I have been watching your posts on pastured pork for a long time and admire
your efforts. At the same time, as a frustrated member of the ratite
industry (ostrich, emu , rhea) it was good to hear that regular livestock
producers can have trouble outside of the mainstream.
May I be so brazen to offer several ideas that may be of interest:
Here in Illinois I belong to the Grand Prairie Farms and Families Coop
(organic). I pay a fair amount ($54) to get a choice of a meat crate with
beef and chicken, bread, eggs, cheese, and vegetables, OR I can order a half
crate, OR I can order a vegetarian crate. Brian and Katherine pull together
the producers of the vegetables, meat, dairy products, and a few other
extras every month. They currently serve about 125 families. Their
operation was featured in ACRES magazine a while back. Perhaps they can
come and speak to your group. I am a very happy customer and farmer who
doesn't have the time to farm MY own food. It is the marriage of all the
different local farms that makes this system work. Their e-mail is
gpfaf@hotmail.com.
Since I haven't eaten pork since I moved to Illinois 6 years ago (anything
that has to be raised in confinement and smell this bad can't be food!), I
would love to see your product as one of my meat options. The market is
here and the profit is higher direct to the consumer.
Diamondgrowers.com has also pulled together a coalition of farmers to market
their product.
Lastly, the markets for your meat are untapped and uneducated. There have
been virtual fistfights on this list about organic vs.. hi-tech. I am
patent pending on a product made from the muscle of the rhea (South American
Ostrich) that I claim will increase the available energy of the body(ATP).
This discovery was based on my solving the chick mortality problem of the
rhea and ostrich. These animals die of accelerated autoimmune disorders
from exposure to herbicides and pesticides. As a result of my work, I have
made a DIRECT connection between those chemicals and autoimmune disorders.
The patent that was filed last year details the myriad of ways that these
farm and petrochemicals compromise the ATP system in the body. ALL
autoimmune symptoms can be traced to an ATP deficiency. I am in the process
of publishing all of my pertinent, non-proprietary (researchers: be warned
this is copyrighted and I have already turned in one high ranking university
official in to law enforcement for fraud and intellectual theft) research
and flowcharts on the web, however, my computer brains are both out of town
this week. Since this topic was getting stale I wanted to post it anyway.
Your market is greater than just health conscious people. Your market is
anyone with allergies, or any other autoimmune disorder. People with
fibromyalgia specifically appear to report a high incidence of either
intolerance or allergies to grocery store beef, pork and ANTIBIOTICS. I
routinely recommend they choose range-fed, hormone, antibiotic free meats.
Best of luck
Donna Fezler
Leading the world in Rhea Research and Innovation
Pioneering research in autoimmune disorders as a reversible response to
environmental toxins
-----Original Message-----
From: Greg & Lei Gunthorp <hey4hogs@kuntrynet.com>
To: graze-l <graze-l@taranaki.ac.nz>
Cc: Sanet <sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu>
Date: Sunday, August 09, 1998 10:06 AM
Subject: Marketing of sustainable meat
> We have established a new sustainable ag group in North East Indiana.
Its
>called SAFE--Sustainable Agriculture For Everyone. One of our goals is to
>establish some marketing alternatives for our producers.
> Some of us have been working on market establishment in our area without
>any success.
> We've been thinking that the sustainable livestock producers and the
>health and environmental concious consumers of the east coast should be
>brought together. I've made some phone calls to health food chains to try
>and line up some markets for hog, beef, sheep, milk, and chicken producers
>of my area. We are getting quite a group of sustainable producers of which
>about half are amish. So far I haven't had any luck finding any markets.
> Anybody have any ideas where to get some marketing contacts in the
Midwest
>or on the east coast? We don't want to compete against the producers in
the
>western corn belt who have an obvious transportation advantage to the west
>coast compared to us. I'm aware there are a few groups of producers
selling
>meat to the west coast.
> We would really like some contacts for Chicago since we are less than 150
>miles from Chicago. But we would settle for anywhere on the east coast.
> Are we going to have to hire a salesperson to get these markets
>established?
>Any thoughts would be appreciated.
>Best wishes,
>Greg
>Gunthorp's Pasture-ized Pork
>LaGrange, Indiana (a stones throw from Ohio & Michigan)
>hey4hogs@kuntrynet.com
>visit our farm at www.grassfarmer.com
>
>
>
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