Down On The Farm

The increased focus applied to what goes into our food has helped create an ever-burgeoning food lexicon. Local, organic, humane, seasonal, eco-conscious, etc., are as important to some as price is to many. But rather than a polarizing issue that produces either zeal or disdain, we should all recognize the importance of the conversation: We all have to eat.

Many Americans have recognized the weighty nature of the issue by gravitating towards small local farms that serve up produce and meat far healthier than their factory farm/agribusiness counterparts that control the majority of U.S. Food production. The differences that small, local farmers offer mean a lot to both your health and that of the environment [check here, here, here , and here if you're skeptical].

E coli outbreaks - much more common than most know [read about the latest here] - drinking water contamination, and environmental degradation are just a few of the offerings from industries whose market shares (factory farming accounts for 99 percent of the meat market; agribusiness 78 percent of produce) allow them to remain blissfully indifferent to the end consumer.

While every local farmer may not meet the ideal of doing things, such as being 100 percent pesticide free and raising grass fed cattle, it's more important to note the distance from the wrong end of the spectrum while supporting positive change, rather than throwing up your hands and voting for indifference with your purchases.

Warminster Patch spoke with farm manager Bryce Cannon to see how None Such Farms differs from a vastly subpar industry standard of farming.

WP: How long have you been a farmer?

BC: 5 years.

WP: What did you do before?

BC: I drove school buses; I worked on railroad lines.

WP: Why farming?

BC: A lot of my family - grandparents and second cousins - were farmers. I fell in love with it as a little boy going to visit them. I love being outside working the land. There's a great variety to the work; no two days are ever the same.

WP: It's not a 9-5, 40 hour work week, right?

BC: [Laughs] No, never. It's a seven-day-a-week operation. The plants have to be nurtured till they're bearing fruit. During harvest season there are people picking produce every day. It is very labor intensive every day of the year. If there's nothing else [laughing], there's something to be repaired.

WP: How much land does the farm have?

BC: 500 acres in total with 170 acres dedicated to grain - corn and wheat - which we use to feed our cattle.

WP: Using grain you grow on the farm provides greater quality control then.

BC: Yea. The grain is as organic as can be without being called organic. We pride ourselves in our naturally raised animals - no antibiotics other than their first shot or when they actually need them; they get a shot before being transported to slaughter, for instance. No hormones.

WP: So, as opposed to factory farms, you're not giving animals antibiotics every time they're fed [ed. note: 80% of the antibiotics sold in this country go to healthy animals]?

BC: We have 200 head of cattle a year. We get them weaned from their mothers. Having a smaller operation, we're able to do things properly, to avoid the misuse of antibiotics. The reason people will feed them so much antibiotics is due to the amount of excrement they're in, how tightly packed together the animals are.

We go in, we clean out, we remove the manure, we give them clean hay and bedding. We're able to do this because we don't have 8 billion of them. We're not overly concentrating animals as on the CAFOs [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations] at factory farms.

WP: And that speaks to another glaring way in which other small farmers separate themselves from factory farms - the animals are treated much more humanely.

BC: It's like anything else, if you treat the animals better, they'll treat you better. The better the living conditions the quicker it will put on weight.

WP: So there's no emphasis on cramming thousands of cattle together?

BC: No, not at all. [Factory farming's] method is to stuff 10 lbs. of crap in a 5 lb. bag. The larger producers go for overcrowding. We're not trying to produce beyond our means. We only work with what we can comfortably produce, and that allows for better care to each animal.

WP: So what do the cows eat?

BC: For a good portion of their lives they have 80 acres of pasture [ed. note: that's up to .4 acres per cow as opposed to this] to wander around on and eat grass from. Then they're allowed access to the barn and they eat hay and grains - corn and wheat (a heritage variety of spelt).

WP: Many people are opting for grass fed beef these days. What do you say to this growing trend and the grass fed versus grain fed issue?

BC: Grass raised beef grows very slowly. The meat is tougher, gamier, and doesn't have the marblization most people want.

WP: While not the ideal for some, the grass/grain mix, along with your approach, is a far cry from factory farming methods.

BC: We monitor how much each animal eats. We don't overfeed them with grain to the point of making them sick. We just want to promote healthy muscle growth.

WP: And processing?

BC: They're sent to a USDA-approved slaughterhouse. The same steers that are raised on our farm come back quartered. We make our own steaks, chops, brisket, you name it. All the butchering is done in house after hanging for seven days at the slaughtering facility. They then hang another seven days onsite.

WP: So as with other places doing their butchering the right way, None Such Farm produces a more worry free ground beef?

BC: Our ground beef is from the same steer that gets cut up for ribeye. The ground beef at None Such Farm is not from someone's leftover dairy animals. Unlike your average fast food burger, it's great ground beef because it's made from 100 percent beef cattle that we raise and not mystery meat -- an old bull, an old dairy cow, etc. You wouldn't take an old jersey milk cow and turn it into burger -- well, unless you're a fast food company.

WP: What else do you produce?

BC: We produce a number of things: lamb, eggs, pumpkins, sweet corn, pick-your-own strawberries, tomatoes, pepper, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, lettuce, onions, potatoes... the list goes on.

WP: Tell me more about the eggs you offer.

BC: Our eggs come from cage free, free choice nesting hens.

WP: Can you explain that a bit further, since the term cage free, by itself at least, has been shown by many to be highly misleading?

BC: They have a large area where they get to roam around. There are boxes on the wall for roosting.

They peck, move around, scratch; they do regular chicken things. They get to choose where they lay their eggs.

WP: Your website mentions conservation efforts that preserve the farm, while also preventing an impact on the local community and environment. For instance, how fencing and cow crossings were installed to prevent deterioration to the creeks running through the farm.

BC: Yes, we've done that for the health of the creeks. They drink from the stream only where a special erosion prevention barrier has been constructed to limit the steers to a small area while preventing them from breaking down the embankments with their hoofs. They can enter the water, but it's only a small, limited area.

We also spread the manure from cattle so that it is effectively absorbed into the soil. So it becomes fertilizer rather than something that enters the water supply.

WP: This of course is aided by the sensible amount of pasture space you have for your cows.

BC: Exactly.

WP: And there's the measures to maintain soil fertility and prevent soil erosion that are common sense for any farmer.

BC: Yeah, these are just good farming practices [ed. note rather than standard farming practices]. We follow a lot of sustainable agriculture practices. We plant [in the fall to run through winter] cover crops such as wheat to prevent soil erosion. They also help replenish the soil. For the same reason we plant nitrogen fixating cover crops like clover; they pull nitrogen from the air and into the soil.

WP: What about organics? Your website says that the farm uses integrated pest management. So, pesticides are used, but unlike agribusiness, there's a more responsible approach.

BC: First off, buying something in America is one step in protecting you from sprays. With lettuce from South America, for instance, you don't know what you're getting. In many foreign countries there are no regulations in regard to spraying. Something in America will be much safer [ed. note: though potentially still harmful, as is the case with many conventionally grown strawberries produced by agribusiness].

Secondly, we work with Penn State's Agriculture Program. Penn State Agriculture has extension offices in each county of Pa. that gives us advice on the best way of doing things. We map different types of moth that affect sweet corn and they map it for other types of farmers to use. We trap the moths, and that gives us an idea of their impact on our crop and how we should respond. But we don't blanket spray. As much as we can, we spray as much as we need to [ed. note: nonetheless, this conflicts with his earlier statement of being “as organic as possible”]. We don't spray too close to harvest - we're not allowed to - and we don't spray when it rains.

WP: That prevents the pesticides from getting deep into the soil and ground water and from entering the streams?

BC: Yes. It's a responsibility to nature to keep the spray on your property and out of the water supply.

There's a license - I'm not involved in the spraying - acquired through the department of agriculture that requires an extensive test and periodic classes that keep you up to speed on changes in regulations and handling procedures.

WP: But why not just go organic rather than use any pesticides at all?

BC: If people want organic, organic tomatoes for instance, we import them into the store. To be organic you have to have the whole farm organic. As with any case of good farming, you have to rotate crops and there has to be a certain amount of time - I believe it's six years - between growing something there [that's conventionally grown using pesticides] and letting something else be grown there that can be called organic.

WP: But if there's more of a demand for organics, as well as say, grass fed beef, could you see the farm changing to meet that demand?

BC: To switch to organic and grass fed isn't something that's in the works. In order to do that would be an enormous undertaking that is separate from what we do. Right now there's a demand for what we're doing, which isn't organic. We have a large following for the way we're doing things.

WP: Besides the market, that also offers prepared foods and cooking advice, there was None Such Farm's first farm to table dinner in the fall. How do these components help to reinforce what you're doing?

BC: The farm to table dinner was an opportunity to show off the great variety of things we produce locally. The options you can get outside of the uniformity of the supermarket. How eclectic our offering can be. People know. In early spring they get excited for strawberries. Then it's sweet corn and tomatoes as the summer approaches. They come into the market and they check the board to see what's scheduled to come in next.

WP: The market provides a natural lesson on listening to the seasons.

BC: Yea, we showcase the difference experienced through peak freshness, which implies peak season.

WP: And getting to see how the farm operates, that's something that's easy to do any time of the year?

BC: Yeah, we've always been receptive to it. People have been getting more interested in food and what we're doing. We give tours during certain times of the year. If we're not too busy we're happy to show people around.