Local farmers are excited about the prospect of being able to
sell more of their beef, pork, lamb and poultry to Kitsap
residents, thanks to a U.S. Department of Agriculture-approved mobile meat
processing facility. The 45-foot trailer, custom-designed for
that purpose, will swing into action in mid-June and make the
rounds of six counties, including Kitsap.
Farmers and small-scale meat-producers in Kitsap County list a
number of advantages to locally grown meat.
1. What you see it what you get. Joe Keehn, owner of Farmer
George Meats in South Kitsap, raises his own cattle. He says, “The
thing about buying from a local farmer, you can see what they’ve
got. You can see where the calves have been born. You can see where
they’ve been fed. Pork and lamb the same thing.”
2. According to Keehn, the animals are raised and slaughtered in
a more humane way that animals raised in large, corporate feed lots
or poultry farms. “The way we do our farm butchering, the animals
are pretty much in their own environment,” said Keehn, who uses a
gun to kill the animal out in the field before it’s bled and
butchered. “They’re not crowded. They’re not pushed. It’s very
humane.”
2. It’s healthier, they say. Much of the meat is organically
grown, without the use of hormones.
3. It’s easier on the environment, advocates say. Currently
USDA-approved meat must be trucked into the county, typically from
Eastern Washington or the Midwest. That represents a lot of fuel
consumption, said Jim Carlson of Minder Meats, who processes USDA
meat for local restaurants and who has seen a jump in retail
customers looking for custom-cut meats. Carlson is excited about
being able to distribute locally grown meats. “It’s a smaller
carbon footprint, that’s for sure,” said Carlson. “(Currently) an
animal has a lot of miles on it by the time it gets here.”
4. Local meats taste better, say sustainable agriculture
advocates. “Our quality is superb,” said Keehn, a plainspoken man,
not given to hyperbole.
5. Although Keehn and Carlson admit they can’t compare
price-wise to volume distributors like Costco and Walmart, both say
their cost is comparable to high end products in grocery stores.
Keehn, for example, sells sides of meat for about $2.79 per pound.
After butchering, the cost for a variety of cuts, from hamburger to
filet mignon, comes in at about $4.50 a pound.
Keehn and Carlson report an increasing appetite in Kitsap for
local meat. While Arno Bergstrom, director of the Washington State
University Kitsap County Extension office, reports an increase in
the number of small farmers producing meat products.
Could it be a trend? Jim Freeman of the Kitsap Community &
Agricultural Alliance thinks so, although he notes that some people
hesitate to buy local meat simply because they can’t afford to pony
up for a whole side of beef or a quarter of a pig all at once. With
the new mobile meat facility in action, consumers will have greater
access to smaller cuts of local USDA-certified meats through CSAs
and farmer’s markets.
Regardless, local meat will probably still seem expensive to
people who are used to buying meat with an eye to whatever is on
sale, Freeman said. In fact, at least for now, locally grown
products will remain more costly than grocery store goods simply
because they are more labor intensive to produce. Freeman says that
shouldn’t stop consumers from “making an investment” in local
agriculture. As more people make local food a regular part of their
diet, local farmers will have more incentive to produce more. With
greater supply, the price will drop somewhat, and better yet, said
Freeman, the farmers will actually be able to stay in business.
How much are you willing to pay to “eat local?” Take the poll on
this blog.
