Happy Soil, Healthy Cows: Restoring Life to the Prairie with Grass Fed Cattle Co.
Just outside of Goodhue, Minnesota, Jared and Valerie Luhman practice ethical, pasture-based meat production. Since the early nineties, the young couple, along with Jared's family, have been using rotational grazing methods to restore life to their third-generation beef farm.
Story by Sarah Wescott | Photography and Videography by Sarah Carroll
Every sunrise on Dry Creek Red Angus Farm starts with thoughtful care for the animals and the land, as Jared sets out to the pastures to inspect each cow, check on the health of the animals, and ensure that the cattle have access to fresh, clean water. As the sun slips higher into the sky, the couple works to move the cattle onto new pasture where they spend their days eating fresh grasses, dried hay, and winter forage.
As the third generation of Luhmans to farm this land, Jared and Valerie see farming as so much more than simple food production. It’s a way of life that’s centers on satisfying nutrient-dense meats, food systems transparency, and giving back to the land that feeds them. Today, the Luhmans market all of their meat under the Grass Fed Cattle Co. label, a collective marketing hub that sells meat from farmers around Wisconsin and Minnesota. Jared and Valerie act as the owners and coordinators of the brand, in addition to managing their own farm.
Both raised on farms, the young couple met while at an FFA camp in their teens and eventually began dating. Since then, they’ve attended college, married, and moved onto Jared’s family farm. In summer 2021, they started a family, welcoming their son Colton to the world.
Jared’s family farm, Dry Creek Red Angus, has been in the family since the 1960s when his grandfather, David, purchased it as a conventional beef operation. In the 1980s, he passed it on to his son, John, who converted it to an organic operation in 2000. Now the farm is being transitioned to Jared and Valerie who may someday share the land with their son, Colton.
As with all meat sold by Grass Fed Cattle Co., Jared and Valerie raise their cattle and chickens on pasture. Though pastured meats offer a laundry list of benefits both for the livestock and the land, one is near and dear to the Luhmans: soil health.
“I hear all the time that cows are the problem, but in a pasture-based system like ours, really the tool that is the game-changer for us is the plants. They’re photosynthesizing. Through photosynthesis, plants capture carbon dioxide from the air and then release oxygen. They put carbon into leaf matter and roots, and through their roots, they pump carbon into the soil. So, the cattle are actually doing the work for us,” explains Jared.
This symbiotic relationship between the cattle and the plants leads to a phenomenon not usually associated with cattle farming: carbon sequestration. Carbon sequestration is the act of taking carbon out of the atmosphere and locking it into the soil, a process that isn’t nearly as effective without animals on the land. This, along with the reduced need to plant, water, fertilize, harvest, and transport feed means that cattle raised and finished on pasture have a far smaller carbon footprint than those finished in a feedlot.
“Regenerative agriculture is a system that improves agriculture, not just sustains, because in reality the entire country has been degraded since we came here. We don’t want to sustain a degraded system, we want to improve upon and regenerate our soils,” says Jared.
The Luhmans consider soil health in their work year round. Each day, the cattle are moved to new pastures. This prevents overgrazing and gives the grass time to recover before the cattle come back for more. This practice is called managed rotational grazing.
For most of the year, the cattle are kept on pasture. In the summer months, they eat fresh grass. Then, once the weather cools down, the cattle dig beneath the snow to get to the nutrient-dense grass that remains. In the depths of winter, the cattle are moved onto neighboring fields to forage the remaining leaves and stalks of harvested crops. All the while, they are spreading rich manure across the land and feeding the soil.
Each year, as the family decides where to expand their pastures and plant new grasses, they also consider the long-term health of the soil. Jared and Valerie plant a wide variety of grasses and legumes which support the soil in various ways. Some plants provide the cattle with essential nutrients, others aerate the soil and improve its structure, while many fix nitrogen and carbon left behind in the cattle manure.
This thoughtful method of symbiotic production is good for both the land and the flavor of the meat. “What our customers say about our product is that it tastes like what they remember having when they grew up on their family farm. It’s juicy, delicious, and has a lot more flavor because they’re getting a lot of diversity in the pastures and the grasses that they’re eating,” says Valerie.
To many people, feeding cattle grass might seem like a no-brainer, but as of 2018, less than 1% of beef cattle in the United States were fed grass for their entire lives. In contrast, most beef cattle are started on pasture eating grass, but after about a year they are moved to a feedlot and finished on a mix of corn, grasses, supplements, and starch.
Grass systems work differently. By feeding the cattle foods which they evolved to eat and ensuring that the animals have room to roam, disease rates plummet. This means that all of the meat sold under the Grass Fed Cattle Co. label is grass-fed, antibiotic-free, and hormone-free, so you can feel good about how the animals were treated and what you’re putting in your body.
Along with the other member farmers around Minnesota and Wisconsin, Valerie and Jared offer a variety of cuts from beef, pork, and chicken. In order to ensure they use the entire animal, Grass Fed Cattle Co. sells meat in bulk so you can stock up for the year with one simple order. Fill your freezer with a quarter of beef, an order of soup bones, a holiday roast, or a meat sampler box by visiting their store at grassfedcattleco.com/products. Delivery and pick-up are both available, making buying direct from the farm easier than ever!
Want to know more about Valerie and Jared? Check out their website at grassfedcattleco.com. Follow them on Facebook and Instagram, or stay up to date by signing up for their monthly newsletter.
