Central U.S. farmers and ranchers who are interested in starting or scaling up their grass-finished beef operations are invited to attend this 3-day intensive retreat aimed at helping accelerating farmer-rancher learning curves, increase profitability and ensure success in the U.S. grassfed meats market.
Target dates for this exclusive opportunity are July 16-18 or July 22-24 near Great Bend, Kansas; please RSVP with preferred dates if interested. Cost per operation will be $999, for an unlimited number of attendees from your farm or ranch. Lunch and snacks will be provided; lodging is separate and available nearby.
Participants will seek to answer questions such as the following, about their operations and plans for grass-finishing:
What is our core business, and is grass-finishing a good fit for us?
Should we add grass-finishing, or scale up what we are already doing?
Are we ready to scale up, and what would need to change?
Will this be profitable for us, and what added burdens can we expect?
How should we plan for the marketing required to capture premiums from our product?
The retreat will be presented by Julie Mettenburg, a Savory Institute accredited field professional with the Kansas-based Tallgrass Network, and Leslie Mettenburg Moore, founder and operator of Farmer Girl Meats and impact Ranching, St. Louis. These two sisters will share the lessons and best-kept secrets they have learned over nearly 10 years in business together in the farm to fork pastured meats business.
Presented on the Holistic Management framework, the 3-day program agenda will include:
Economic planning: how to use Holistic Financial Planning to determine viability for grass-finishing in your operation, profitability timelines and thresholds for scale-up costs and quantities;
Management guidelines for planning your forage base, genetics and record-keeping systems to succeed in the grass-finished business;
Grazing planning: how to use Holistic Planned Grazing to manage your operation and ensure successful finishing, taking into account the many variables over a finishing animals’ life cycle;
Markets: information about the realities and choices in the grass-fed business, across the whole production chain, that can impact your decisions;
Additional resources and info: we will provide a look at additional species, processing challenges and opportunities, and other topics that inevitably arise in grassfed operations.
The sisters’ goal in presenting this retreat is to improve grass-finishing and help operations succeed at taking this leap, despite the obstacles and hurdles that can present surprising challenges along the way.
“The Central U.S. is poised to capture a major share of this market, and potentially return some of our less-productive croplands to the grassland ecosystems we need to heal our ecology, soils, water cycles, and climate. We would like to help accelerate these transitions.”
Please email Julie at tallgrassnetwork@gmail.com with questions or information.
