AGW Blog

A good product label is essential for any successful marketing strategy. Yet many farmers who sell directly to the public make the mistake of assuming a unique, stylized label is somehow irrelevant—or that it’s all too expensive, time consuming and bureaucratic. Yet every farmer who sells directly to the public is still very much part of a bigger and ever-changing labeling landscape. Remember: shoppers who visit farmers’ markets or farm stores will inevitably also visit the bigger grocery stores or…

Methane emissions from the industrial sector have been vastly underestimated, according to new research from Cornell University and the Environmental Defense Fund. Published in Elementa, researchers equipped a Google Street View car with a high-precision methane sensor and discovered that total annual methane emissions from ammonia fertilizer plants were 28 gigagrams—over 100 times higher than the fertilizer industry’s self-reported estimate of 0.2 gigagrams per year. In addition, the measured emissions alone far exceed the EPA’s estimate for all industrial processes…

What is a sustainable feeding strategy for cattle? Like any aspect of sustainable management or production, a sustainable feeding strategy for ruminants such as cattle comprises a number of core principles. First, a sustainable diet must meet the animals’ nutritional requirements at all stages of their development. It should ensure optimum animal health and high-quality production, rather than solely maximizing production or growth rate. Second, a sustainable feeding regime should use feeds to formulate diets that meet the proper physiological…

Abraham Lincoln once famously said that “Every blade of grass is a study, and to produce two, where there once was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure.” And so it is at Tall Grass Bison. We manage our bison in socially structured extended family groups, which are so important to bison health and wellbeing. Our farm is a study in progress: we never stress the herd by breaking up families or ship them to a sale barn…

For the last six decades or more, government dietary advice in the U.S. and across much of the world has been to eat a diet rich in vegetable protein and fats, avoiding beef and other sources of animal proteins and fats. Yet recent studies suggest this advice may be wrong and may have led to the explosion of obesity and obesity-related disorders since the late 1970s after vigorous public health efforts to convince people to abandon meat and substitute plant…