{"id":30612,"date":"2019-01-31T04:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/civileats.com\/?p=30612"},"modified":"2020-02-11T14:10:49","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T19:10:49","slug":"how-an-oregon-rancher-is-building-soil-health-and-a-robust-regional-food-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/2019\/01\/31\/how-an-oregon-rancher-is-building-soil-health-and-a-robust-regional-food-system\/","title":{"rendered":"How an Oregon Rancher is Building Soil Health\u2014and a Robust Regional Food System"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Cory Carman returned in 2003 to her family\u2019s ranch in remote Wallowa County in eastern Oregon with a Stanford degree in public policy in hand and a stint on Capitol Hill under her belt, her intention was to stay for the summer, helping her uncle and grandmother with ranch work while she looked for her next job working on public policy. By that fall, though, it was obvious that if she left, the ranch wouldn\u2019t be there for her to come back to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were the only ones left on the ranch,\u201d she said, recalling the heartbreaking specter of how hard her uncle and her grandmother, who was then in her 80s, had to work to barely scrape by. \u201cI think I felt the weight of what they were trying to hold together, and I thought how unfair it was for me to expect that they could just keep it together until I came back someday.\u201d<\/p>\n

So she decided to stay.<\/p>\n

Carman Ranch<\/a> began as a few hundred acres Carman\u2019s great-great-grandfather Jacob Weinhard\u2014nephew to the legendary Northwest beer brewer Henry Weinhard<\/a><\/span>\u2014bought for his son Fritz in the early 1900s. Under Carman\u2019s watch, the operation now spans 5,000 acres of grasslands, timbered rangeland, and irrigated valley ground nestled against the dramatic peaks of the Wallowa Mountains. Hawks, eagles, and wildlife greatly outnumber people in this isolated northeastern corner of the state, originally home to the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of the Nez Perce tribe.<\/p>\n

Distinct from most cattle operations in the U.S., Carman\u2019s cattle are 100 percent grass-fed well as grass-finished. (The term \u201cgrass-fed\u201d is not regulated<\/a>, so it can mean that animals have only been briefly pastured before they\u2019re sent to a factory feedlot to be finished.) The ranch primarily produces cattle and pigs, which it mostly markets to wholesale accounts, though it sells a lesser amount of meat as \u201ccow shares\u201d\u2014or quarters of beef ranging from 120 to 180 pounds purchased directly by consumers.<\/p>\n

\"The

Equally if not more important to Carman, however, is the focus on what she calls the \u201cholistic management\u201d of her land. This involves constantly moving the cattle and paying careful attention to the rate of growth of the animals and grasses. By this system, the steers select the forages they need to grow and gain weight, and the grasses get clipped, trampled down, and fertilized with manure, resulting in fields that are vibrant\u2014they retain water, resist drought, contain abundant organic matter, which contributes nutrients and carbon, and are highly productive without the addition of fertilizer.<\/p>\n

Amanda Oborne, vice president of food and farms at Ecotrust,<\/a><\/span> a regional nonprofit organization working on social, economic, and environmental issues, said Carman inspired Ecotrust\u2019s food system work by helping her understand the challenges of creating local beef and pork markets, the complexity of scaling an agricultural business with integrity, and the importance of grasslands and large grazing animals in fighting climate change through carbon drawdown.<\/p>\n

Oborne remembers Carman walking her around the fields of the Zumwalt Prairie<\/a>, a preserve owned by the Nature Conservancy that is on the western boundary of the ranch, and picking at blades of bunch grass as she explained how the native species create pockets of nutrition for migrating birds through the winter, and how the long, perennial roots scaffold a whole cathedral of structure and life under the soil.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Cory\u2019s ability to tell these stories, to explain the flaws of the dominant system without imbuing judgement or animosity, and to partner across every divide\u2014be it age, gender, class, political philosophy, or hometown\u2014that makes her such an effective and innovative thought leader,\u201d Oborne said.<\/p>\n

Introducing Holistic Management<\/strong><\/p>\n

Within a year of returning to the ranch, Carman met and married her husband, Dave Flynn (the couple have since divorced), and started a family, which includes three children, Roan and twins Ione and Emmett.<\/p>\n

With a fifth generation of the family living on the ranch, the challenge became not just figuring out how to maintain her family\u2019s business and regenerate the land, but how to leave a viable legacy to pass on to her children.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have a ranch so that you can sell it and retire; you have a ranch so you can pass it on\u2014that\u2019s sort of in the DNA,\u201d Carman said. \u201cIt\u2019s what gets priority, and [you] grow up knowing that there\u2019s something more important than all of you as individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cows

While Carman respects her family\u2019s history and that of her neighbors, she is pursuing the inverse of the methods used on most of the nation\u2019s cattle ranches since the middle of the last century\u2014methods also used by her father, who died in a ranching accident when Carman was 14, and by her uncle who took over.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the fertilizer era,\u201d Carman noted of her uncle\u2019s initial resistance to the idea of leaving forage in the pastures. \u201cIt\u2019s like in those first few decades when fertilizer worked really, really well. You could just take everything off of the land that you could possibly grow and sell it\u2014and then pour more fertilizer back on. And it worked. Until it didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

With an eye toward her legacy, Carman went to her uncle with the idea of raising grass-fed beef. \u201cI will never forget what he told me,\u201d she said. \u201cHe said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you do something people like? What about jerky?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The thing that she knew\u2014and that her uncle didn\u2019t\u2014was that there were people in more urban areas who were willing to pay a premium for healthy food. \u201cHe had no context,\u201d Carman said. \u201cIt\u2019s a paradigm shift.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Carman had been around cattle her whole life\u2014and the animals she is raising are direct descendants of the Herefords Weinhard originally brought to the ranch\u2014she had no idea how to finish the animals on grass, since much of that knowledge had been lost in the industry\u2019s rush to finish cattle faster on grain in feedlots.<\/p>\n

Carman began to research and implement a practice called holistic management<\/a><\/span>, which is based on the idea that grass is your crop, and a portion of it needs to go back into feeding the land and the soil microbes. A tool of regenerative agriculture, holistic management integrates social, economic, and environmental factors to help the farm or ranch succeed economically, improve the health of the land, and provide local communities more nutritious food.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur neighbors are still grazing [their pastures] into the ground with this idea that if you\u2019re not grazing it, you\u2019re wasting it,\u201d Carman said. \u201cFor us, that is our nutrient base that we\u2019re putting back into the ground. We\u2019re going to get more productivity by leaving more behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cory

As for her uncle\u2019s reaction to the changes he\u2019s seen since she came back 15 years ago? Carman said he\u2019s now her biggest fan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you come to the ranch, he\u2019ll say, \u2018You would not believe the root systems in these grasses,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t see the vision [before], and now I think he does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blazing a Trail Toward a Robust Regional Food Economy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Initially Carman and her husband sold beef in shares, where customers would commit to buying a half, quarter, or eighth of a carcass. They were eventually joined by a neighbor in Wallowa, fellow grass-fed beef rancher Jill McClaran of McClaran Ranch<\/a><\/span>, and they were able to start supplying wholesale clients including Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) in Portland, and Bon App\u00e9tit Management Company (an on-site restaurant company, since acquired by London-based Compass Group).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe slowly started building up this little business,\u201d Carman said. \u201cWe raised cattle, finished them on grass, processed them, owned the meat, arranged for distribution through different entities to get the meat out, and then we froze it. It was super tight, but we were kind of scraping by.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a customer chipped a tooth on a piece of bone that made it through the grinder at the processing plant and sued, Carman created two LLCs to reduce her liability. Then she took on investors in 2017 to expand her reach. The additional capital allowed Carman to work with larger wholesale accounts such as New Seasons Market, a chain of West Coast grocery stores. Working with a core group of six like-minded producers with ranches from Oregon to Nevada, she is able to supply meat year-round.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur purpose in the world is to prove out this model where you can do it the right way,\u201d Carman said of her producers, who agree that building soil is a primary focus, \u201cwith layers of values that we\u2019re living toward.\u201d<\/p>\n

A woman in the male-dominated field of ranching, Carman notes that women constitute much of her team: she employs a woman ranch manager and director of business development; she has partnered with other women ranchers like McClaran to supply wholesale clients; women serve on the Carman Ranch board and comprise half her investors; and she considers women to be among her most innovative customers.<\/p>\n

\"Photo

The model Carman has built so far has already proved an inspiration to other Northwest producers looking to scale up their businesses. Ecotrust\u2019s Oborne said that much of what the nonprofit built at the Redd on Salmon Street<\/a>, a development designed to support local food enterprises<\/a> and scale a more robust regional food economy, was based on the work Carman has done.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany other regenerative farms and ranches in rural Oregon and Washington are now following in her footsteps and building their businesses in the Pacific Northwest thanks to the trail Cory has blazed,\u201d Oborne said.<\/p>\n

Hillary Barbour, director of strategic initiatives for Burgerville<\/a>, a restaurant chain based in the Pacific Northwest, said its journey with Carman began in a pasture on Carman\u2019s property, when she pulled a chunk of cover crop from the ground, held it triumphantly above her head, and said, \u201cYou see, we\u2019re soil farmers!\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbour said her company believes Carman\u2019s commitment to soil, human and animal health, and maximizing the value of production for the regional economy aligned with Burgerville’s vision for the future, cementing the relationship going forward.<\/p>\n

Beef that Brings it all Together<\/strong><\/p>\n

Calling grass-fed beef \u201can elegant nexus of all of the issues,\u201d Carman believes that cattle are a necessary component of fertility for every cropping system. That\u2019s because the bacteria in the rumen of the cattle makes what she refers to as \u201cthe soil\/food web\u201d more vibrant. When we harvest the cattle, we harvest the micronutrients out of the soil, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe soil\/food web needs to be totally functional to get the micronutrients, [and] that\u2019s what we\u2019re missing in our food right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not only that there\u2019s a better fatty acid profile in grass-fed beef, Carman said of studies<\/a> showing that grass-fed beef is higher in omega-3 fats, vitamin E, beta-carotene, and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). She points to what she calls the human health epidemic of chronic illness and disease, believing that it\u2019s related to how incredibly degraded the soil is from overuse of fertilizers and other industrial practices.<\/p>\n

Saying that grass-fed beef is an important catalyst that brings farmers and ranchers together, Carman feels that it\u2019s a place to start the conversation about regenerative agriculture and rebuilding the food system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe push is always for any brand to go national,\u201d she said. \u201cInstead, we need to think about production on a regional basis and build out and support appropriately scaled infrastructure. That\u2019s where you can really have the magic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are all the things we\u2019re trying to prove out with our little model.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top photo: Cory Carman portrait \u00a9 Nolan Calisch.<\/em><\/p>\n

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