Spring Hill Farms

The USDA has announced it's new 'tenderness' program designed to help consumers choose a good piece of beef.

The new USDA program allows beef companies to label products as "USDA tender" or "USDA very tender" if they are certified to make those claims.

Cargill will be rolling this out in the near future since they are certified to be able to do so.

While I've read a few articles about the whole issue, my take on it is a bit different.

Touting how tender a piece of beef might be is keying in on what consumers are duped with continuously. 

It's like the words 'extra creamy filling inside' on a box of junk food.

Yep - there probably is extra creamy filling inside.

The question is should you be eating it in the first place?

These type of labels are nothing more than emphasizing the taste or experience of a product while ignoring and totally playing down the real issues.

Does it contain GMO's?

Where was it made or grown?

I use these two examples because they are both being hotly contested in various parts of the country.

Maybe I'm wrong but I haven't heard any ground swell of complaints about how we need our beef products labeled for tenderness.

It's another case of attaching a solution to a problem that nobody but big biz knew was a problem.

Until next time..

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If you're looking for portable netting for pigs, poultry or otherwise Premier is the place to go.

If you've never used portable netting you don't know what your missing! Since I bought my first roll I have wondered how I ever got along with out it.

Take a moment and check out there website at: http://www.premier1supplies.com

I recently received Premiers newsletter and loved the article so much I shot Stan a note and asked if I could re-publish it for you. His thoughts on "labels" echo my own. So without further ado Here's Stan.....

In Premier's previous newsletter my comments about the future merits of the organic, sustainable and natural labels surprised and offended some readers. Therefore, a little personal background and an expanded explanation of my views about the future may be in order. My father switched from "chemical" to "organic" farming on our 160-acre Iowa farm in 1955, when I was 9 years old. This change was encouraged in part by reading J.I. Rodale's monthly magazine, Organic Gardening and Farming, which we studied at length.

My folks had a true family (8 children) farm for decades:

• Milked up to 5 cows by hand and sold the cream.

• Raised chickens (hundreds) and sold the eggs.

• Had a large vegetable and fruit garden for our personal needs, weeded, mulched and harvested by hand labor.

• Raised a limited number of sheep, pigs and beef cattle. We butchered and processed meat from them for the family and sold the rest.

• Grew corn, wheat, hay, oats and soybeans, but not many acres of each.

• Heated our home with wood from trees on the farm.

In short, it was the complete opposite of modern specialized farms. The most important product wasn't the food. Instead it was the education and development of the 8 children and our city cousins who visited us each summer. We learned how to think, accomplish, suffer and sweat.

In 1964, I went to Iowa State University and used its excellent library to read every organic/natural farming author on hand, including Howard, Faulkner and Bromfield. In 1965 I switched to Ambassador College, a small, conservative religious college that actively supported and practiced organic farming and gardening.

Two years later I transferred to Ambassador's British campus north of London. Its farm and gardens produced organic milk, meat (chickens and beef), eggs, vegetables and fruit for the student and faculty kitchens. In my senior year I was paid (even now I marvel at this!) to read extensively about organic food and food production for the college's Agricultural Department and prepare summary reports therefrom.

I stayed on after graduation to manage the college's farm and vegetable gardens. By the time the college closed (1974), the farm operation had grown to 300 acres, 1000 chickens, 5 acres of fruit/vegetable gardens and 150 dairy and beef cattle.

During my 6 years as the head of Ambassador's Agricultural Department, I visited research farms and agricultural shows all across Britain, Europe and the USA. We listened and talked with folks like E.F. Schumacher, whose book Small Is Beautiful — Economics As If People Mattered, is probably even more applicable now than it was in the early 1970s. In 1973 I had the privilege to share a lunch in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, with Robert Rodale (now deceased) and Wendell Berry (alive, and a thought-leader I respect highly).

So I have roots developed over 6 decades in organic farming and ecologically sound land utilization.

Why therefore did I suggest that producers might consider supplemental labels to organic, natural and sustainable in my previous newsletter?

1. Because the astute marketing minds of the big "industrial" food producers have already spotted the $$ potential of these labels. Therefore, "organic" labels will soon be commonplace (and may be often attached to food whose production systems may be questionable).

In turn, the smaller producers who began it all will feel pushed out. That's why it's sensible, in my view, to anticipate this — and also attach supporting labels like "no antibiotics, local and/or hormone-free." The nature of large-scale food production makes it more difficult to honestly replicate the extra labels (particularly local and no antibiotics).

2. Because, and this is an opinion developed over 6 decades, I think there is a second, and larger, group of valuable food consumers who are not overly concerned whether their food comes from an organic source. Nor do they care whether the source is a large operation or a small one.

Instead, they want the food source to be one that practices stewardship, that demonstrates integrity (honest, genuine, reliable) and proactively cares for land, animals, employees — and their customers. If they find that the source is too focused on profit as opposed to these things, they will seek an alternative. And they want to buy from people who — to paraphrase E.F Schumacher — "view food production as if people/soil/animals/plants matter, not just for profit and efficiency." Best wishes to you all through the holiday season and beyond.
Stan Potratz, Owner

Hundreds of thousands of honey bees have been found dead in Delaware, Fairfield, Hardin, Miami, Pickaway and Ross counties in April. Jim North believes an insecticide called neonicotinoids is responsible for the huge amount of dead bees.

The Columbus Dispatch reported on this which you can read here.

The report states the bulk of the bees died over a four day period which is when a major amount of corn was planted in Ohio. The insecticide is used on seed corn.

Of course Bayer CropScience who produces much of the neonicotinoids believes it could be the weather. Hmm... let's see the weather which we can nothing about or a poison designed to kill insects. I'll leave the conclusion up to you but you probably have picked up on my opinion.

The poison has been linked to bee deaths in other states and banned in other countries but hey maybe Ohio is different?

Perhaps it's this Ohio weather that wipes out an already vulnerable bee population.

For me it looks like the begining of yet another round of propaganda by the major chemical companies to continue to not only endanger the bee population, but continue to endanger our lives as well by the indiscriminate use of poisons to prop up an already unsustainable system of agriculture.

Let's hope The Ohio Department of Agriculture does it job and puts an end to the needless poisoning of honey bees.

Until next time...

David

Spring Hill Farms

I'm always so frustrated when I read about other farmers coming under such attack from our elected officials and government workers.

As small farmers and local food supporters we have to stick together and the Farm-to-Cunsumer Legal Defense Fund is one of the best ways to do that.

Read the full story here.

I have identified three key elements that are critical to success if you plan to direct market your farm products. In talking to hundreds of farmers it became obvious to me that most of them do not have these three key elements in place to insure that they succeed.[Read More]

 

What does 2011 hold for you? What does it hold for the United States? It would be really nice if we could answer those questions definitively. However, we all know that's impossible. No one can tell the future with certain accuracy. We can tell the season though [more]

If you sent us any type of communication from our website from March 1st to March 16th, chances are we did not get it.

Our website had an "issue" where it wasn't sending us the email. It would tell you on your end that it did when in fact it didn't...

SO... If you signed up for our free pork or wanted on our mailing list you will need to go back to our site and re-submit your information.

 If you sent us a request for more information and you didn't hear from us, we didn't get it please re-send.

Oh the joys of the Internet...

Until next time...

I just got spoke to my processor on the phone. I was thrilled to hear him say he was "impressed" with the way our beef looked on the rail. He said it was not what he expected for grass fed beef. A really special compliment coming from a guy who has been in the business since he was born! The family ran business just celebrated 100 years in business.

 He said the cover was excellent and it was marbled nicely. He had not seen that in 100% grass fed, grass finished beef. To tell you the truth, until recently I have not been a fan of grass finished beef. I was raised on grass fed and grain finished beef which was what we had to do in order to obtain a good finish.Genetics have come a long way since then.

 I'm pleased to announce we have finally got a product that is 100% grass fed and holds it own with any beef on the market! 

Until next time!