THE UNION

by navigaimport | www.theunion.com

NEVADA COUNTY | Nevada County has a longstanding community of farmers and ranchers, and is home to 151 farms with cattle, 45 with pigs, 77 with sheep and 70 with meat goats. For small-scale ranchers in Nevada County, getting meat slaughtered and butchered is a “circus” that grows more difficult each year. The businesses required to turn an animal into a meal — that slaughter, butcher, transport and store meat — are rare and growing rarer. Those missing links in the supply chain make local meat harder to raise and more expensive to buy.

For this month’s The Union column from the Nevada County Food Policy Council, several ranchers shared their challenges with the current supply chain and their hopes for the future. They explained that even people who don’t eat meat have a stake in this issue: The viability of holistic animal agriculture is important for our local economy, land conservation and fire mitigation.

Small-scale meat processing is a problem

Once an animal is ready to become dinner, farmers have a couple of options to get that meat into the hands of customers. If farmers want to sell their meat in a store like SPD Markets or BriarPatch Food Co-op, their animals must be killed, butchered and packaged at USDAinspected facilities. Those last two steps are called “cut and wrap” in industry slang, and often take place at a separate facility from where animals are harvested.

Ranchers say both kinds of facilities are few and far between in California. A 2021 UC Davis study found just 46 USDA-inspected slaughter plants in California. Of these, 32 only handle livestock (as opposed to poultry), and at least 11 only process for their own brands. Options for USDA-inspected slaughter are particularly sparse in the Sierra Foothills, where one of the closest shops — Wolf Pack Meats in Reno — closed on Oct. 31. The nearest facilities for Nevada County ranchers are now in Orland, Modesto or Sonoma County.

For Ronda Applegarth of Yuba River Ranch, it’s worth the 90-minute drive to have her Wagyu beef slaughtered, cut and wrapped at a USDA-inspected facility; her business relies on restaurant and retail sales that require it. But depending on one, in-demand facility makes her nervous: other regional slaughterhouses have increased the minimum number of animals needed to book an appointment, squeezing out smaller ranchers like her. “I only have one [slaughter] spot a month, and if I give up a spot, I’m not sure I’ll maintain my relationship with that slaughterhouse,” Applegarth said. “The demand for those spots is ridiculous right now.”

A helpful workaround still has flaws

Rancher Elizabeth Strong, who operates Rafter 5S Livestock in Smartsville with her husband Grant, takes advantage of an exemption called “Custom Exempt Slaughter and Processing.” She sells a whole or partial steer to her customers months before the animals are ready to be slaughtered. When the steers are ready, a registered mobile slaughter operator comes to their ranch, harvests the animal and transports the carcass to an approved butcher. The customer then pays the butcher for their work, and can pay extra for more finished cuts.