Was Meatopia “Meat-Washed”? Or is large-scale local an impossibility?

Well, at least a few people at Meatopia wanted to learn about sustainable meats. Panelists: Peter Hoffman, Jacquie Berger, Bev Eggleston, Alberto Gonzales, Ken Jaffe

Earlier this month I went to a meat-fest on Governor’s Island in NY called Meatopia, organized by food writer Josh Ozersky and restaurateur and Slow Food proponent Jimmy Carbone. The event – which was essentially a giant meat-focused dine-around – was intended to promote sustainably and locally raised meat.

At the event itself, NY beef farmer Ken Jaffe of Slope Farms noted that he wasn’t finding much local meat being served by the 30+ restaurants, a fact he found immensely troubling. He’s not alone, as you can see in this article he passed on to me – super interesting reading.

To me, it’s not the no-sustainable-meat-at-the-sustainable-meat-celebration that’s interesting, it’s the underlying causes of this regrettable — but understandable –occurrence.

I think we’re at the stage in the local food movement where we’ve moved past the warm-and-fuzzy part and we’re into the “ok, if we really mean it, now what” part. Especially in ag-rich places like Portland, it’s hard to find a chef who isn’t trying to source responsibly and deliciously, and we all think it’s a grand concept. But how do we grow beyond the small-scale farmer selling to a small group of quasi-affluent urban consumers? That model probably works for some, but those economics  aren’t sustainable for anyone — I think most farmers would like to make more than $10K a year from farm income, and as we see in the article – and in a forthcoming piece from Leslie Cole in The Oregonian – food service operations have a hard time executing on the local-sustainable promise.

Meat seems to be the paradigm where these issues are screamingly apparent, given the nature of how animals need to be raised (over many months with lot of $$ up front) and how they’re constructed (you can’t just plant a few more rows of tri-tip if you think there will be demand next grilling season).

I think it’s time people get past the mindset of either-or. Either it’s virtuous family farm/CSA-type operations or unacceptable industrial feedlots. But there are options in the middle.

Take Organic Prairie (our client). They raise animals as well and humanely as any small local family farmer because they actually are a bunch of family farmers, but they operate as a coop mostly in the mid-West, so the availability of supply is greater and more flexible. They would be considered local if you live in Wisconsin, for example, but not local if you’re in New York City.

In order to expand the good food system beyond small pockets, it may be necessary to prioritize – satisfying volume, selection, delivery time, local, carbon footprint, humane animal treatment, and overall sustainable agriculture all in one package  (not to mention that the meat needs to be delicious…does anyone talk about flavor anymore?) may not be possible in today’s world, so choosing what matters most and compromising on the rest is not a bad thing.

If the purpose of Meatopia was to showcase local farmers and stimulate the local ag economy, then the meat really needs to be local – in which case you won’t get that 1,000 pounds of skirt steak, as Ken points out. But if the key feature was to promote meat that was humanely and sustainably farmed, then looking to a source like Organic Prairie – what you might call “ag of the middle” – can be a solution that takes the movement to a new place.