“Trout need lots of clean, fresh oxygen to thrive,” says Walker, 34. Some grass is good, but too much can deplete dissolved oxygen, slow waterflow and clog drains, “which stresses the fish. And calm fish are healthy fish; healthy fish are delicious fish.” 

Earthen ponds at Smoke in Chimneys trout farm.

This is part of Walker’s annual maintenance routine at Smoke In Chimneys trout farm, which opened in 2019. He’ll spend the day weeding and cleaning, then harvest the remaining fish in the next week or so. The pond then gets a break from production to naturally incorporate or filter out excess nutrients from the ecosystem. In the fall, it will again be loaded with thousands of baby trout. They’ll start their lives here, then cycle through a dozen similar impoundments—that together hold more than 20,000 fish at various stages of maturation—for about two years until they’re ready for harvest. 

“It takes a stupid amount of labor to do it this way compared to big commercial aquaculture operations,” says Walker. “But this is the only way to raise trout that consistently taste like they’ve been pulled fresh out a mountain stream.” 

That’s because the pond is part of a restored, 1930s US Department of the Interior gravity-fed trout hatchery and research facility in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains that was abandoned in the early 1990s due to budget cuts and remoteness. Here, there are no electric pumps, plastic tanks, antibiotics, mechanical agitators, recirculated water, chemical additives or computer monitoring. Water comes from a pristine, 54-degree spring that gushes from the bedrock at 2,000 gallons a minute. It is carried to the ponds through a series of pipes and concrete raceways that mimic natural trout streams, then empties into an adjacent creek. The shale-bottom impoundments are lined with native plants, surrounded by pollinator gardens and selectively managed forest. They’re filled with naturally occurring microbes, insects, amphibians and crustaceans. Walker and two employees hand-survey populations monthly for signs of illness or stress. They harvest and process about 400 whole trout a week, then pack them in coolers for shipping to restaurants and individual customers.

“There are a lot of small-scale trout producers in the US, but this is truly a diamond-in-the-rough situation,” says freshwater aquaculture researcher and current US Trout Farmers Association president Jesse Trushenski. Most similar facilities either vanished during the big-ag-fueled Blue Revolution of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s or are still used to supplement native wild trout populations for fishing. Then there’s the production side: The nation’s largest commercial producer—Boise, Idaho-based Riverence—churns out more than 22 million pounds of trout a year compared to Smoke In Chimney’s give-or-take 120,000.

This is a small, extremely high-end facility operating on historic infrastructure, says Trushenski. “If other commercial facilities [like the Walker’s] exist, there can’t be more than one or two.”

Walker also touts Smoke In Chimney’s sustainability versus typical fish-focused commercial aquaculture farms. On one hand, he likens his farm’s production methods to the inland freshwater equivalency of regenerative livestock farming. 

“This approach is without a doubt going to affect a net positive environmental impact,” says Trushenski. The system acts like a natural waterway, using gravity and hydrostatic pressure to move perfectly balanced water from a limestone aquifer. It requires no electricity or additives to operate. It’s effectively a restored habitat for depleted natural fish populations where, like rotational grazing, trout cycle through different impoundments as they grow and mature, nurturing their needs while playing a supportive role in the overall ecosystem. A percentage of newly hatched fish escapes into the nearby stream, bolstering habitat and wild populations. 

Smoke in Chimneys trout farm.

Meanwhile, more farm-raised trout on the market means less extractionary pressure on local streams. It also helps balance the increasing gap in wild-caught seafood production due to overfishing, climate change and human population growth.

“This is an ecological win-win,” says Trushenski. “You’re boosting stream health and native fish populations while making inroads on a problem that is only going to get worse with time.” 

Walker appreciates sustainability and historic novelty—and leverages both to market and tell the story of his trout—but he’s more concerned with the quality of product the method yields. And testimonies back up his claims. 

“There’s this rich, nutty, buttery decadence. It tastes clean and refreshing, like spring water,” says Patrick Pervola, research and development chef at Michelin-starred Washington D.C. eatery, Albi. “This is some of the best fish I’ve tasted in my career. It rewrites what you think of as possible for farm-raised fish.”

The limestone aquifer. Photography via Smoke in Chimneys.

But despite all the benefits—and roughly 2,900 miles of native wild trout streams—Smoke In Chimneys is one of about three other commercial trout farms in Virginia. And the others are tiny by comparison and sell almost exclusively to family friends or at local farmer’s markets. That means, by Trushenski’s estimate, about 95 percent of trout consumed in Virginia comes from production strongholds like Idaho, Washington or North Carolina. 

She says the problem stems from issues around education. 

First, most seafood consumers have never tasted wild-caught or truly healthy farm-raised trout, and that lack of exposure leads to decreased demand. Second, Virginia focuses aquatic agricultural resources on marine seafood, so there are no dedicated high school or collegiate-level educational programs for inland freshwater aquaculture. And would-be farmers can’t pursue opportunities they don’t know about.

“To put it into perspective: When I started out, I called around to agricultural extension offices at [the state’s leading universities] and there was literally nobody there that could tell me anything useful about farm-raised trout,” says Walker. “I had to rely on old books from the 1930s I dug up on eBay, rangers working at hatcheries, farmers in other states and trial-and-error to figure it out.”

Photography via Smoke in Chimneys trout farm.

But Walker remains undaunted. He and wife, Shannon, spent a year sifting through regulatory red tape and launched a small USDA-inspected processing plant near the farm. They work tirelessly on social media and with restaurateurs to educate eaters about the virtues of healthy, farm-raised trout. 

Walker has also joined the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Aquaculture Advisory Board and is in talks with administrators at the new Virginia Tech Aquaculture and Seafood Production Facility. He’s using the position and access to advocate for increased resources around gravity-fed inland freshwater aquaculture. He envisions a future where Smoke In Chimneys has expanded to include one to two dozen sister farms and helped dramatically increase trout consumption throughout the state and Mid-Atlantic. 

We have “the natural resources and the market potential is there,” says Walker, noting $67.5 million in USDA-reported 2018 sales at farms in the top two US trout-producing states alone. “All we need is the support to help us get the ball rolling and tap into that potential. And I don’t plan to quit until that happens. I want to remind Virginians why trout is our state fish.”

The post Meet the Modern Trout Farmer Using Gravity to His Advantange appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“In this business, you have to wear a lot of hats and be ready to jump in when and where you’re needed,” says Mosser, a principal at Seven Hills Food, an independently owned, USDA-inspected meat-processing and packaging plant in downtown Lynchburg, Virginia.

The company processes about 150 cattle per week and partnered with dozens of area cattle farmers to launch a state-branded line of grass-fed beef, Virginia Beef Co., in 2018. It got an early shot in the arm when the nation’s second-largest retail grocery chain agreed to pilot flagship hamburger blends at a handful of local stores. Rave customer reviews and pandemic-related beef shortages fueled rapid expansion: The truck Mosser is helping load will deliver meat to about 100 Kroger Company stores in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. 

Dalton Mosser (right) and production manager Donta Coleman (left). (Photo courtesy Seven Hills)

That means customers can walk into their local grocery store and buy grass-fed, regionally sourced ground beef—and for about 20 cents cheaper per pound than the current national average.

Experts call both the relationship and option rare exceptions. 

“It’s rare to see [regionally sourced meats] on shelves at large chains, even at the local level,” says Rebecca Thistlethwaite, director of the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network (NMPAN), a nonprofit that helps support small processors with marketing, applying for state and federal grants and more. Most ground beef consumed in the US travels hundreds, if not thousands of miles before it hits grocery shelves—Kroger’s organic Simple Truth line, for instance, is raised and slaughtered entirely in Uruguay.       

That, says Thistlethwaite, is due to extreme consolidation in the $67-billion US beef industry. 

Market share for the country’s four biggest meat-packing companies—Tyson, JBS, Cargill and Marfrig—has skyrocketed to 85 percent today from 25 percent in 1977. The Big Four, as they’re commonly known, now have plants that can process more than 5,000 head of cattle a day. And of those, a dozen accounted for nearly half the total US beef supply in 2022. 

“These companies are so big, they play by economic rules that don’t apply to other processors,” says Thistlethwaite.  

Automated equipment saves time and maximizes output while slashing labor costs. Fewer plants and minimal competition lowers prices paid to ranchers for cattle. Cornered supply chains create advantages when negotiating contracts with prisons, school systems and mega-retailers such as Walmart. 

Unable to compete, more than half of the country’s small and midsize processors have shuttered operations in the past 20 years alone. 

“At this point, [the Big Four have] surpassed any efficiencies associated with economies of scale,” says Thistlethwaite. Now, the focus appears to be on manipulating the marketplace. 

The Department of Justice launched an ongoing price-fixing investigation into the Big Four in 2020. It has since faced an onslaught of civil suits and most—like JBS’s $52.5-million, 2022 agreement with Minnesota grocery stores and wholesalers—have resulted in large settlements. A group of small Illinois distributors filed a similar suit this past October, claiming the companies “exploited their market power … by conspiring to limit the supply of beef sold to purchasers in the US wholesale market” from 2015 through at least 2021. 

The Four argue that supply and demand factors, not anticompetitive behavior, determine the price of beef and cattle. But the White House and Congress seem to agree with the plaintiffs. 

The USDA implemented the first phase of efforts to crack down on anticompetition in November. The measures come in addition to a 2022 executive order allotting $1 billion in American Rescue Plan funds to help independent processors expand capacity.  

“When dominant middlemen control so much of the supply chain,” reads a related White House update, “they can increase their own profits at the expense of both farmers—who make less—and consumers—who pay more.” 

The announcement cited Federal Reserve stats showing the inflation-adjusted cost of ground beef rose by about 30 percent since the early 1980s and reached record highs in 2021. While ranchers’ share of consumer dollars spent on beef has fallen by more than a third since 1973, the Big Four have seen soaring profits—especially since the pandemic. 

Consolidation also puts the nation’s food supply at risk. 

For instance, COVID-19 infections led to shutdowns at major plants, disrupting supply chains and fueling shortages that helped Seven Hills, the Lynchburg processor, nab its deal with Kroger. Cyberattacks closed JBS plants in 2021, putting 20 percent of US processing capacity on hold.           

Seven Hills Food is an independently owned, USDA-inspected meat-processing and packaging plant based in Lynchburg, Virginia. (Photo courtesy Seven Hills)

About $450 million in federal grants has been distributed so far. Como, Mississippi’s Home Place Pastures was among the recipients and received $500,000 to increase cold storage and processing capacity. 

“It’s been a gamechanger,” says owner Marshall Bartlett. But the grants only cover 20 percent of project costs and having to borrow $2 million in match-funding “is what’s keeping me up at night,” he says.  

Bartlett started sustainably raising pigs on a portion of his family’s 1,800-acre, fifth-generation row crop farm in 2014. Frustrations around securing reliable USDA-inspected processing and packaging inspired him to build a small plant two years later.  

“I’d gotten some orders from Memphis chefs, but the closest slaughterhouse was booked for months,” says Bartlett. Even then, he says, “I had to drop off my animals, wait a few days, come back and pick up the carcasses, drive them 50 miles to the nearest butcher shop for processing, then convince them to let me use [their co-op room] for packaging. It was insane.”   

The plant, which was partly funded by state grants, brought dramatic expansion. Bartlett went from raising 15 to about 600 pigs and has added around 200 head of cattle. Home Place does custom processing and labeling for dozens of small area farms and partners with 11 on a direct-to-consumer line of meats. It now has 30 full-time employees and processes about 1,500 pigs and 500 cattle per year in addition to sheep and goats. There’s also an onsite butcher shop, farm store and restaurant.

Bartlett says business is thriving and plans to continue to scale up over the next decade. But he doesn’t see chain grocery stores as part of the plan. 

Without major legislative changes, “processors like us will never be able to compete at that level,” says Bartlett. Looking to the future, his focus is on educating more consumers about the benefits of eating locally raised sustainable meat and finding innovative ways to bring in more direct sales.

“This is a niche market,” says Bartlett. “Realistically, if we can pick up even a fraction of the regional market share, that would be a huge win.” 

MIssissippi-based Home Place does custom processing and labeling for dozens of small area farms. (Photo courtesy of Home Place)

Mosser, the Seven Hills president, has applied for millions in USDA grants. He says a $500,000 infusion could outfit the company with equipment that would easily increase processing capacity to 500 cattle a week. With double that amount, he could ramp up to more than 1,000. Over time, profits from the expanded capacity could be reinvested in sister plants and establishing Virginia Beef type product lines in neighboring states. From there, he could branch out to poultry, pork, bison and lamb.   

“That would go a long way toward creating an affordable and sustainable regional food system,” says Mosser. “What’s so frustrating is that the demand is there and we’ve proven we have a [competitive model]. All we need is a little help to get us to that next level.”  

He worries that too much government money will go to boutiques and startups versus proven midsize plants that could cumulatively impact competition and keep more locally raised meat in regional food systems. Thistlethwaite, the NMPAN director, partly shares his concerns. 

“I do worry we’re going to see a lot of these new plants fail over the next few years,” she says. Seventeen have or are being built in Montana alone. “This is a tough business to break into. If you don’t have those end consumers lined up, you’re not going to make it.”  

Thistlethwaite says that small and midsize processing capacity should be expanded at all levels and that the government needs to do more to prop up plants. Legislation and stronger antitrust regulations can help redistribute market share. Institutions such as  schools, prisons, hospitals, universities and government agencies can provide readymade customers. 

“Look, this is an immensely complex problem,” she says. It took decades for consolidation to occur and “unfortunately, there is no magic bullet that’s going to fix it overnight.” 

The post Small Processors Face Big Obstacles in Ultra-Consolidated Meat-Packing Industry appeared first on Modern Farmer.

For him, nabbing this perfect plot of land marked the culmination of a life-long transition from full-blown factory-farmer to owning his own grass-roots operation.

The twist? Charles Long was raised by the son of Jim Long, founder of Virginia’s first – and eventually most major – mass-commercialized turkey operation. After raising turkeys free-range for years – on various plots of land he owned and leased in the Meadowview area – Jim realized that he could outfox Old Man Winter and predators via constructing heated houses. In 1942 Jim Long began raising his birds indoors.

“My grandfather was a true pioneer,” says Charles. “He was one of the first farmers to start raising birds inside.”

By the early 1960s, Jim was so successful he’d incorporated his turkey farming business under the name Franwood Farms, and, with the savvy of a corner-office entrepreneur, purchased subsidiary companies – like a truck dealership to cut Franwood’s transportation costs, a construction company to help lessen the expense of its expansion, a butchery to process the meat, and a packing plant to, well, pack it – thereby controlling economic gaps other farmers accepted as simply the “cost of doing business.” Franwood grew swiftly, supplying poultry to major metropolitan hubs – like Washington, D.C., Boston, and New York City – throughout the eastern seaboard.

As the scion of what was at once a family farm and corporate agricultural powerhouse, Charles Long spent his youth and early career immersed in the culture of big agro-business. Then, two years ago, in 2013, he decided to make a change.

“I wasn’t happy doing what I was doing,” says Charles. “I felt detached from the natural world.”

By watching the ongoing success of the slow-foods movement – as embodied on the front-end by Joel Salatin, or expressed on the back by Barbara Kingsolver’s best-selling farm-memoir, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – Charles was inspired to apply his own expertise to sustainable farming.

Charles Long with his free-range turkeys at Long Roots Farm. 621 Studios

The shift was huge. With Long Roots, Charles committed to a policy of naturalness. Whether it be turkeys, chickens, ducks, sheep, cows, or Lucy, the sheep-herding donkey, all the Long Roots animals are raised without antibiotics, are predominantly grass-fed (locally sourced, non-GMO feed is supplemented), and completely free-range.

“We fence in the small animals at night to keep out coyotes and predators,” says Charles. “And we don’t clip the wings of our birds.”

“I think it’s a happier method of farming. I know I feel happier, and I think the animals are happier too.”

When Charles opens the gate of a solar-powered electric enclosure housing around 50 soon-to-be-Thanksgiving turkeys, this last point is quickly proven. The maturing birds disperse in a flock, go pecking and strutting about the pasture, stretching their wings and taking brief flights. Contrary to what you’d think, they don’t flee or wander too far. In fact, within minutes they’re back at the enclosure, gathered about the Longs, curiously cocking their heads.

“I think it’s a happier method of farming,” says Charles. “I know I feel happier, and I think the animals are happier too.”

For the time being, while he grows Long Roots’ various herds and customer base, Charles is still working for Franwood. At present, these time constraints are limiting, but in the next year or two, Anna and Charles plan to commit to running Long Roots full-time.

“For an operation as new as we are, I think we’re pretty successful,” says Charles. “[The farm] is paying for itself right now… [and] going full-time would push it over the hump, because we would have more time to take everything to the next level.”

At present, Long Roots sells only through their website, word of mouth, and through ads posted on Craigslist. With additional time devoted to the operation, the Longs would be able to cultivate relationships with local markets, set up booths at farmers markets, and look to contract with local and regional restaurants. However, while it all sounds easy, there have been, and remain, some substantial hurdles.

Charles Long holds one of his free-range turkeys at Long Roots Farm. 621 Studios

“So far the biggest challenge has been taking the ‘next step,’” says Charles. “Each addition to the farm has been a big decision for us. One, because you want it to be successful. And two, because it’s a financial strain with such small margins when you first start up. It’s just like any other business when you start; you literally put your all into it.”

Charles identifies “marketing and meeting new customers” as the two most challenging aspects he faces when shifting to full-time. “We need to put ourselves out there more and meet more customers,” he says. “We’ll have to find a platform that fits us just right.”

In other words, to fully make the leap-of-faith from mass to small-scale, Long Roots will have to increase its local and regional brand presence, ensuring that would-be customers – the kind of people who care about the slow-food movement and are willing to pay higher prices for the higher quality meats – know who they are and what they’re all about.

“We’re not looking to get huge,” explains Charles. “But we would like to be totally focused on Long Roots, and have the farm support us and eventually maybe a few other helping hands.”

And while the prospects of all this are surely exciting, Charles says that once he makes the move, there’s a lot he’ll miss about working at Franwood.

“I really enjoy working with my family,” he says. “It’s definitely trying at times figuring out relationships and work at the same time, but it’s rewarding to accomplish something with family. I’ll miss that.”

When asked what his grandfather, Jim Long, thinks of all this, Charles tells the story of the 95-year-old’s visit to the Long Roots.

“He was amazed we were doing things the way he’d done them back in the ’40s,” says Charles. “He said he was glad there was a market for what we were doing and encouraged us to grow our operation. Get bigger, he told us. And that’s exactly what we intend to do.”

The post From Factory Farmer to Something Much Smaller: The Lengthy Roots of Long Roots Farm appeared first on Modern Farmer.