Far from the maddening cows

Grass-fed technique eliminates mad cow risk for some local farmers
Megan Lavey
Bristol Herald Courier
Jan 12, 9:45 AM EST

Paul Rizzo watches his 40 head of cattle while they eat on his farm in Glade Spring. Rizzo only feeds his cattle on grasses.
Earl Neikirk (Bristol Herald Courier)

GLADE SPRING, Va. – Paul Rizzo looks over his herd of 40 Tarentaise cattle and isn’t concerned about the mad cow madness that has gripped the rest of the nation. He knows it will not come to his Southwest Virginia farm located in Glade Spring.

Rizzo is one of a growing number of farmers who abstain from the common practice of grain-fattening cattle. Instead of being crammed into feedlot pens, his herd has free range of several large pastures. When they get hungry, they feed on all-natural hay, containing nothing but dry grass. During the growing seasons, their diet is switched to fresh grass.

Rizzo’s herd is organic in everything but the certification – a highly-complex process for grass-fed cattle farmers. Many of these farmers do not seek the official U.S. Department of Agriculture certification, some because of its complexity and others because they simply don’t agree with the rules..

The USDA does not prohibit producers from describing their products as natural, free-range, hormone-free or using other terms often applied to sustainable beef. However if the term is used without USDA certification, the government can levy a $10,000 fine for each violation of the term.

But Rizzo’s customers don’t mind. They’re mainly concerned about the use of antibiotics, steroids, growth-hormones and if the cattle were grass-finished. They also know they do not have to worry about mad-cow disease.

MAD COW MADNESS

Mad cow disease, officially known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a neurological disease among cattle that is always fatal.

When humans eat certain parts of the meat, such as the brain and spinal cord from cattle with BSE, they are at risk of developing a variant of BSE called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or vCJD. If humans get this disease, the results include dementia, paralysis and death.

The first problems related to mad cow disease appeared in Great Britian in the mid-1990s. That’s when American customers, worried about the possibility of the disease coming across the Atlantic, began seeking out Rizzo.

“Most people knew that it was going to show up in this country,” he said. “They just didn’t know when.”

Fewer people have approached Rizzo with mad-cow concerns than he expected.

Cows get infected with the disease when they eat feed that is contaminated with additives such as diseased tissue from another cow or sheep. It can also occur due to a mutation of prions, an abnormally-formed nervous system protein, in the brain.

Andy Overbay, the Southwest Virginia dairy extension agent for the Virginia Cooperative Extension, said that animal byproducts in feed has been outlawed since 1997 – after the cow from Washington State recently detected with mad cow disease was born.

The reason the feed contained the additives was because the byproducts allowed the animal to absorb a complete makeup of amino acids to build-up protein.

“We found that the risk involved in doing that overrode the added value to the feed,” Overbay said. “We could get it (the added amino acids) from other sources.
Cattle do not eat the same type of grain as people do. For instance, there are five different grades of corn. Only humans eat the top grade of corn. Cattle normally eat the second grade, which can only contain 15 percent of other byproducts in the corn.

“The animals that are on grain in this country are helping us deal with a lot of waste,” Overbay said.

One of the most common grains is a byproduct called soybean meal, fed to cattle, horses and other animals. Overbay said that if this byproduct wasn’t fed to animals, landfills would have to deal with a trench of this material that would be as wide as a football field, 14 feet deep and stretch from Bristol to the Atlantic Ocean every year.

“It would be like burying the World Trade Center every three days,” he said.

This is not a concern for Rizzo and other farmers who raise their cattle on grass. Since they bypass the grain stage entirely, their cattle are not exposed to any feed which could possibly have contained contaminated tissues.

GRASS VERSUS GRAIN

Most cattle are raised virtually the same way – in wide, open pastures feeding off grass for the first year or so of their lives. The difference between grass-fed and grain-fed cattle comes in when they enter the fattening process.

The trend in the past 40 years has been to get the animal as fat as quickly as possible. Grain became popular because it made cows gain weight quicker than grass does. The fattening process for cattle in a feedlot is on average 120-200 days. It normally takes three months to fatten grass-fed stock.

Normally, cows are 18 months old when they are processed. Rizzo’s stock will be two years old when they are. If he decides some of the cattle are not ready, he will hold them back a year –making them three years old before they are processed.

 

These farmers also do not use antibiotics or growth-hormones on their cattle. Rizzo says he only uses antibiotics if his animals are sick and at no other time.

Southwest Virginia has been historically known for its grass-fed cattle. Back in the late 19th and early 20th century, cattle specifically known as export cattle would be shipped overseas, where restaurants would make sure to mark the beef from Tazewell County.

When the switch came from grass-fed to grain, Europeans complained about it, but kept purchasing meat. When growth-hormones were introduced, the market for export beef in Southwest Virginia in that region suddenly disappeared, Rizzo said. The last shipment of export cattle from Tazewell County came from the farm of Irene Ward Thompson in 1956, said her daughter, Harry Lee Thompson Billington in a 1988 biography about her mother.

 

Another of the touted advantages for grass-fed cattle is that the customer can query the farmer and he’ll be able to explain where his stock came from.

Rizzo gets his stock when they are a year old from another local farmer, who raised them from calves. When the stock is ready for market, Rizzo takes them to Joins Meat, a slaughterhouse three miles away in Chilhowie. From there, the meat comes back to Rizzo, who sells it directly to his customers or from May to November at the Abingdon Farmer’s Market.

The health benefits of grass-fed meat, dairy and egg products are touted in a small white book, “Why Grassfed is Best!”

Written by Jo Robinson, co-author of “The Omega Diet,” the book is almost like the grass-fed farmer’s Bible.

It goes into detail explaining health, economical and environmental benefits of products produced from grass-fed animals. Her facts are backed up by heavily documented scientific research.

These benefits include more Omega-3 fats and a much leaner beef.

The only complaint that Mike Hubbard, another farmer who raises grass-fed cattle, hears about his beef is that it’s sometimes too lean – making it hard to brown.

“Sometimes you have to add oil to brown the meat,” he said.

BEYOND THE BEEF

Hubbard has been farming for more than six years.

His 100-acre farm in Tazewell County’s Burke’s Garden not only includes beef, but pork, turkey and lamb as well. His production is typical of most farmers in the Appalachian region.

“This is the traditional, small Appalachian family farm.” said Anthony Flaccavento, director of Appalachian Sustainable Development in Abingdon.

ASD helps area farmers, loggers and other small enterprises to focus on sustainable development. This involves strengthening the local economy while conserving the environment.

In other words, getting people back to their roots, one of those being diversity on the farm.

Such diversity includes raising tobacco, a few beef cattle and maintaining a family garden. This allows farmers to take full advantage of their pastures, which benefits them economically, Flaccavento said.

“We believe in diversity. It’s good for the economy, the community and the environment,” Flaccavento added. “Different animals use the pasture in different ways.”

Not only does the diversity help the environment, it also helps the farmer by having different products available throughout the year.

“When you go away for a period of time during the year, it’s out of sight, out of mind,” Hubbard said. “Your customers aren’t thinking about you.”

Organic produce grown by farmers affiliated with ASD are sold under the Appalachian Harvest label and can be found in stores such as Food City during the growing seasons.

But farming today is different from a century ago.

“It’s going back to the way to be, but with a better understanding about what’s going on the farm,” said Tom Peterson, agriculture education coordinator with ASD.

One of those practices is taking advantage of direct marketing, something that attracted Hubbard to farming.

Traditional methods, such as selling at the farmer’s market and directly to the customer, still exist. It’s one of the largest methods to purchase organic meats and produce.

But today’s sustainable farmer also utilizes electronic communication such as e-mail and the Internet.

His products are also delivered within a four-hour radius of Burke’s Garden, stretching up toward Charlottesville.

The key, Hubbard says, is to always have something available for the customer.

“We’ll brave the cold and we’ll brave the crappy weather to go to Roanoke and sell at the farmer’s market,” he said.