meaning of grassroots.

Now is the time to refocus efforts within our own states.  It has been thrilling to see Grass-fed support coming from almost every state in our country.  Each state is unique in the issues that face it’s ranchers and farmers, and each of these different issues require different solutions.   In the coming months, the leaders of the Grass-fed Party will begin to examine these regional differences, and need your voice in this inquiry.

I assure you that I will continue to work hard for the Grass-fed Party.  In the coming months I will continue with advocacy work in my home state of Montana and then go on to represent Grass-fed interests as a lobbyist in Washington.  This presidential campaign has made the Grass-fed Party known across the nation, and we can only grow bolder as time goes on.

Thank-you for all of your support.

Your Faithful Leader,

 Angus La Cense

One of our campaign staff members, grassfedcowboy, posted some new video footage he took at the press conference on his blog.  It's great footage that really captures the chaos of the moment that I described in my last blog post!   Thanks Grassfedcowboy!

Last night the first official Cowcus of the Grass-fed Party was held in New York City at Back Forty. The Cowcus was a round-table discussion between experts who have made a significant contribution by vocation to grass-fed industries and knowledge.

Our guests of the evening included, Betty Fussell, Ken Jaffe, and Linda Jaffe. Betty Fussell is a writer of food and America, and has spent the last four years traveling around the U.S. interviewing ranchers and writing her soon to be released book, Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef. Ken and Linda Jaffe are the owners of Slope Farms in Delaware County, New York where they raise grass-fed beef and work to preserve farmlands while helping to promote grass-fed beef production and distribution in upstate New York.

The evening went swimmingly and the conversation went on for four hours! The guests brought a wealth of knowledge to the table and Ulla and I gained quite a bit of new insight into the complicated subjects we are going to be tackling in the coming months.

Here is a list of some of the subjects covered last night. We will be elaborating on the points made on these topics raised at the Cowcus in the upcoming weeks.

• The history of beef in America
• The place of corn and subsidies in commodity beef production
• The production and distribution challenges faced by small grass-fed ranchers
• The regional differences in grass-fed productivity
• The challenges and benefits of rancher co-ops
• The impact of one writer, Michael Pollan, on recent interest in grass-fed beef
• The matching of new generation ranchers and farmers with unused pasture land
• Breeds of livestock and how they do on a grass-fed diet


Questions that came out of the discussion:

• Is a complete switch to grass-fed beef in America possible and what would it take on a practical level?
• How can we support and entice a new generation of farmers and ranchers into the occupation and make it economically sustainable?
• Is the American palate open to grass-fed meats?
• Are there enough acres of grazing lands in this country to support grass-fed beef as a commodity product?

The Great Plains of the United States are majestic.  They also represent one of the most unique and interesting ecosystems in America.   The American Prairie might not get as much attention as the Rocky Mountains or the Pacific Ocean but they are just as spectacular.  Traditionally, the Great Plains’ prairie sustained millions of roving buffalo that grazed and kept the prairies healthy and vibrant; in turn a thick blanket of grass protected the plains from desertification, soil erosion and drought. In fact grassland can survive drought for decades while traditional crops perish.  The great Dust Bowl of the 1930’s was a catastrophic example of how tillage crops and drought can result in whole scale environmental exhaustion. This is not the case when prairie land  is covered with grass, and grazed by animals like cattle or bison; the grass creates a thick protective barrier against the grueling sun and keeps the valuable topsoil and water in the ground. 

This is what is so exciting about grass-fed farming, not just is it sustainable but when it is done in places like the prairie of the great plains it is far better for the environment then the growth of soybeans or grains. Not only does grass-covered prairie eat up more than double the amount of CO2 than cropland does they also stave of soil erosion and desertification---which is something cropland exacerbates.  In fact, when environmentalists talk about the toll meat takes on the environment, and the amount of CO2 that are produced in the process, they are speaking about the amount of fossil fuels that go into growing grain to feed livestock. Grass-fed farming is about harnessing the power of the sun and turning the sun into meat.  Not only that, the cattle that graze the prairie are actually helping the ecosystem that they graze: they are part of the ecosystem.

The Great Plains were made for grazing and that is why it is such a perfect sustainable story. Rotational grazing, when done right, can bring the prairie back to its former glory all the while producing high quality protein that is not only healthy for us, it is healthy for the heartland!