’s
Today’s Farm WINTER 2024
Adrian teen
builds chicken flock, then business BY JULIE BUNTJER The Globe ADRIAN — When Mitchell Bullerman and his cousin were asked to help a neighbor unload a new batch of chickens a couple of years ago, the then-13-year-old thought the colorful birds were fascinating animals. “I just thought it was kind of cool how they laid eggs and had production,” he said. So, when it came time for the neighbor to pay Mitchell for his help, Mitchell not only received some cash, but a handful of laying hens to take home to his family’s farm. Little did he know at the time that his small flock would turn into a business that involves his entire family. Now 15, Mitchell has 63 laying hens inside a portion of the barn that, years ago, was home to pigs and calves. His dad, Lance, helped him powerwash the space, and the two constructed a chicken run outside that is accessible from the time it warms up in the spring until it gets too cold in the fall.
CHICKEN: Page 3
Contributed / Janice Bullerman
2 | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2024
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CHICKEN From Page 1 “I’ve got a pretty nice spot to have them,” he said. His current flock, purchased last March, included 80 birds, with a mix of four different breeds of pullets — Rhode Island Red, Sapphire Gem, Calico Princess and Plymouth Rock. He looked for breeds that had the best qualities as egg layers. The hens began producing eggs in August — a lot of eggs. “On average I get about 30 to 40 eggs per day,” shared Mitchell. “I pick them out of the nesting boxes and me and my sister wash them and put them in the fridge. Whoever wants to buy them will buy them, and we deliver them.” “We” meaning Mitchell’s mom, Janice, who delivers eggs to Worthington on days she works in town, as well as to other customers in the area. With the mid-January cold snap, some of Mitchell’s chickens took a little break from egg production, which meant he didn’t have as many cartons of eggs sitting in the refrigerator. “Sometimes I have a lot left over and sometimes I just have enough to sell,” he said, adding that he had a lot
Mitchell Bullerman’s chickens produce a variety of colored eggs. Here are some in cartons ready to be sold to customers. Contributed / Janice Bullerman more orders than normal during the holidays. Regardless of how many eggs they’re producing, the birds don’t cut back on their feed intake. Mitchell said he goes through a 50-pound bag of chicken feed every two and a half days. “They eat a lot,” Mitchell said. “They are well fed.” When they’re out in the chicken run in the summer, the birds get a
bit more variety in their diet with the grass and insects. Mitchell said the mix of chickens produce mostly white or brown eggs, though he recently received some laying hens from his cousin — she didn’t have a place to keep them during the winter — and they are laying blue eggs. Mitchell does most of the chicken chores on his own, such as filling feeders every other day and making
sure the automatic waterer is working. He’s also the one to pick the eggs. “I got a few of them that like to sit on their eggs and they try to peck me when I go in there,” he said, adding that he came up with the idea to block the view of certain hens so he can collect the eggs without being attacked. “My favorite part is bedding them and seeing them go down and nest,” he shared. Mitchell gets help from his younger sister, Morgan, 11, and brother Liam, 9, particularly with washing eggs and getting them in cartons. So, what do they do with the eggs they don’t sell? Eat them, of course. “I eat a lot of eggs,” exclaimed Mitchell, adding that his favorite style is scrambled eggs mixed with sausage. Mitchell isn’t sure if he will continue his chicken-raising business through high school. His current flock will lay eggs for two to three years before their production slows or stops. “I might get some more chickens after that if things have gone well,” he said. And, in case you were wondering if the egg money is being saved for the future, he said “it’s pretty much a break-even business.” Remember — his chickens love to eat.
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Dairy-beef short course offered during Central Plains Dairy Expo BY BETH DORAN Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Beef Specialist ORANGE CITY, Iowa — This year’s I-29 Moo University Dairy Beef Short Course on March 21 will feature the production of beefdairy crossbred BETH cattle. The short DORAN course is part of ISU the Central Plains Extension Dairy Expo at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls and a collaboration of Extension specialists from Iowa State University, South Dakota State University, University of Nebraska, and the University of Minnesota. A shrinking beef cowherd has reduced the supply while increasing the cost of feeder cattle with beef genetics. To cope with these trends, some feedlot producers are switching to feeding cattle with beef x dairy breeding. Usually the price of dairyinfluenced crossbreds is less than the price for beef calves. But the crossbred calves are a plus for the dairy producer. With the ability to artificially inseminate dairy cows with sexed semen, dairy producers are able to capture a higher price for the feeder calves than is possible were they raising calves with 100% dairy genetics. However, beef x dairy steers and heifers are different from straight
beef cattle. An ISU survey of calf raisers and feedlot producers indicates beef x dairy animals offer opportunities but are not without challenges. Beef x dairy feeder cattle have a lower purchase price, are more uniform in quality, and offer traceability because of electronic identification. But their biggest advantage is the ability to marble and quality grade. Surveyed producers indicated 87% of the cattle were choice or higher quality grade. Producers report that respiratory, digestive and liver health are major challenges. In the survey, preweaning, postweaning and finishing death loss averaged 4.4%, 2.85%, and 4%, respectively. High-starch and lowfiber diets might be contributing factors to these percentages. The Dairy Steer Short Course will feature nationally recognized speakers addressing the following topics: ► Industry Outlook, Darrell Peel, livestock economist, Oklahoma State University ► Beef on Dairy Economics: Results of a Video Auction Analysis, Kenneth Odde, DVM and Professor Emeritus – Kansas State University ► Genetic Considerations for a More Valuable Calf, Bob Weaber, professor, Kansas State University ► How do Dairy-Influenced Cattle Fit into Value-Based Markets,
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Dairy-beef cross calf. Contributed / Beth Doran
TODAY’S FARM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2024 | 5
Good golly, those goats faint Kenneth family bought them for the laughs, then turned it into a business BY JULIE BUNTJER The Globe
KENNETH — Andrea Flemming can’t help but laugh when she shares the story about how she and her mother came to own their first fainting goats. The initial request to her dad to get some of the goats originated after they watched videos of goats that would freeze up or topple over after being startled. “We’d laugh so hard,” she recalled, noting that she was probably in middle school at the time. When she’d asked if they could get some of the funny goats, her dad said if she could find some in the area — where they wouldn’t have to drive so far — he’d buy them. Flemming hit the classifieds that very night, and found a listing for fainting goats for sale near Hills, right there in Rock County. When she told her dad, he simply grinned and agreed to go take a look at them. “We started with three,” Flemming said. “That was 14 or 15 years ago.” They brought them home and she and her parents had fun trying to do mischievous things to make them faint. Jump out from the barn, make noise — anything seemed to get them to react, at least the first time. “Then we thought, ‘We calve cows. How tough could it be to raise kids?” Flemming said. Well, today, they have a herd of 49 fainting
goats, 24 of which are still babies. Kidding season at Severtson Family Fainters began on Christmas day with a set of twins, followed by another set of twins on Dec. 26, and many more multiple births leading up to Jan. 7, when the final pregnant doe gave birth to a single kid. It was their only single birth this season. “We had three sets of triplets,” noted Flemming. All of the goats reside on her parents’ farm south of Kenneth, but she lives just a mile and a half away and joins her mom, Denise Severtson, in doing the chores. The herd includes the 10 does that recently kidded, three adult bucks, six yearling does, three yearling bucks and a few wethers. “We strictly raise for entertainment and breeding purposes,” Flemming shared. “Most of our (herd) is purebred and registered now.”
Demand for fainters “There is a whole network of individuals that raise fainting goats,” Severtson said. “There are actual shows — I think there’s one in southern Iowa; otherwise, Illinois and Indiana.” They find other breeders through Facebook, which is where they promote their own herd. During kidding season, the Severtson Family Fainters Facebook page was filled with photos and videos of the cute and colorful kids. The promotion through social media has
led to nearly half of their newest kid crop already being spoken for. One woman is taking seven of them to incorporate into her breeding stock. “We sell to some breeders,” Severtson said, though most of their customers want them for pets. “Especially during COVID, they were getting kids for their kids,” Flemming added. “A lot of people get females for pets, then they have the option to raise babies if they decide to get them bred. “We sell out of females before males every time,” she said. While they promote their fainters as pets, the breed is actually considered a meat goat. They have sold some for that purpose, but prefer to sell them as pets or breeding stock. They want others to enjoy fainting goats as much as they do. Flemming explained that the fainting goats have a genetic mutation that happened long ago. In Europe, people found that having a couple of fainting goats mixed in with their flocks of sheep would protect their sheep from predators. When threatened, the goat would sacrifice itself when it fainted, and the sheep would be able to get away, she said. But, as the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The goats aren’t so easily startled by the same thing twice. “We used to be able to drive the four-wheeler or the side-by-side by them and they’d all topple
Andrea Flemming (left) and her mom, Denise Severtson, hold a handful of baby goats born this winter on their rural Kenneth Farm. The mother-daughter own Severtson Family Fainters. Contributed / Andrea Flemming over,” Flemming said. “It can just be locked up legs, all the way to rolling over 360 and laying on the ground. They have different
levels of fainting.” The levels are rated one to five, with one being locked up legs or eyes wide open, unsure of what’s happening,
and five being the completely roll over and laying on the ground scenario.
GOATS: Page 11
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TODAY’S FARM
Hoping to reduce methane emissions, researchers target cow burps
BY DAN GUNDERSON MPR News
MORRIS, Minn. — The dairy cows in an outdoor feedlot at the University of Minnesota in Morris eat a mix of hay, corn silage and grain. But every day they also get an ounce of a
seaweed harvested in Hawaii. “This red seaweed has been shown to reduce methane by at least 40 percent, and maybe more,” said professor Brad Heins.
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Heins knows that because he uses a device mounted on a small trailer to measure the methane when the cows burp. The cows are trained to come to this device for some “cow candy” — small pellets of tasty corn. The computer reads a tag on the cow’s ear and dispenses the treats long enough to keep the cow’s nose in the sniffer for at least three minutes. “You’re going to get maybe three to four good burps out of a cow during that time period, and that’s when the methane will peak quite high,” explained Heins.
METHANE: Page 16
A cow uses the methane measuring device at the West Central Research and Outreach Center in Morris. Dan Gunderson / MPR News
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Finding a profit in 2024 will be difficult BY MIKE DIERKS Farm Business Management, Minnesota West Community & Technical College WORTHINGTON — Happy New Year everyone! We entered the new year with a Polar Vortex shift the second week of 2024. The sting of the cold and bite of the wind were no laughing MIKE matter. The shift of DIERKS the polar mass and MN West the movement of the Farm Business jet streams can cause Management North America to get colder than it should. That surely defines what took place for us from Jan. 4 until Jan. 19 in southwest Minnesota. My office window looks out to the north parking lot at the Worthington campus of Minnesota West. It was very common to see the students or members of the YMCA not just strutting to their car or building, but actually almost running to their car or the next building. Everyone was entering the buildings with foggy glasses. When exiting the building
your lungs hurt as you breathe the cold air. The vortex sets a cold mood for most. The farmers in our area are suffering from a second vortex. A financial whiplash that, like the vortex cold, bites and like the wind, stings. Grain prices have dropped from their highs by 40%. Input prices have dropped some, but not 40%, so finding a profit is hard for 2024. Yes, there were some good profits last year and most have saved some reserves for that day of need. Cash flow planning for 2024 shows that reserve will disappear if current conditions remain. Operating costs continue to climb and interest rates are the highest in over 20 years. The vision to plan for 2024 is foggy, just like those glasses fogging up upon entering a warm building. So how does a producer plan with a clearer vision to succeed? There are four focus points that can assist producers in surviving the financial vortex they are in. First, you have to have a clear, clean and
balanced set or records for your farm to provide to your tax people and your lenders. Lenders and accountants can only assist a producer if they are comfortable, informed and know your goals. Second, you need goals written on paper for your farm team. Goals are just a fancy name for plans. You should have short-term plans, intermediate plans and long-term plans written down. Third, you need action. Action means taking advantage of discounts, sales, and concessions to lower your cost of production without lowering yields or pounds gained on animals. Action also seizes good sales opportunities by forward selling at profits. Action is the same idea as becoming more efficient. Knowing your true cost of production allows you to do the action part and is the third peg of the four-legged chair. Your true cost of production should include all costs, depreciation and family draws that the farm consumes. Finally, review your plans and cost
of production numbers with your farm team at least quarterly. Yes, the farm team is anyone financially involved in your farm and they are all stakeholders that need to be educated and informed so they too can assist in the presenting, planning, and calculating of the farm’s future business. The quarterly reviews allow for quicker improvements and adjustments and advance efficiencies in production methods or stop losses from growing. It’s easy for Mike Dierks to spat out four things to do to help a farm improve. I have seen the results of those who do the hard work. Truth be told, farming is hard physical work, but if you are doing farming right, you are doing even harder mental work. Good records, goal planning, finding true costs of production and reviewing all three on a quarterly basis is a demanding mental exercise. Next time you are talking with a farmer, thank them for our safe and abundant food supply. They deserve the thanks for their hard work to feed this great country and our world.
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Meeting tomorrow’s farming challenges today Titan Machinery promotes new technology available on today’s implements BY SAMUEL MARTIN The Globe WORTHINGTON — While the ground was still covered in snow earlier this month, the staff at Titan Machinery in Worthington was as busy as ever, gearing up for another planting season that’s just a few months away. Farmers are already looking for upgraded equipment to help them do their job. Likewise, businesses such as Titan Machinery are on the front lines, looking for ways to address the challenges predicted to arise during the upcoming season. Titan Machinery salesman Malik Sampson said the business is already stocked up with some of the newest machinery available to farmers to help make the job easier through automation.
Titan Machinery manager Travis Brown examining a track unit, one of Titan’s most popular pieces of equipment.
Samuel Martin / The Globe
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“THE INPUT COSTS ARE HIGH, LABOR COSTS ARE HIGH. EVERYTHING’S ABOUT EFFICIENCY AND IT’S A WAY TO TRACK YOUR INVESTMENTS.” Dave Brown
“I know that Corey (precision farming specialist Corey Reker) has some grain cart automation going out, I think he’s got half a dozen units for next year,” Sampson shared. “When you’re on the combine, your tractor that’s pulling the grain cart will actually sync up with it and they run in tandem so your grain cart operator doesn’t have to shift, drive (and) worry about the grain cart. The combine operator can fully drive the other unit. That’s probably some of the newest stuff for this next year.” Sampson said the ability to see data straight from the cab of a tractor or combine is ever-growing and constantly evolving, and noted Prescription Tillage’s machinery via Advanced Farming Systems. Titan Salesman Dave Brown added that such capabilities will help ease farmers’ work as they prepare to plant and harvest. “(It’ll) help manage their data,” Dave said. “The input costs are high, labor costs are high. Everything’s
about efficiency and it’s a way to track your investments.” “It’s probably more real-time than it’s ever been,” Sampson added. Tractor technician Rollie Sandhurst said AFS have also helped technicians such as him with implement repairs. “The AFS connect (feature) has been one of the big things,” he said of recent advancements in implement repair. “Our laptops sitting in the shop can connect to that unit and see exactly what it’s doing as the customer is driving it. He doesn’t know what’s going on in the back and we can see that physically sitting in the shop here. We can tell him, this is what’s going on, this is his problem or give him an idea of where to look before we have to go out to service the product, which helps us out a lot.” For farmers, the advancement in technology available — and the data it produces — can help them earn more money in the long run. “Anything that can have a return
on their investment, anything that makes them money back,” Sampson said on what farmers are most interested in regarding emerging technology. “It used to be that the technology was a feature that was convenient, but now you’re actually seeing a return on what you’re sticking into it.” While farmers are interested in a lot of the new technology that provides them with more information, they aren’t necessarily as interested in the technology that does the work for them, such as driverless equipment. “Driverless equipment, I would say no, not around here, besides the grain cart automation,” Sampson said. “As far as a tractor that goes out and tills the field by itself, I’d say we’re at least a couple years away from that yet. I’d say in this part of the country, directly here, there’s less interest in that. When you get out into bigger fields like up towards the northwest of here where you have
1,000 acre fields, it’s more prevalent up there.” Sandhurst said the most popular selling items currently at Titan in Worthington are axial flow combines and the AFS technology. “The biggest thing on your field cultivators and your rippers is your connect (feature) to the tractor,” he said. “You can control your depth by your laptop that’s in the tractor. You can watch it instead of having to go back there and measure and adjust here and there. You can see what it’s doing on your 1200 monitor now. It’s a lot easier to set up (from the cab).” Titan Machinery is also seeing large demand for its track units, Sandhurst added. “It’s more track units (being) sold than wheel tractors anymore,” he said. “A few years ago, it was the other way around. Now you can’t hardly find a wheel tractor anymore. Everything’s track implements — grain carts, planters. Everything’s for the track.”
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10 | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2024
University of Minnesota Extension seeks partners in developing deep winter greenhouses BY THE GLOBE
WILLMAR — Grant money is available to a limited number of Minnesota farmers to build winter greenhouses for growing fresh produce. The opportunity, supported by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s AGREETT program, is available through University of Minnesota Extension’s Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships. RSDP seeks one specialty crop farmer in each of its five regions to partner on passive solar greenhouse research and education. Similar structures — deep winter greenhouses — have been built in the program since 2016. To date, farmers have been able to profitably grow a variety of salad greens that are sold to direct market consumers. “The new farm scale deep winter greenhouse design is optimal for farmers that want to
expand their growing season to produce crops for their customers throughout the winter while limiting the use of fossil fuel heating. This is a great way to generate revenue for your farm in what is currently the off season,” said Greg Schweser. The greenhouses absorb heat from sunlight, providing a low-cost, lowcarbon winter food production system. The structure is built with a southfacing, angled glazing wall that captures heat from the sun. Heat is stored in an underground thermal mass of soil or rock and dissipates into the above-ground planting area at night. By relying primarily on solar heat, the farm scale deep winter
greenhouse enables farmers to grow crops using only minimal backup heating from delivered fuel or electric heat. RSDP will provide $25,000 of the expected $48,000 to $58,000 cost to build a prototype greenhouse. In return, participants agree to share access to their structure for research projects, public workshops, and demonstrations for three years. Proposals are due Feb. 14. “Farm-scale deep winter greenhouses have the potential to transform local food production here in Minnesota. The farmers who sell their crops at local markets or in local grocery stores will no longer be bound by the short growing season. With low-energy winter food production, growers will increase their revenues and Minnesotans will have year-round access to fresh, locally grown healthy foods.” said state Rep. Brad Tabke, D-Shakopee. Tabke is a member of the House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee who has championed new approaches to growing produce. For more information on deep winter greenhouses and the request for applications, visit z.umn.edu/deepwintergreenhouse
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2024 | 11
The Severtsons have individual pens for each of their mothers who have kidded. Once the kids are old enough, they will return to a larger pen. Contributed / Andrea Flemming
GOATS From Page 5 “It’s really funny when a baby faints for the first time,” added Severtson. “They scream bloody murder — they have no idea what happened to them.” She’s had many instances where she’s walked in the barn during kidding season to hear a baby goat crying with all of the energy it can muster. “Ope, somebody fainted for the first time,” Severtson said with a laugh. Because the goat’s body locks up and they can’t control what they do, Flemming said they don’t have any large watering pans in the goat pens. “If they would faint and fall into that, they can drown themselves,” she added. “One of our goats fainted for the first time in a mud puddle outside. It was cold and crappy and she was wet. Stuff like that happens.”
Just like a pet
The fainting goats on the Severtson farm feature a variety of different colors from blacks and grays to browns and creams — and they all have their personality. It’s what makes them so fun to raise as pets. “There will be certain ones, from the day they’re born, they’re a people person,” Severtson said. And then there are those who don’t want to get anywhere near the human in the barn. That’s when Severtson and Flemming bring out their big bin of treats. It seems their fainting goats can’t resist, of all things, animal crackers! “When they figured out what they were, they can’t resist — it’s just funny,” Severtson said. “Once they figure out the food thing, they’re no longer terrified.” The Severtson’s goats tend to be on the smaller side of fainting goats, averaging 60 to 70 pounds as adults. This makes them easier to
handle, and they take up less space. In addition to the goats, the family raises about 200 head of beef cows that they calve out, and raise feeder calves to market weight. They also have a few horses. “One of the things with fainting goats, the Boer and Pygmy goat (breeds) are known for their jumping and climbing on everything,” Severtson said. “The fainters do not … jump on your vehicle or anything like that. They’re not jumpers so the fencing doesn’t have to be as tall. “They have their home and that’s where they stay,” she said. That’s not to say they won’t follow you around the farmyard, or sit next to you on the porch if you let them. The family has received all sorts of photos of kids they’ve sold who have become the best of pets for their new owner. The goats are in the barn during the winter, and rotate through the pastures during the spring, summer and fall.
Perhaps the hardest part about raising goats for the Severtsons is selling them, but it’s a chore they must do. “It’s hard — especially
when they have the personalities,” Flemming said. “I really struggle saying goodbye to them, but I get updates on them all the time.”
“It is hard saying goodbye to them when you get so attached,” added Severtson. “It helps when they go to good homes.”
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12 | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2024
Despite drought, U.S. corn farmers marked a record harvest in 2023 BY CHRISTOPHER VONDRACEK Star Tribune
Another wacky weather year failed to break corn growers’ collective stride in Minnesota, where farmers put 1.51 billion bushels in bins for a 4% increase from 2022. Nationwide, 2023’s harvest turned out to be a corn coronation, as the farmers saw a record harvest of 177.3 bushels per acre, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report released this month. In Minnesota, a wet spring that delayed planting gave way to scorching sun in June and little water through the State Fair. According to a separate
report from the USDA, by Jan. 1 of this year, roughly 30% of the state’s topsoil remained “short” or “very short” of moisture. Still, Minnesota farmers planted some 690,000 more acres of corn than 2022, while silage volumes dropped by 33%. Overall, that equals about 8.6 million acres of planted corn across the state. “We did have about 10 bushels an acre less than last year,” said Dana Allen-Tully, president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association and an Eyota dairy farmer. “I think there was maybe
more areas impacted by drought, but it was so spotty.” Sugar beets also saw a recordbreaking haul, piling up 12.6 million tons, an increase of 13% from the prior year. The state’s wheat farmers also planted more acres in 2023, harvesting 78 million tons in total. But the state’s soybean harvest — Minnesota’s second biggest crop — came in lower than previous years, down 5% from 2022 to 349 million bushels. Commodity prices were softer in 2023 than those years in and
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immediately following the pandemic. While corn farmers across the country took in an average of $6 a bushel on corn in 2022, they’ll now earn an average price of $4.80, according to the USDA’s 2023-2024 January projections. Heading into the new year, farmers might be more frugal about big-ticket equipment purchases, given the moderate prices. “We’re OK as an industry,” AllenTully said. “But I think we’re going to tighten our belt this year.” ©2024 StarTribune. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Lab-grown meat products: What kind of standards are they being held to? BY ARIANA SCHUMACHER Agweek
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The issue of lab-grown meat products, or as Todd Wilkinson refers to it as lab-grown protein, is on the rise around the world. Wilkinson, who is the president of National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and a cattle rancher in De Smet, South Dakota, attended the World Meat Congress in the Netherlands in Todd Wilkinson October of 2023. “This was a major topic over there because we had countries from all over the world and you would think that at a world meat congress you would have everybody in agreement in terms of some of these conversations,” Wilkinson said. But that was not the case. At least one of the companies in attendance said they wanted to have at least 20% of a lab-grown meat product blended into ground meat within the next three years.
“The fact that someone is going to a blended product and that it could get it into that meat case and that consumer could go in and reach into that meat case and not know what is in that ground beef is alarming,” Wilkinson said. The lab grown meat products are created to imitate all forms of meat, including beef, pork and chicken. “I think the biggest target is beef because we are at the top of the food chain, I mean we produce the product that the public likes to eat the most, we are at the higher end in terms of the cost of the product, so there’s more profit potential in beef,” Wilkinson said. Along with blending the products, the companies are keeping the information about what goes into these products and how they are made confidential. “Suddenly these companies with cell-based proteins are saying that the actual composition of the product and how they grow the product is proprietary information, so that should
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be revealed to the public,” Wilkinson said. “That’s scary.” The lab grown products are created in stainless steal bioreactors where they produce the products from animal stem cells. “They put it into what looks like a big beer vat and in that vat they put in the various mixtures to spur the cells development and the formation and in there you would have an antibiotic base, you would have other chemicals that are being added to that,” Wilkinson said. This process concerns Wilkinson, especially when it is being blended into actual meat products. “That consumer is getting a product that comes out of a big bioreactor vat, it’s got proprietary chemicals in it and then we are told that that’s going to be blended in to our food products, that’s a real danger to the industry, not only from the lack of the product that we have out there, but more so to me, I don’t want my daughter going into that meat counter and buying something that’s in a natural beef product and
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suddenly has something else in it and it’s not disclosed to the public,” Wilkinson said. Currently, there are no labeling requirements for these lab-grown, cellbased protein options. “From NCBA’s perspective that regulation to define what’s in that product is critically important,” Wilkinson said. “The South Dakota Cattlemen’s passed a policy that unless it is derived from a live animal and not grown in a lab, that it shouldn’t be labeled as meat, it should be labeled as something Warren Symens else,” said Warren Symens, president of South Dakota Cattlemen’s Association. This labeling issue is something that Wilkinson believes the Biden administration is not very concerned about.
LAB-GROWN: Page 14
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LAB-GROWN From Page 13 “Now members of Congress have introduced some bills recently to try to deal with this. We’ve got to wake up Washington in general to understand that this is an issue that if we don’t deal with it right now, we have the potential for going down the road that milk went a long time ago,” Wilkinson said. “If we wait 10 years to develop the regulations and we got through this slow methodical process that Washington is known for, we are going to be too late.” And it’s not a new issue. “You know, we were talking about this five, six years ago, these labeling things, and it’s still hasn’t happened,” Symens said. “Much like the farm bill, much like anything else in Washington, the wheels of Congress grind slow, and so I don’t know, I doubt that it will be a part of an upcoming farm bill, but I would sure like to see those kinds of things included.” However, right now these companies are still subject to the same inspection process that traditional meat processing facilities are required to complete. “The problem with that inspection process if all of this stuff is inside a big bioreactor, I’m not sure how you
are going to inspect that process other than what you are going to see is that it is produced in a clean environment,” Wilkinson said. “It’s not the cleanliness of the product, it’s not any of that, it’s the fact that we don’t get to know what’s going in that mixture.” While Wilkinson doesn’t believe companies will be able to hit that goal of 20% in the three-year time frame, he is concerned by the number of companies he sees attempting to enter the lab-grown protein markets. “All of the sudden you are seeing JBS has got a plant that they purchased in Spain, they spent millions and millions of dollars on that,” Wilkinson said. “You’re also seeing new companies coming on board in the United States and their ability to take cells out of an animal and then replicate those cells
and generate a product that they think is going to replace a portion of meat is really alarming.” If they do hit this goal, it will affect the market share for beef producers across the country. “If 20 percent of the ground beef contained this product as a filler, you take 20 percent of the ground beef on the market away in South Dakota, you have just taken hundreds of dollars off of the market value of that animal,” Wilkinson said. Some of these labgrown protein products are already making their way to consumers, although there are no beef inspired products being produced commercially yet. “They already have chicken nugget type products that are available in some restaurants in Washington D.C.,” Wilkinson said. Other companies are planning to produce these products commercially,
including JBS, which has announced they hope to have their products on the market by 2026. The labeling issue needs to be addressed before these products hit the shelves. “We have to be ahead of the product hitting the shelves in order to be effective,” Wilkinson said. Wilkinson sees this as a real concern to the meat industry. “I am very passionate about this issue because I think that this is one of the biggest, long-range challenges to the beef industry facing us right now,” Wilkinson said. Symens is not sure if this issue is a threat to South Dakota livestock producers. “I am not really sure that there is a threat. I know that it’s happening, I know that there’s an effort to culture meat, to sell meat, to call it meat and have consumers buy it and consume it as meat, but I am not sure that it will ever be the threat to growing an animal on the land, because that is still the most efficient and best use of our resources that there is,” Symens said. Some of the main arguments for producing these meat products include sustainability and it is humane because no animals are being slaughtered in the process.
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What I am really fearful of is that our farmers and ranchers aren’t going to watch “ this and this one is going to come in the back door and suddenly we are going to have this in the meat counter, and it doesn’t describe that this is a lab-grown product,
THAT IS MY BIGGEST FEAR.” Todd Wilkinson
“If a vegan really wants to say that they don’t want to eat any meat, if they are taking this from a cell it is still a cell of a beef animal, so that’s a bit of a misnomer to me,” Wilkinson said. “You are just trying to hide something from the public.” These lab-grown products are not being marketed in the same way as soy-based protein products. “The soy-based burgers and all of that stuff, they are being marketed for what they are and the consumer knows that they are eating that artificial product. I have no problem with that,” Wilkinson said. However, they do not want production of these products to be banned all together; they just want to see regulations put into place. “I have no problem with somebody going out and developing these products, I don’t want the regulations to say they can’t do it, I want the law to be clear as to what’s in it, and then I want them to have to not use the words beef or meat in that
form. It needs to be labeled with something in front of that,” Wilkinson said. “America’s farmers and ranchers, we will compete against anybody, but don’t put something in our product and then mislead the public that there’s some fake product that’s going into there and sell the consumer a bid of goods. That’s simply not what we are going to put up with.” “I think if it is labeled correctly, you know, the producer of a lab grown substance or the company that’s selling it, that’s their right to do what they want, as long as it’s labeled, it should be labeled as such,” Symens said. “It shouldn’t be labeled as meat if it didn’t come off the land so to speak.” And when it comes down to providing a consumer with a healthy alternative, Wilkinson says it comes down to real meat. “If we are all about giving the consumer a healthy, safe product, that we want to develop, I mean that’s all about beef, right, and for that matter pork, and any other meat protein,”
Wilkinson said. “We have all built consumer trust because we develop a healthy, wholesome product.” Wilkinson encourages farmers and ranchers to follow this subject closely. “What I am really fearful of is that our farmers and ranchers aren’t going to watch this and this one is going to come in the back door and suddenly we are going to have this in the meat counter, and it doesn’t describe that this is a lab-grown product, that is my biggest fear,” Wilkinson said. “Like any other issue, I think it’s important for producers to be educated so that they can talk to their legislators, talk to their policy makers, talk to their senators and representatives and have these laws enacted,” Symens said. “I think it is very important to be educated on all of the issues so that you can understand what’s really happening and be a part of a movement to change that policy and to change those laws and have things that make sense put into place that are good for consumers and producers.”
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METHANE From Page 6 The goal is to measure methane output from each cow seven to 10 times a day. “I limit the cows. If they come in and get a collection, they can’t come in for another two hours. Otherwise, you’d get boss cows in there just eating pellets all day and you’re not getting methane measurements on other cows,” said Heins. Methane is a byproduct of fermentation as cows digest their food. Methane is also released from liquid manure stored on farms, but cow burps are the largest source. Production of methane changes based on a cow’s size, what they eat and even, according to research by Heins, by the time of day. Methane is found at much lower levels than the primary greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, but it has a much greater impact on climate warming. Methane also cycles through the atmosphere much more quickly than carbon dioxide. Experts believe making reductions now in methane could slow global warming and buy time for longerterm strategies to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Seaweed is not the only feed
TODAY’S FARM additive being tested to adjust a cow’s gut microbiome to produce less methane. Researchers are also looking to genetics. U of M researchers are beginning an investigation of methane production from cows in a special herd maintained in St. Paul. “We have a small herd of 1964 genetic Holsteins in St. Paul, so they are basically frozen in time and their genetics are from the 1960s,” said Heins. “We can maybe see if there are genes regulating methane that are different in the 1960s versus today. But it’s not clear when these potential solutions will be available outside of the research lab in barns and pastures. “If it were simple and we could just feed a feed additive that would eliminate methane production, we would have done it 25 years ago,” said U of M assistant professor Isaac Salfer, who specializes in cow nutrition. Salfer said unanswered questions include the cost of methane-reducing feed additives. Dairy farms operate on thin profit margins he said, and farmers are likely to reject costly additives. And the microbes in a cow’s gut are not static, but rapidly evolving. “So, when you feed these
compounds, they reduce in efficacy over time. They might reduce methane production for one month. But after they’re fed for a month, the microbial population adapt.” That would require farmers to regularly monitor methane from their cows, so they could switch feed additives if one becomes ineffective. Salfer and Heins believe this work will lead to methane reduction, they just can’t say when that will happen. Heins said additives are not being used on farms now, and it will require a huge effort to scale up production of a product such as red seaweed to feed millions of cows across the country. “We know that there’s a lot of targeted methane reductions that everybody wants to meet by 2030 or 2050. But a lot of this is in the early stages, especially from a feed supplement standpoint,” said Heins. “We probably need to ramp up our research a lot faster to be able to get to those dates and reduction targets.” While Heins and other researchers look to feed additives and animal genetics to slow methane production in cows, Ben Lilliston worries the problem is getting worse. “Our methane emissions are actually rising when it comes to agriculture both in Minnesota and around the
country,” he said. Lilliston is director of climate and rural strategies at the Minneapolisbased Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He blames rising methane emissions on the shift from smaller to larger animal operations “So even if you are able to reduce methane emissions by a marginal amount through the feed, if you continue to add animals to that system then that’s going to increase your absolute emissions,” Lilliston said. Lilliston said methane emissions can be reduced by changing how large farms handle manure, and he thinks feed additives like seaweed hold promise in the future. However, he’s convinced the only way to quickly limit methane is to reduce the number of cows, while acknowledging that’s a solution most Americans are unlikely to embrace. “Can we start to think about how much milk we actually need to produce? And how much beef do we actually need to produce? We need to start having some of these tough conversations,” Lilliston said. “Can we just do some tweaks to the current system of agriculture, and will that be enough, or do there need to be more serious and drastic steps taken?”
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