24 Years and Counting!

We are celebrating 24 years at US Wellness Meats! A little farm history — back in the mid-1990's a group of cattle farmers in the Midwest began studying the possibility of regenerative farming. What they saw taking place on modern farms caused some concern. Erosion was running rampant, soils were being depleted of important nutrients, and runoff was increasing in a failing game for Mother Nature. Most product marketed as “food” was over-processed and had ever-worsening nutritional value. The rise of antibiotics, herbicides, pesticides and GMOs was creating all sorts of health issues with animals, people, land, air, and water. However, grazing animals were proving to be a completely different story with healthier fatty acid profiles and a nearly magical benefit for soils.

John Wood, Kenneth Suter, Jim Crum, and John Leeser were among the group who decided to forge ahead and convert their farms using a holistic strategy. This involved moving from grain-fed animals to pasture-raised, grass-fed, grass-finished animals with NO chemicals, NO antibiotics, NO added growth hormones, and NO GMOS. That's quite a change in the farming world because raising a steer to harvest weight solely on grass takes about twice as long. Many farms will raise cattle on grass only to "finish" them on grains so they fatten up fast. Patience, it seems, is a virtue in regenerative farming. It's also a virtue because it takes time for soils to replenish. Fortunately, cattle actually help this process. Heavy grazing animals like bison and beef cattle will graze an area quickly, but they only eat about half of the available forage. Much of the remaining grasses are trampled deep into the soil along with manure to create a potent natural fertilizer and compost. Underground, the soil biology includes billions of microbes and tiny critters that process this mixture into nutrients for the plants above the surface. 

The green grasses act like massive fields of vacuum cleaners, sucking atmospheric carbon out of the air and depositing it beneath the soil to feed micro-organisms. It's a circular process that nature has perfected. Our pioneering farmers learned that adding rest to the mixture brings even more magic to the mix. These rest periods allow the pastures to renew and regrow for the next group of cattle to graze. It's a process very similar to how bison behaved for thousands of years on American prairies. They would move into an area, graze the native prairie grasses, leave behind some fertilizer, trample some grass underfoot, and move on allowing the prairie to heal. It's a beautiful thing! Our intrepid farmers have recaptured what Mother Nature accomplishes in the wild.

After 24 years, these farms have seen a drastic improvement in soil quality and production. Tests on the grass-fed, grass-finished animals indicate much higher levels of nutrition, including cancer fighting CLA and Omega-3 fatty acids. The year was 2000 when our farmers opened up shop at GrasslandBeef.com. Today, we ship our nutrient dense foods all over the country to be enjoyed by individuals and families in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. We've recorded some video of our farmers reminiscing about the early days and where we are now. Tune in for some more backstory.

All the Best,  Team USWM