The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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February 2, 2008

Sustainable ag challenge: Sow, reap — and market

Conference focuses on financial issues

By Tim Krohn

ST PETER — Todd Churchill is a farm boy who, much to his surprise, grew up to dislike beef.

“I stopped eating beef because it didn’t taste good. I always liked it before,” he said.

“What I realized is, it’s the feedlot food. The way they’re raised.”

That sent Churchill, a 36-year-old former public accountant, on a journey to go back to his agrarian roots and to find the best grass-fed beef.

For the past five years, Churchill has operated Thousand Hills Cattle Co. near Cannon Falls. Besides selling his own beef, he sells beef raised by 30 other families that meet the diet and production standards he’s set for what he said is “consistent premium tasting beef.”

Churchill, in jeans and a black cowboy hat, was one of hundreds attending Saturday’s Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota annual conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter.

Churchill said the demand for and growth in naturally and organically raised food is enjoying substantial growth, while the traditional food business is matured and seeing little growth. But the key, he said, to successfully starting and surviving in the sustainable food business is giving attention to the business side.

“The market is there and you might have a great product. But you need the business skills, too.”

His business is growing at 50 percent a year and he now markets 20 beef carcasses a week.

Gaining some of those business skills was the topic of several seminars on marketing, financing and cash-flowing a sustainable-foods business.

Mary Jo Forbord, executive director of the sustainable association, said one of the biggest threats to emerging businesses is the skyrocketing cost of farm land.

“The biggest challenge we have is finding the next generation of farmers to populate the land and grow sustainable food and finding affordable land.”

In the next decade or so, about half of all farm land will be turned over from aging farmers to someone else.

“Land prices are the biggest barrier,” said George Boody, director of the Land Stewardship Project. “Ethanol is fueling the increase in land prices,” he said, referring to the rising demand and cost for corn to make ethanol.

Jim Harkness, director of the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy, said one big obstacle is the federal farm bill, which he said funds increasing subsidies tied to higher land costs for mainstream farm operators.

“We need to look at the farm bill as a food bill and as a national security bill,” Harkness said.

In spite of land costs, attendees of the conference said the public is continuing to increase its appetite for local foods.

“When people taste a real egg again, or when they taste what a real chicken is, it generates interest,” said Beth Waterhouse of the Minnesota Project.

Young people, Forbord said are leading the charge in taking a new look at what food they eat and where it comes from. “Our biggest momentum is from young people. We’re doing a lot of things on college campuses and they’re interested in it.”

Harkness said the current state of industrial agriculture is not sustainable. “The idea that you can grow things and ship everything half way around the world is an historical aberration.”

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