Uh-oh! Market already flooded with "pasturing" farmers?

Mine didn't grow up on a farm, we moved here when they were 8 and older and they adjusted fine. We raised them to work hard and they did fine once they got here. There were some bumps for all of us, learning to work smarter instead of harder and butchering was a bit of a shock the first time. But we all survived and got it done.

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"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." C S Lewis

It is the sad state of man that while a few look for the can, many spend their time looking for the can'ts.

I would rather be a failure at finding the can than a roaring success at finding the can't.

Sometimes you have to pick your battles.

I agree completely, even if I often have a hard time doing the picking. But there is a lot of negativity in this thread, why I can't, why he's got it easier than me, why she shouldn't, etc.

As with any business or hobby venture, it is hard to make a long term profit. Some will fail while others in similar circumstances will prosper. It is rare indeed for someone who failed to stand up and say it was because of me, I didn't try hard enough or long enough, or I didn't want to do certain parts of the business like marketing, or standing at a farmer's market all day long.

Don't look at it as "oversaturation". Look at it as an opportunity to network and find cooperative buying power on stuff like feed, hay, meds, marketing. Pair up with a couple start-up farms so you can broaden your CSA offerings.

Also look at it as this: Naturally-raised food is catching on. There may be a bit of saturation in nearby cities, but some of those farms will undoubtedly fail, change direction, etc; also, I honestly think that the market for naturally-raised food will grow, overall. Yep, there will be blips and plateaus, but try to see every challenge as an opportunity.

Good luck!

You have made a commitment to, and created babies with, a man who's commitment to his religion is rock solid. He may see his job is to care for, provide for and keep safe his family. Your job is to support your husband. Not my idea, its biblical.
Living in the country, growing your own food, growing food to sell to pay for this idyllic life, being with your children in harmonious labor of love, is a common dream. It is so very precious that many expend ten times the effort just to approach this utopia.

The free range/ grass fed market is just a recent niche market that everyone jumped on because the market was flooded in the more traditional down home locally grown heritage organically grown market.

You are one person with beautiful dreams. Some people long to home school their children. Some long to raise all their own meat. Some dream of milking and making soaps and cheeses. Some dream of a huge weedless garden growing high priced veggies for the city folk. Some dream of living in a quiet rural community where their children can learn and grow in safety and serenity. Some dream of being married to a man with strong convictions to his religion. Few on earth have it all.
Sometimes there are not enough hours in a day or years in a lifetime to taste the fruit of every dream.
But it is your life, your dreams. You are the best judge of what you can attain. Only you can determine the cost of each choice.

Yes, definitely agreed.

No, definitely not agreed. We pasture our livestock because we feel it is a sincerely better way of raising livestock. It is sustainable, humane, more natural, smells better and more fun. It is not about marketing. We happen to be very good at it. There happens to be a market for it because other people value these same ideals and are willing to pay a premium for product that is produced this way. I would pasture raise our livestock either way - I did for years before I started selling. I do it because it is right.

Very true.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

"No, definitely not agreed. We pasture our livestock because we feel it is a sincerely better way of raising livestock. It is sustainable, humane, more natural, smells better and more fun. It is not about marketing. We happen to be very good at it. There happens to be a market for it because other people value these same ideals and are willing to pay a premium for product that is produced this way. I would pasture raise our livestock either way - I did for years before I started selling. I do it because it is right."

Oops, my bad, salesmanship can build a market where there is none.

Highland, the OP noticed that lots of folks had already jumped onto your bandwagon (pasture raised), flooding the market. I think you and I agree pasture raised is a growing trend. Just you see it as a continuing opportunity for the small producer with a growing demand. I'm not convinced it will catch on.

It's been happening since the 1980's at least, maybe even the 1970's. I know people, I have family, who have been raising pastured livestock that long and have customers who have been buying since way back then. Food coops I was involved with in the early 1980's were interested in pastured meats way back then.

Sometimes people look around them and see the present and thing it is all new and different when in reality it has been there all along.

I don't see the market as being saturated at all. What I do see is that the media and Big Ag are starting to take notice. Big Ag wants to figure out how they can get in on this part of the market. They coop the things they can such as my cousin who used to keep chickens all in huge quantaset barns is now labeled "Organic Free Range" but the only thing that actually changed is he put in a little door for the chickens to be able to get to a sunlit porch (which they don't) and he feeds organic grain. Other than that all the practices are still the same. 50,000 birds in a barn USDA Certified Organic. It isn't what the consumer thinks of when they think Organic "Happy Chickens" but what ever.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Haypoint and Highlands, I agree and disagree with you both about pasture/grass fed being a recent niche market. It is relatively recent as a marketing tool. However, as a way to raise animals, it is as old as man hunting herbivores on the Sarengeti plains. Electric fence and high acreage prices might have modified the methods somewhat, but it is still basically the same thing as what the to-be-King David did when he took his flocks to the hills to graze. He didn't keep the sheep penned and bring grain to them.

As to consumers continuing to be willing to pay a premium for such, that remains to be seen. I'm betting that prior to a TEOTWAWKI event, there will always be premium customers and after TEOTWAWKI, grass fed will be the only choice.

My grandpa sold pastured and grass fed beef before "corn fed beef" was the hottest thing on the market. So no, it's not a "new" thing. My concerns were the op not having had experience raising large livestock; the acreage is a bit small for raising large livestock; grass fed meat needs to be prepared differently than corn fattened livestock; hubby not totally on board with idea. IMO it's going to be an expensive learning curve. I will be the last one to say you can't make a bit of extra money on a little bit of land and I definitely will not say you can't make money raising grass fed livestock. I know of people who make quite a bit of money raising pastured turkeys.

Certainly the market cannot be considered flooded with only 50 farms producing grass fed or pastured livestock. Those 50 farms are most certainly not producing enough meat for the millions of people that live in that state. Even for the thousands of people who want and are willing to pay top dollar for grass fed or pastured livestock.

And I am asuming that the op has already done their homework about goat milk and cheese sales in Missouri and has a plan in place for the construction of an approved milking parlor and has checked into the costs of inspections and licenses.

One of these days all of the people that are paying high prices for organic raised food , grass fed beef , free range eggs , chemical free everything , etc. are going to be in a hospital dying of nothing .

WV Hillbilly, do you want to live forever?
None of us are getting out alive.

Sometimes I think some people think they're going to . lol

I plan on it. Any other plan is half assed.

Plan to live for ever and live like you'll die tomorrow.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

I think we can both agree that we see this "pasture raised" method differently. 50 producers in a single state might seem small with lots of room for growth. It could be that 50 producers exceeds the demand in that state.
What you experienced with the production of organic free range chicken can/will be replicated with a variety of livestock. Suddenly, "continuing opportunity for the small producer" becomes competing head to head with big ag. Herbrick is producing millions of brown, organic, cage free eggs every week.
I have seen upscale meat markets promote their beef as "pasture raised" and get a big price for it. But in truth, almost all beef is pasture raised and the steaks from this premium priced beef spent his last six weeks with his head in a trough of ground corn and corn silage, just like most of the rest of the beef raised in this country. Marketing to a public that has heard the buzz about pasture raised, but don't understand what they are getting.
As an example, do you know that most of the grass finished beef sold in this country was imported from Uganda? Uganda has over 7 million cattle.
Heck, most people do not know that New Zeeland sends us millions of pounds of boned bull meat, frozen in boxes. It is added to hamburger to lower the fat content.

Much of our differences in opinion is how we view the future. I think the public will become better educated, understand the differences between pasture raised and grass finished, realize that commercial free range chicken really isn't, come to know the difference between a gestation crate and a farrowing crate, discover that organic vegetables don't have higher nutrition and base their purchases on taste first and origin second.

Buy local is a trend that I'd like to see expand. But since I have experienced tough meat from local farms, I fear that the inexperienced rancher's trial run of grass finished beef will result in an end to this trend.

Yet despite my cousin's enormous fake Organic confinement (F'Organic'd) 'free-range' chicken farm there is still plenty of demand for other producers such that he isn't even known. There's lots of demand. The number of farms is far higher than 50 even here in our small state of Vermont.

That's misdirection. I want and grow organic because then I know that toxic pesticides, herbicides and insecticides are not being used on it so as to not put those chemicals into my children's bodies and not onto my soils.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Yes, there is lots of demand for fake free range chicken. Sam's Club advertises "hormone free" chicken strips. Chickens are not fed growth hormones. To be factually correct, all chickens have growth hormones, naturally, otherwise they'd die. I think eventually folks will figure out the misleading terms. If there is a growing market for grass finished beef, great. Kroger tried it a few years ago and it flopped. The ranchers of Uganda have rich soils and lush grass and seem to be fulfilling demand here in the US.

Misdirection? This is what I see happening with consumers. I doubt consumers will pay extra to support your conviction, once they learn the chemical residue levels of standard fruits and vegetables is zero and even if there were chemicals, the health risk to most ag chemicals is scant. But until that time, ride the wave, salesmanship is your savior.

While I whole heartedly agree with your statement about hormone free chicken (that and the vegetarian chickens make me laugh) I will dispute your pesticide residue level argument. Case in point is this brochure from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation:
http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/license/...ing_081313.pdf