Free Range Cattle

Frank Wallis serves on the Steering Committee for the WyoAg Coalition, and he’s not a happy man. He recently wrote an article about government regulation of food as it applies to him and those like him. He raises natural grass fed beef, free range chickens and grows vegetables and fruits without chemicals and artificial fertilizers. He does not use antibiotics or growth stimulants on his livestock. He has a website where he markets to consumers who seek to purchase meat, eggs and produce from what he calls a “non-industrial, humane production system”. His goal is to produce superior and clean food, and the freedom to bring it to the marketplace without what he believes to be undue government interference.

This interference he talks about is his being required to drive a total of 665 miles ( two roundtrips) to South Dakota for USDA inspection and processing of his beef product for eventual sale at farmers markets. By contrast he can sell a live animal to a local customer who can have the local wild game processor kill the animal right on the ranch. Then the processor can haul the animal to town and cut it up for the customer. His question is “What makes the beef hauled to South Dakota safer than beef harvested at his ranch?” It’s certainly food for thought.

What I found most interesting in Frank’s article were his references to seemingly conficting points of view from those who are supposed to have our best interests at heart. Apparently Frank is free to sell his raw produce, but if he “processes” the apples into a pie, he is forbidden to sell the pie at the local farmer’s market. Yet, the same pie can be sold by a church, as in fundraiser.

Here’s another one. Frank writes, “You can go shoot a deer on a 70-degree day in November, drag it through the dirt and cactus for two hours, throw it on the hood of the pickup and drive in the hot sun to the local meat processor.” Then he states that one can give this meat to their neighbors and the local soup kitchen. But he cannot take his beef to the same butcher and sell it to the neighbor. He does not believe this is a matter of food safety at all.

Frank talks about how the mega food production system gets the food nicely packaged to the store shelf. He asks if it’s “safer” to eat chicken raised with sunshine, grasshoppers, good grass and clean water? Or should we be satisfied with chickens never seeing the light of day, living their entire lives in a space one-half foot square while being fed antibiotics to keep them from dying (and clipping their beaks as well). You be the judge.

And here’s a final thought from Frank, “The one-thousand people who die from salmonella each year are buying their meat via the government inspected mega-plants. No one is being harmed by backyard producers and small ranchers.” Can anyone say power and control? For more information go to www.WyoAgCoalition.org.