The Food We Raise (and Eat!)

I received the March/April issue of Sheep! magazine this week and, as always, there's lots of good stuff to be found between the covers. The following quotes are from the "Scribblings" column by editor, Nathan Griffith:

"...in the last 20 years pet food companies discovered they could make big profits selling U.S. lamb as dog food. It's probably safe to say that in America there are fewer people who eat lamb than who feed it to their dogs."

"Some sheep growers whine to me now and then about how 'I can't afford to eat lamb.' That's bosh of course, and in the course of conversation the real reason usually comes out: They and/or their kids usually don't eat lamb, because they refuse to find and grow breeds whose taste appeals to them.

Like most growers, they select for:

Bigger cuts

Fast growth rates

Twinning

Show ring fancy

That's good, but very few ever select for specific meat flavor. They say, 'no auction ever paid me a premium based on flavor'... Auctions held dominance for over 50 years, while demand slid. The public has now lost five-sixths of its per capita appetite for lamb - due almost entirely to unreliable flavor. Taste is the consumer's first criterion, but it's the trait most ignored by the sheep biz."

These "Scribblings" are always good food for thought for me. Here at Liberty Farm, we raise food that we are passionate about eating ourselves and if we can produce enough to sell some to other families, that's wonderful. I know farmers...er, I mean, agribusinesspeople, who grow hundreds of bushels of wheat. They sell it for a couple bucks a bushel then go to Kroger and buy bread. That mindset just doesn't make sense to me.

weather today: 17°F/41°F sunny

tags: sheep, lamb, food, flavor, agribusiness, wheat