White Oak Pastures: The Stockman and The Vegan

White Oak Pastures is set in the rural southwest corner of Georgia it’s hard to see where its thousand acres end and where the ‘rest’ begins.  Will Harris is a fourth generation farmer and the farm began its life in the 1860’s at the end of the American Civil War with Will’s great grandfather and 100 emancipated slaves.  The newly emancipated slaves were given work, a wage and had somewhere to live (granted they didn’t have much choice as they really didn’t have anywhere else to go). But Will’s great-grandfather accepted his landlord responsibilities and provided for his new employees.
Today Will takes his role as the biggest local employer seriously; all of his employees receive wages above the minimum federal requirement, each shares in a regular bonus, and all are provided with health insurance.  Again given the circumstances and environ a good number may not have a choice about where they work but it would seem that Will does not take advantage of this and is a fair employer in an industry where farm labour is notoriously underpaid with little or no benefits.  It is obvious that Will is a business man as well as a stockman but it’s my impression that if you work with him fair and square he will do likewise.

Today Will, the stockman, has 1,000 head of cattle; over 2,000 geese, ducks and guinea fowl; over 2,000 heritage turkeys, and 400 sheep; we aren't counting the rabbits at this point.  One of my biggest concerns before I got to White Oak's and met Will Harris, was how is he able to maintain animal welfare integrity whilst farming on a large relative to other Animal Welfare Approved farms?  White Oak Pastures is a beef supplier for Wholefoods in Georgia and selected Publix Supermarkets: it seemed like an awful lot of beef to be providing on a weekly basis. However, the answer became very apparent on touring the farm - responsible and ethical farming practices were 'written' on every field and on every head of livestock.  In addition the White Oak Pastures' herd is supplemented with cattle raised locally by other farmers.  As I mentioned White Oak Pastures has 1,000 head of cattle at any given time;  the farm  processes 6,000 head of cattle; so the remaining 5,000 are raised by sixteen local farmers all adhering to the precise practices set down by Will Harris.  On an individual basis this means that percentage-wise Will Harris is still the bulk supplier.

The accolades and memberships adorn the front of the farm office building  - White Oak Pastures is a member of American Grassfed,  Animal Welfare Approved,  Certified Humane,  Georgia Grown   Georgia Organics  and Will won the 2011 award for environmental stewardship.  But this style of ranching was not always in operation at White Oak Pastures.  Will Harris' father took over the farm during WWII fresh from graduating in agriculture from one of the universities in Georgia.  He  applied his new science based methods of agriculture and began to transform the farm using modern 20th century techniques that he had been taught.  The old style farming methods were time consuming, these new methods saved time and guaranteed a faster and more plentiful return of meat.  When Will Harris took over the farm, after following in his father’s footsteps and graduating in agriculture from the University of Georgia, he took what his father had started and 'ran' with it.  Abundant use of chemicals ensured lush weed free pastures, hormones ensured that his steers were bulky and fat; antibiotics ensured that his cattle didn’t die from their unnatural diet of corn and their generally unhealthy lifestyle.

Just over 10 years ago instead of a middle-age crisis Will Harris had a middle-age awakening.  He began to become aware of the damage he was doing to the environment and his livestock.  His soul searching as I said was more of an awakening than a sudden bolt from the blue, and he decided make the move back to the 'old-fashioned' ways of his granddaddy and great-granddaddy.   It’s my impression from the time that I spent with Will that when he decides he is going to do something he is going to do it well.  His farm today is a testament to using what nature has so readily supplied to grow good healthy animals without the use of chemicals, drugs or environmentally damaging processes.  His farm has a zero waste operation: White Oak Pastures has its own processing facility (abattoir); the steer walks into it on one side and comes out the other, butchered, packaged and sealed in plastic; and everything left over in the middle is utilized on the farm. The pasture is fertilized with ground bones mixed with organic plant matter, and blood and viscera which have been transformed into liquid fertilizer; the hides are dried in the Georgia sun then sent to a tannery Kentucky: Will would like to have a vegetable based tannery at his facility (and I bet he does one day!!).
As a result of the organic fertilization there are high levels of organic carbon in the soil which enhances the soil's ability to retain higher levels of moisture.  Combine this with the farms geographical position on the Georgia/Alabama coastal plain Will's livestock are pretty much guaranteed green pastures 52 weeks a year and only occasionally when green grass is sparse are the cattle supplemented with hay. This was another question that had been on my mind, particularly in view of the long, dry and hot summer that we have had this year. I know other farmers who have been struggling to maintain grass for their animals and have had to resort to other available crops.  Despite wishing he didn't have to, Will finds it necessary to supplement his fowl with corn but this doesn't present a problem for a monogastric animal (single stomach compartment). 

So into the abattoir!  I was expecting something that resembled a 'chamber of horrors'  but this was not my experience. The last killing had only been the day before but the abattoir was like a museum piece; it was immaculately clean.  The processing facility is operated on the system implemented by Temple Grandin who, despite mental and emotional challenges, has been a champion for animal welfare and is responsible for devising a more humane procedure for animal slaughter. Entering the slaughter house was a challenging experience for me.  What immediately hit me was the smell - it was not really repugnant, and in a warped kind of way (for me) nostalgic. It took me right back to my childhood when I used to visit my dad at the butcher's shop.  I would always go into the back where he did his butchering, sausage making and meat grinding; in those days butchers processed their own meat, abattoirs were simply places of slaughter.  The carcasses would arrive at the shop in one piece with just  the head, hooves, and hide removed along with the subcutaneous fat which lies right beneath it.  When I was in Will's processing facility neither the smell nor the  carcasses hanging in the refrigeration room struck me with the sadness that I was expecting - what really made me sad was viewing the first port of entry for the animal - the 'stunning room'.  I imagined a magnificent beast crumpling to its knees when the stun gun was applied to its brain: giving its life so that we might eat.  Unfortunately, our culture has lost respect for the animals that it eats, the mutual respect between man and beast has gone.  We have become disassociated from our food supply, we see meat as a 'sterile' plastic packaged item in the supermarket refrigerator.  It is this disassociation that factory-farm producers rely on,  it is this disassociation that allows them to meet out systematic cruelty on a daily basis, it is this disassociation which prevents the public from saying "enough".  A cow is not simply a commodity, it is a breathing, living, feeling animal that gives birth just like we do, and forges a strong mother/child relationship with its young - just like we do.  "The very saddest sound in all my memory was burned into my awareness at age five on my uncle's dairy farm in Wisconsin. A cow had given birth to a beautiful male calf. The mother was allowed to nurse her calf but for a single night. On the second day after birth, my uncle took the calf from the mother and placed him in the veal pen in the barn - only ten yards away, in plain view of the mother. The mother cow could see her infant, smell him, hear him, but could not touch him, comfort him, or nurse him. The heartrending bellows that she poured forth - minute after minute, hour after hour, for five long days - were excruciating to listen to. They are the most poignant and painful auditory memories I carry in my brain."
-- Dr. Michael Klaper   
At White Oak pastures the calves stay with their mothers until they are around 7 or 8 months old which is considerably longer than factory farmed beef cattle, the recommended period in conventional farming is 2 days and is referred to as the '48-hour Calf Removal Procedure' (scientific sounding labelling divorces us from the truth of a situation - which in this case is basic animal cruelty !!).  According to the The Animals and Society site natural weaning, which obviously will cause the least stress, is somewhere between 7 and 14 months and ususally takes two weeks.   The cattle at White Oak Pastures are grouped according to needs - for example nutritiional needs  (young and older cattle have higher nutritional needs than middle aged cattle) and for the purpose of this section, 'emotional' needs (my word not Will's but I don't doubt that there is compassion in his method).  When I toured the farm there was a group of cows standing forlornly together under the shade of a tree  - these were the mothers who had recently lost their calves - as very socialable animals here was group comfort in a shared grief.
Their is no room for sentimentality in farming - but compassion is the key ingredient.
One can only pray for all the animals which are not so fortunate as the ones at White Oak Pastures. White Oak Pastures' cattle walk with dignity and minimum stress into the slaughter house and are knocked senseless within seconds. This unfortuately is not the case for many other thousands of animals slaughtered for meat hourly in the U.S.A (currently 660,000 per hour).  Slaughter is often sloppy, carried out by inexperienced staff, and animal abuse is rampant: owner's of animals destined for the food chain are exempt from the same laws that protect pets, they literally are a law unto themselves.  But slaughter, animal transportation and their inadequacies are for a later blog.

Will Harris is a steward of his land; he is restoring it to its former glory after years of modern agricultural abuse with chemicals, and leaching from the land without giving back.  Today Will gives back.  In part to provide lush pasture for his animals but also becaue of his responsibility as a custodian for the land which has been in his family for a few generations..  Agriculture is not a naturally occuring eco-system it is created by humans to grow crops, raise animals etc.  We need agriculture to feed ourselves - foraging in the woods for edible plants, nuts and seeds, and killing the occassional wild boar are no longer options for modern man.  However with our current  intensive farming systems we are destroying the environment: we are depleting the soil of its nutrients and polluting the earth's water; our conventional system of agriculture is destroying the two things that agriculture needs - healthy soil and clean water.  Ecologically minded farmers and stockmen are conscious of the natural flora and fauna which are lost as a result of turning countryside over to agriculture and are consequently creating ecological microcosms around the perimeters of their farms and pastures of plants and trees indigenous to the countryside, these are know as 'edges'. White Oak pastures is no exception and Will Harris plants 500 white oaks each year in his edges and allows the local fauna to flourish.  The water running through the land at White Oaks is no longer polluted with chemicals, and the animals defecate where they happen to be wandering on the ranch which means that there are no concentrated lagoons of raw manure running off into the water supply, and their herbivorous 'poop' fertilizes the pasture.

How can we make ethical and sustainable farming work on a larger scale?

Will Harris and White OakPastures are a testament to the fact that sustainable, responsible and humane farming on a larger scale is possible.  Many supporters of factory farming put forward the argument that factory farming is the only way we can provide enough meat and crops to feed this country's  population.  This is incorrect.  Let's put aside the fact that animal abuse is unacceptable at every level (and the accepted practices implemented in factory farming are abusive, painful and cruel) and consider why this argument is incorrect. There is enough arable land in the U.S. for an abundance of thousands of small to medium size farms to flourish;  the government subsidies which are ploughed ('plowed') into growing corn and soy (approximately $3.5 billion in corn subsidies for 2010) could be used to help small to medium sized farmers and stockmen (sorry don't know the PC version for this) in business incentives and financial loans/support to implement responsible farming and husbandry.  White Oak pastures beef is not expensive, it might not get you a 'Golden Arch' hamburger for 99c but that is another story (the success of the McDonald brothers is based on animal and labour exploitation with no other motive than to maximise the profit margin -  another future blog no doubt).  Another argument for our current system of factory farming is the advantages of economies of scale - this is a short sighted argument and again has nothing to do with the altruistic motive of getting food to the table at a reasonable price but has everything to do with the maximizing profits of the company. Currently factory farming giants are operating on the principle of "too big to fail"; nothing is to big to fail and when a financial giant fails it takes us all with it. When factory farming "fails" it will take us with it along with our health and the health of the environment.
So lets look at the long term view of ethical food production - healthier animals, healthier humans, healthier planet and, despite contrary belief, more food.  An idealist's view maybe but as I see it when ethical and sustainable farming practices becomes the 'norm' rather than the exception the principles of 'economies of scale' can come into play through a shared common goal.  Some of the advantages of economies of scale are:- purchasing (bulk buying); efficiency through specialization;  financial advantages (advantageous interest rates and loans); marketing; and technological innovations.  Individual farmers and producers pooling knowledge and resources can receive all the advantages of 'economies of scale' without the inherent disadvantages of Diseconomies of Scale which is an actual downside of extremely large corporations, and conglomerates.
I was talking to a customer at my local farmer's market recently and he said that having grown up on a farm and having seen the hardships that his parents experienced he wouldn't wish that on anyone and, whilst not necessarily supporting it, can understand why many farmers turn to industrialized farming methods.  But surely (the idealist speaking again) we can harness the work and research that is being carried out by Biotechnology to good effect, not simply for the purpose of enabling companies such as Monsanto to globally monopolize genetically engineered crops (currently Monsanto holds 90% of the world's supply of genetically modified seeds, and yes this will be a future blog!)


The food industry doesn't have to be an either or situation - science surely can walk hand in hand with ethical sustainable farming.   It needs understanding and dialogue betweeen all parties and a long-sighted view of the planet and its natural resources.  Healthy food production has to take precedence: if we continue to rape the planet and destroy its natural resources through chemicals and industrialized farming we may be able to feed a global poulation in the short term but in the long term there will be starvation at a global level.


Random but pertinent facts

• 25 million farms have been lost since the 1950s in the USA
•  "the United States has gone from being a net exporter of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables in the early 1970s to being a net importer of fruits and vegetables today"  Congressional Research Services. Could this be anything to do with the fact that:-
• the U.S has turned over a quarter of it's farmland to rotationally growing corn and soy, with over 40% of the soy and 60% of the corn going into industrialized farm fodder, and only 6% going directly into the food chain;
• cattle are the main recipient for the corn/soy fodder, neither of which they are designed to eat, resulting in a plethora of digestive and health problems for the animals;
• this same farmland which is growing subsidized corn and soy "was once prime prairie terrain in the Midwest--one of the greatest stores of soil tilth and fertility on the globe...[and is now] doused annually [by farmers] with massive amounts of agri-chemicals which have destroyed this once fertile soil which now is only fit to support its crops of soy and corn". 

 The healthy prairie that was renowned for natural grazing is as much a legend as the cowboys who used to ranch it. 

Amongst many of the poignant points which Will Harris made on my visit I will end with two of them -

• the majority of the cattle which go to slaughter in the US today are already dying (through unnatural diets and abusive raising methods); the steers that go to Will's slaughter facility are healthy and strong (a product of natural sustainable and ethical raising methods). 
•  despite the fact that Will Harris stopped abusing his land and has been nurturing it for over 10 years, it is still not fully back to its former glory, as he said "when you fall off a horse it often takes a long time to get back on it".

- THE ACTIVIST