He takes this approach all the way to the end of each bison’s life - every animal is harvested right there on the ranch, by Matt himself (an accomplished hunter and a sure shot). The next day, I visited Matt at North Bridger Bison, where he takes a low intervention approach to raising bison, mimicking the natural conditions that allowed wild herds to thrive. It was calving season, and we visited the herd in one of the many pastures they graze around the aptly named Paradise Valley where Pete tagged a new calf, and the herd lovingly followed him around as he chatted with us about grazing practices, watering, and the idiosyncratic personalities of the herd’s elder cows. We dug up some earth, talked about worms, irrigation, root structures, and spider webs. They are hosts of the upcoming Women in Ranching “circle” in September, which is currently sold out, but worth checking out for future offerings.Īt Barney Creek Livestock, Meagan and Pete gave me and my new friends and slaughter professionals Anna Borgman and Jesse Vosler a tour of their soil-focused beef grazing operation. Goat grazing is a more sustainable alternative to spraying herbicides, and Chia and Ivan are also able to harvest the occasional goat for meat. Ivan and Chia hire out their herd to graze neighboring land as a means of weed suppression, something that the state of Montana requires for somewhat dubious reasons. Ivan pointed out native plants pushing up spring blossoms in his neighbor’s pasture, to which his goats had happily escaped in the early morning hours, as we walked out to round them back up. At Healthy Meadows, a goat grazing operation run by Ivan and Chia and based in Red Lodge, MT, Chia and I chatted about the texture and chemical make up of their goats’ fat, which is highly unsaturated and rich in stearine, much like deer fat and dark chocolate. Multiple ranchers pointed out the health of their local bird populations to me, signs of a thriving prairie. The four farmers and ranchers I visited were different in significant ways - one raised goats, one beef, one hogs, and one bison - but they all put soil health on the same level as the health of their herds, recognizing the holistic relationship between the two. One of my goals for this trip was to meet some ranchers, butchers, and slaughter-people who I’ve long admired from afar, and in my planning I landed on Bozeman, MT as a home base from which to explore a tiny sliver of the regenerative agriculture scene in Montana. Unsurprisingly, Montana, Wyoming, and other states with vast acreage of tallgrass, shortgrass, and mixed prairie, are currently home to some inspiring practitioners of regenerative agriculture (this is a somewhat fluid term that encompasses a vast range of practices, but one definition from wikipedia reads: “It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil.” My personal interest is in farms and ranches that incorporate livestock to achieve these results). I was looking for ways to expand my horizons as a butcher, instructor, and advocate for responsibly raised meat, and the west, with its history of cattle drives and cowboys and the legacy of the tallgrass prairies and bison herds long since destroyed by colonial expansion and agriculture, was calling me. The idea to take this trip came to me last fall, when we were wrapping up what I knew would be our last farmers market season. A week and a day ago, I returned from a nineteen day road trip that took me from Chicago, up through Minnesota, North Dakota, into Montana, down through Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah to Arizona, then back through New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa.
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