This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for farmers and food enthusiasts alike, brimming with insights on the multifaceted support available to bolster the local meat industry. From the nitty-gritty of technical assistance, financial support in the form of low-interest loans and microgrants, to the meticulous coordination within the value chain, we delve into the transformative work being orchestrated by Berkshire Agricultural Ventures. The Livestock Working Group emerges as a linchpin in this narrative, highlighting their pivotal role in fostering communication, steering infrastructure advancements, and championing grant-funded projects that offer a lifeline to meat processors.
Thank you Jake and Ren!!
https://www.berkshireagventures.org/
https://berkshiregrown.org/
Thank you to our listeners!!
Contact & More Info:
https:/www.chefmassey.com
https://www.instagram.com/chef_massey/
Other Sponsors & Discount Programs:
https://www.chefmassey.com/services-9
Podcast Disclaimer:
We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host, guest or the management. All right reserved under Chef Sense Podcast and Chef Massey, LLC.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chef James (00:14):
Hey everyone, welcome to Chef Sense.
I'm your host, chef Massey.
Alright, so welcome to thepodcast.
Super excited here We've gotJake Levin and Ren Constas.
Thank you both for being here.
How are you both doing?
Pretty good, yeah, happy toexcited.
Here We've got Jake Levin andWren Constas.
Thank you both for being here.
How are you both doing?
Ren (00:27):
Pretty good.
Yeah, I'm happy to be hereAwesome.
Chef James (00:30):
I have to say I read that really nice article that
Berkshire Grown put out and youknow, berkshire Grown, I mean
it's just it's been such anamazing organization to just
keep connecting the community.
Man, you guys are awesome.
Like I've got to get thiscollaboration.
You know that we'll get intothat you both are involved with
and thank you so much for doingthat and leading the way and
(00:53):
being an inspiration on that.
So can you kind of share yourspecific positions in your
organization with our listeners?
Do?
Ren (01:00):
you want to start, sure.
Jake (01:01):
My name is Jake Levin and I grew up here in the Berkshires
.
I've been working as a wholeanimal butcher in the Berkshires
for 12 years now.
I moved back home to work withJeremy Stan at the meat market
and have been working variouscapacities ever since then in
the Berkshires and Hudson Valley.
I've also been on the board ofBerkshire Grown for 11 years now
(01:25):
.
When Berkshire AgriculturalVentures, which is the
organization I work for, firstgot started about seven years
ago, I was pretty excitedbecause they were filling an
important gap that wasn't beingfilled in terms of supporting
farmers and agribusinesses and Ithought it was a great
complement to the work BerkshireGrown was doing.
Then, at the height of COVID,my now colleague, dan Carr, who
(01:50):
works for BAV, convinced BAVthat there was some serious need
to focus more attention on ourlocal meat processing systems,
the local meat processing valuechain, and by value chain I mean
the system that takes the rawproduct, the live animal, all
the way to the consumer andevery step of the way, with a
(02:12):
particular focus on meat process, on the meat processing
bottleneck.
You know COVID really drewstark relief to what a critical
issue that was.
Those problems existed beforeCOVID but COVID really
highlighted that and made thegeneral public much more aware
of that.
You know the Berkshires andHudson Valley is livestock
farming is a really importantpart of the agricultural systems
(02:33):
here.
Dan is a livestock farmerhimself.
So when BAV started to explorewhat could be done on that front
, I was one of quite a fewpeople they reached out to to
sort of form a sort of looseworking group to help inform the
direction BAV takes, thestrategy they take.
The result of that was a reportthat they commissioned from a
(02:54):
consultancy group called KitchenTable Consultants to make
recommendations on what BAVcould do to further support
livestock farmers and meatprocessors in the region.
The sort of findings of thereport was there probably isn't
a real need for anotherslaughterhouse, counter to
popular opinion.
You know slaughterhouses have alot of capacity.
The challenge is it's thatsmall window of time when
(03:17):
everyone's sending their animalsto a slaughterhouse.
That is challenging.
But regionally we're quite richin USDA meat processing
facilities when they saw a realopportunity was to working with
the existing meat processors toexpand capacity, to improve
operations, to be able to bringmore animals in and serve more
livestock farmers.
So based on that recommendation,berkshire Agricultural Ventures
(03:39):
applied to a regional foodsystems partnership grant, which
is a USDA grant, and thatpartnership consisted of working
along with BAV is BerkshireGrown One Berkshire, berkshire
Regional Planning Commission andKitchen Table Consultants who
originally wrote the report.
So in 2021, berkshireAgricultural Ventures was
(04:01):
awarded the RFSP the RegionalFood Systems Partnership Grant,
and the first thing they did wasto post for someone to manage
and run that grant and thesubsequent program that came out
of that grant the Local MeatProcessing Support Program and
they reached out to me to see ifI knew anybody who might be
interested in applying or if Imight be interested in applying,
(04:21):
and I had been a meat cutterfor over a decade at that point
and I was ready to sort of stepout of a cold cement box and try
something a little different.
And so I applied for the job andluckily, I was hired.
So I've been working now withBAV as the local meat processing
(04:42):
support program manager forjust over two years.
There's a lot we are doing inthat program, but one of the
most important and satisfyingparts of the job has been the
livestock working group thatwe've convened to help inform
the work we do, and that's acritical part of the partnership
.
So Berkshire Grown was ran intothat grant to help manage and
(05:06):
facilitate the livestock workinggroup in the subsequent
meetings.
Chef James (05:09):
Wow, so I'll hand it over to Brett oh, there we go,
wow Okay.
Ren (05:13):
I come into the story.
Almost exactly a year agoactually, I met Jake and Dan and
Margaret, who's the executivedirector of.
Berkshire Grown.
Who's the executive director ofBerkshire Grown?
At an interview I saw the joblisting on a listserv and it was
really up my alley, just what Iwas looking for.
I was coming out of seven yearsof work in agriculture, kind of
(05:47):
moving between production andslightly more bigger picture ag
service work, some logisticssupport, which really tied into
the work that I do now with thelivestock working group Okay.
So I had just completed twoyears of farming work at a
vegetable farm and at a sheepfarm in Pine Plains in Millerton
New.
Chef James (05:59):
York, oh, okay.
Ren (06:00):
And was looking to move more, just to give my body a
break and move more intocomputer work and also after
having worked in agriculture inthis area, I was starting to
really notice some patterns andI wanted to work on some of
these bigger picture solutions.
So I was so excited to see thejob posting and then talk with
(06:21):
Jake and Dan and Margaret andhear about their approach to
bringing farmers together withother people who are working in
those value chains and getpeople in the room together and
talk.
Chef James (06:32):
Yeah, wow.
Ren (06:34):
So yeah, so I've been working with Jake and the
livestock working group forabout a year.
Okay, and I coordinate theworking group.
So I do everything, fromsending the emails setting the
times for the meetings, Ifacilitate the meetings and then
jake and dan and I worktogether after those meetings to
kind of pull out the importantthreads of what we're hearing
(06:55):
and use that information to keepinforming how we're going to
the directions that we go tosupport farmers and to support
this food system wow, that'samazing and that's just so much
to do.
Chef James (07:06):
I mean both of you, you know, taking that on with
this project.
When do you see this like Imean you're working on it now
like the big rollout is there.
Are you underway?
Is there kind of like a, aschedule of events, as you're
kind of like working through theprocess?
Is that kind of hard to say?
Jake (07:24):
That's a great question.
It's an ongoing process.
You know, we are really lookingat the whole value chain and so
that requires lots of differentkinds of efforts and different
kinds of projects.
So you know, sort of breakthings down, I would say,
(07:45):
basically the way that the localmeat processing support program
has functioned so far.
Really it falls into twooverarching categories.
One of those is everything thathappens sort of under the
umbrella of the livestockworking group and that's really
focused more on the value chaincoordination and infrastructure
(08:06):
development.
The other side of the work thatI'm really focused on is the
technical assistance andfinancial assistance that we
provide meat processingfacilities in the middle of the
value chain operators.
So to sort of back up a littlebit, berkshire Agricultural
Ventures is a not-for-profit.
So to sort of back up a littlebit, berkshire Agricultural
Ventures is a not-for-profit.
(08:26):
We're based in Great Barringtonand we have a service area of
four counties in three states.
So Berkshire County inMassachusetts, litchfield County
in Connecticut and Columbia andDutchess County in New York.
Bab's mission is to help fosterand support a more just and
equitable and resilient localfood economy.
And really the way I like tothink about it is we have BAV,
(08:51):
has Berkshire agriculturalventures has two main tactics
for for doing that kind of work.
One is we provide technicalassistance, so that's sort of a
wonky term for basicallyconsulting Okay To farmers and
agribusinesses, and that Again,this is broadly speaking for the
whole program.
That can be anything fromgrazing planning or irrigation
(09:14):
planning all the way to businessplanning, financial planning,
marketing support, feasibilitystudies etc.
So it's a wide gambit.
A lot of the work we do isactually focused on business
technical assistance.
That's where we see a huge needWriting business plans, writing
marketing plans, etc.
Wow.
The other side of it is we domicrofinancing.
Oh, and the bulk of what we dois we do low-interest loans to
(09:40):
farmers and agribusinesses, andwhen I say low-interest loans, I
mean really low-interest loans.
Wow.
So the prime rate right now is9%, I think about around 9%.
Okay, we're offering 3% loans.
So that's basically it's noteven enough to really pay for
our services, but it's enough tosort of help support our
director of lending, and then wealso do micro grants, so up to
(10:03):
$5,000 in grants to farms andfood businesses, and the thing
that we do more and more ofthese days and has all of us at
BAV quite busy right now is sortof connecting the two things.
We do a lot of grant writingsupport, so either in-house or
we'll hire a grant writer towrite a grant on behalf of a
(10:24):
farm or food business and wehave a really high success rate
with that.
So that is basically the otherpillar of what I'm doing in the
local meat processing supportroom is I'm working with
existing meat processors,providing them with technical
assistance.
Again, that's like sometimesit's focusing on their
bookkeeping and financialmanagement, sometimes it's
(10:45):
focused on their HR management,sometimes that's for food safety
planning and facility designand operational.
On top of that, we offer loans.
So we have an $840,000revolving loan fund that
dedicated to meat processors.
So we're issuing loans.
So far in the last two years Ithink, we've issued about almost
(11:06):
half a million dollars in lowinterest loans to meat
processors to meat processorsand we've secured just over a
million dollars in grant fundingthat's gone directly to meat
processors.
Chef James (11:20):
Oh, that's amazing, wow, congratulations.
Jake (11:21):
Thank you.
Yeah, it's really rewardingwork.
Yeah, so that's the one side ofwhat I've been doing, that's to
work directly with meatprocessors to help them improve
their operations so that theycan work with more farmers in
the area.
On the other side of this work,I do really closely with Wren
with the Livestock Working Group.
So the goal of establishing theLivestock Working Group was
(11:45):
really twofold.
One was to help facilitate andfoster better communication
across the regional value chain.
Okay, and so Ren can talk moreabout it in a second, but we
have 10 members in the LivestockWorking Group representing that
whole value chain, oh, wow.
The other part is for thatgroup to help identify areas of
value chain coordination andinfrastructure development that
(12:08):
BAV and Berkshire Grown canfocus on to further support the
resilience and strengthening ofthose systems.
The Livestock Working Group hasidentified a few key issues, but
some of the things that havedeveloped out of the work that
Ren and I have been doingtogether and we've been doing
with Livestock Working Group isRen manages the listserv and the
(12:30):
newsletter that we send outcalled the Meetup Okay, very
cool.
Manages the listserv and thenewsletter that we send out
called the meetup okay, um, verycool.
We've developed and arecontinuing to develop a
livestock resource guide, slashdirectory and we have
established a free hotline inpartnership with agriforging
food safety.
So that's a food safety andhasap uh hotline.
(12:51):
Hasap standsCP stands forHazardous Analysis and Critical
Control Points.
It's again a very wonky term,but it basically is the food
safety plan that anyUSDA-inspected meat processing
facility has to work off of andgo by, and it's a very confusing
and overwhelming topic the foodsafety and HESA planning and
(13:12):
both farmers and meat processorsoften have questions about it
but don't have an outlet forgetting those questions easily
answered.
Oh, okay, so we have developedthis hotline that anybody can
call into and get the answersfrom a food safety expert,
nicole Day, who's been anincredible partner in all of
this.
And then we have coming down thepipeline a whole bunch of tools
(13:34):
and workshops that we'recurrently developing.
So we have a marketing workshopthat we're going to kick off
sometime next year for livestockfarmers.
We are developing a tool withKitchen Table Consultants and
our friend and colleague, mattLaRue from Cornell Cooperative
Extension.
Matt developed a meat pricingcalculator tool years ago.
(13:56):
That's really useful.
So we're developing a paralleltool, that's the cost of
production tool, because inorder to figure out your pricing
, you need to know how muchyou're spending, and that's a
question a lot of farmers don'tknow how to answer.
So this will be a calculatortool to help you develop your
(14:19):
cost of production, which thenyou can take those numbers and
more accurately use the cop, themeat pricing calculator tool.
Okay, um, wow.
I'll let you talk more aboutthe meetup and the directory
sure yeah, there's a lot to sayabout that.
Ren (14:28):
Yeah, amazing okay yeah, so the meetup is the same name for
the listserv and the newsletter, and the listserv is hosted on
Google groups.
We have about a hundred membersright now, I think.
I think we have 101 exactly.
Chef James (14:45):
Okay, okay.
Ren (14:46):
Yeah, and the idea is to similar to the livestock working
group, to have people kind ofbe able to be in conversation
with each other, who worktogether all the time, whether
that's farmers and processors ordistributors and service
providers who are making up thismeat value chain in the region
(15:07):
but don't always get a chance tohave a forum to talk to each
other ask questions or problemsolve together.
Share resources.
So we're seeing it getting usedmore and more.
People are putting questionsout there and getting their
questions answered.
We send out a digest about oncea week, every 10 days, sharing
events and resources andinformation that we're gathering
(15:28):
from all over the place just toput that information out there
okay um, and, and then thenewsletter has about 250
subscribers and we send that outevery other month and it
summarizes the work that thelocal meat processing support
program has been doing recently.
(15:51):
We usually send out the reportof the most recent working group
meetings so that people can seewhat we're talking about and
how things are developing.
We also share updates in theregion, whether that's a butcher
shop that's opening up or aprocessing facility that's
gotten USDA certification.
We share events, webinars fromall over the country that people
(16:14):
can tune into to learn aboutmeat related information,
marketing trainings anddistribution trainings, and you
got all kinds of conversationsthat are happening online that
people can tune into and then,we spotlight somebody who's
doing work in this world that wethink is interesting, that
we're learning and gettinginspiration from that.
(16:35):
We think other people could alsolearn from.
Last month we spotlightedFoodworks Group, which is the
consulting group that we'reworking with.
That's heading the and I'mgoing to butcher it they're
heading the study on local.
Oh no, I'm just going to giveit to you to say Okay, yeah, I
realized I left that out.
Jake (16:55):
That's a big project we have going on right now, is so
the livestock working group, Iwould say like, has really
identified like four or fivemajor issues right.
So further value addedproduction opportunities, and
value added production I mean interms of meat, I mean things
like sausage, jerky, meat sticks, but also things like bone
(17:16):
broth, rendered lard, pet trees.
Chef James (17:18):
There we go.
Okay, I was going to ask thatyou know pâtés, meatballs, meat
pies, et cetera.
Jake (17:26):
So that's something that Livestock Working Group has
identified.
So we need more value-addedproduction opportunities.
That was also identified in theoriginal Kitchen Table Studies
consultant report.
Logistics and transportation,which is a tricky wicket but one
Ren and I spent a lot of timetalking about and thinking about
Cold storage capacity Workforce, which is always challenging
(17:54):
and an idea that was also in theoriginal report by KTC and
continues to be somethingdiscussed with Livestock Working
Group, which is a moreorganized sort of effort towards
aggregation and or co-brandingof meat products.
Chef James (18:10):
Okay, like a cooperative sort of umbrella.
Jake (18:12):
Could be a cooperative Could be there's a lot of
different ways it could go butessentially a way of creating a
sort of new market stream forlivestock producers entering new
markets, or a new sales channelLike e-commerce.
It could be e-commerce, itcould be, you know.
(18:34):
So back to the value-addedproduction part of the.
The origin of that conversationwas like we were talking about
cold storage, right, and like,okay, so we everybody feels like
they need cold storage.
What is it?
And then we'd ask people whatis in your cold storage right
now, whether it's something coldstorage you have on your farm
or you're making space somewhereelse, or you just are storing
(18:56):
it at your meat processor, whichunfortunately happens.
What came out of theconversation and Matt LaRue
calls this the cold storagefallacy, which is about 10% of
that for most farmers wereproducts that just are really
hard to sell.
So feet, bones, fat, organ meatand me being a butcher with a
focus on value-added production,I was like well, there's a real
(19:17):
opportunity there.
And a lot of the farmersreported that they just tell
their processors to throweverything out at this point,
that they've reached their limitof what they can keep in their
cold storage, so throw the restout and that's painful for me
because that's essentially moneybeing thrown out.
If there was the opportunity toturn those bones into bone
broth, take those chicken liversand turn them into liver pate
(19:39):
or a dog treat.
But when you start to talkabout that, there becomes a
capacity issue, which is, likeyou know, if off the shelf farm
one of my favorite poultry farmshere in Marlborough they may
only have 10, 50 pounds ofchicken liver and you know that
50 pounds of chicken liversounds like a lot to some people
, but as a meat processor that'snot that- much and so it's hard
(20:00):
for a meat processor to justifymaking chicken liver pate just
for 50 pounds of chicken liverfor one client.
But what if we took 10 farms inthe region?
and they all pulled theirchicken liver together and it
was labeled whatever BerkshireCounty Chicken Liver Right, it
could also have the farm's name,so then it would be co-branded.
(20:21):
It could be one aggregatedsystem.
But there are other questionslike who's going to manage or
operate that?
Who's the facility that's goingto do that?
How do farmers decide who ispart of this pool or not?
So those are some of thequestions we're working on right
now.
But FoodWorks Group is to helpus answer some of those
(20:41):
questions.
We got some funding Bav gotsome funding from the state of
Massachusetts to lookspecifically at value-added
production and cold storageneeds with them to conduct a
market analysis and feasibilitystudy on ways in which we can
expand or create new value-addedproduction opportunities and
more shared use cold storageopportunities.
(21:03):
So we're at the halfway point.
It's been a really excitingprocess, a lot of really cool
stuff that's come out of this sofar and we're really excited to
see sort of the final reportand we have some funds set aside
to help with implementation ofwhatever the recommendations
that come out of that report are.
Chef James (21:22):
That's amazing.
Is it in a sense, anopportunity to like those that
are a part of this programming?
Everybody has a percentage inon cold storage as a specific
location and that's part ofeverybody divvying equipment in
a joint situation.
Jake (21:39):
Yeah, so you're dividing cost.
Yeah, yeah.
Chef James (21:42):
I was curious about that because it's like it's just
so hard in farming and in whatyou get for what you're doing
and trying to get to, that youknow zero waste is so hard.
Wow, that's amazing to knowthat, though.
Yeah.
Jake (21:55):
Okay, wow.
And's amazing to know thatthough.
Yeah, okay, wow.
And then you haven't eventalked about the directory yet,
which is one of my favoritethings.
Ren (21:59):
Yes, the directory is ever-growing.
Jake (22:03):
It's in an.
Chef James (22:04):
Excel.
It's in a Google Sheetsdocument right now.
That's awesome.
Ren (22:07):
And we have 12 tabs, so each tab is for a different kind
of like.
I think of it as a yellow pages.
It helps me wrap my mind aroundwhat it is, so each tab would
be like a different section ofthe yellow pages, so there's um
livestock equipment sources.
There are distributors umpossible outlets for wholesale
(22:28):
veterinarians.
I think we just added a tab forlike general farm repairs and
fix it people.
Chef James (22:36):
Okay.
Ren (22:36):
Really it's.
It covers a lot of differentareas and then in there we have
different entries for you knowwhether it's a store or a person
and their contact informationand their location, and then the
services they provide.
The geographic area that theythat they work in, if that's
relevant and it's growing.
The geographic area that theywork in, if that's relevant and
(22:57):
it's growing.
So we're continuing to getinput from the working group and
other farmers and other peoplethat Jake works with through TA
and expanding it, and we alsojust recently got a grant from
the Extension Risk Management.
Education that will allow us tomove it from Google Sheets onto
a more user-friendly onlineplatform.
Chef James (23:19):
Wow Okay.
Ren (23:21):
Maybe with more like filtering tools and yeah.
Chef James (23:25):
Wow.
And so like right now,hurdle-wise, I mean all this,
all the amazing work, and Idon't think people really
understand you know there's somuch into farming, there's so
much into you know meatfabrication and your passion,
and you're building this andbeing a part of this amazing
process and like putting thattogether.
Do you see?
I mean, are there certainhurdles that kind of come to the
(23:45):
forefront on some of this thatyou're like how do we chisel
away at this one?
Yeah, I don't even know where tobegin, I mean with the with the
resource, the resource guide,with the directory.
Jake (23:56):
So one hurdle is just like you know I'm gonna use, I'm
gonna pick up my neighbor, afellow new melboro person, matt
ferrara.
He's a hoof trimmer.
He's out on the road every daytrimming hoofs for dairy farms
and stuff.
He has a truck.
His number is on the truck.
If you you know, if you're afarmer and you know him, you
know him.
But if you're a new farmer it'svery hard to find Matt.
(24:18):
He doesn't have a website, hedoesn't have a Facebook page,
and so that's just beenchallenging for Ren and I just
like how do we track down thisinformation?
Chef James (24:29):
And make it open to everybody as a centralized area
to go to.
Jake (24:32):
Yeah, so there's logistics to that.
But then when we talk aboutpart of the reason we created
this directory, it started outas just a processor directory,
because people would email us orcall us and say, hey, who else
is out there, who's smokingbacon or where can I get my lamb
slaughtered?
And we decided just to compilea list of all of the processors
(24:53):
in the region, including theirinspection status and where they
are, etc.
So we created that and madethat public.
And then when Ren and I wereworking on the transportation
and logistics issue and peoplewere emailing us and saying, hey
, I need to get my.
You know, I have three wholepegs a week that need to go into
New York City because I havethree butcher shops or you, you
(25:15):
know one butcher shop and tworestaurants who buy those for me
every week.
Yeah, but I don't want to drivedown there every every week.
Who should I call?
So we started to put together alist of different logistics
operators and then it was apretty short list and we're like
, oh, this, there's a real needhere wow, so you circle that.
Chef James (25:32):
What could what?
What do we do that?
Jake (25:34):
and that was confirmed by further conversations with
livestock working group of likeyeah, this is, this is
challenging like.
Another example for why we'refocused on logistics and
transportation is, uh, just touse one example, eagle bridge, a
really great solder house up ineagle bridge, new york, about
an hour and 40 minutes away fromhere.
They're one of the mainprocessors for our region.
(25:55):
You know, any given week theremight be 10, 20, 30 farmers from
berkshire county driving upthere and back once or twice a
week separately, bringing theirlivestock down and then getting
the cut and wrapped, finishedfrozen product and bringing it
back to the farm.
It's that, you know, that'spainful.
I'd much rather see umchristian stovall from hidden
(26:16):
mountain farm out in the fieldwith his sheep than on the road
driving up the eagle bridgetwice a week okay passing three
of his other farmer friends, youknow.
Yeah, so is there a way we cancreate more efficiencies around
that?
But but wow there's a lot thatgoes into figuring that out it
really.
Chef James (26:30):
It's unbelievable.
So, literally, it's likegetting the cold storage big
enough and maybe puttingtogether a transportation unit
that our producers and farmersthey're kind of like.
You're a part of this ordinance, you know the group.
That's hands-off.
This is what we're here to helpyou orchestrate and you can
focus on what.
You're where you want to seethem, which is their passion.
Jake (26:53):
Yeah, yes and no.
I mean part of the challenge islike Berkshire Grown or
Berkshire Agricultural Ventures.
They don't necessarily want tobe in the business of running a
logistics company, and so that'sthe other part of what Ren and
I are doing is like, who is outthere who might want to be in
that business?
Chef James (27:08):
Oh, I see Like a partnership.
Jake (27:09):
Yeah, what can we do to support them?
Can we give them alone?
Can we write a grant so thatthey can get grant funding to
start this business?
Okay, can we help them network.
A lot of what Ren and I do issimply just networking right.
Chef James (27:21):
Okay, okay.
Jake (27:22):
Oh, climbing tree farms, going to New York City once a
week to drop off pigs, and so isKinderhook Farm.
Have you guys talked to eachother yet?
Yeah, and you, sometimes theyhave, sometimes they haven't,
and that's been some of thereally wonderful outcomes of the
work we're doing and it's notthat sexy you can't say.
(27:49):
Well, this week we connectedthese three farms and they're
now coordinating, they'regetting their product down to
New York City.
People want to see a big newtruck or a new building, but a
lot of it is that smaller stuffand then, maybe we'll get to
that bigger thing eventually.
Maybe there will be that bigtruck one day that's going down
Route 22 and down to New YorkCity.
But right now we're not quitethere yet.
No one's quite there yet.
So just slowly putting thatstuff together.
Chef James (28:09):
Okay, wow, that's amazing.
Okay, well, I mean it soundslike, I mean it's.
You guys are just off to anamazing start with all of it.
Are there any like other topicsin it that you'd like to talk?
Jake (28:20):
about.
Ren (28:20):
Sure, yeah.
So last month we gathered fiberand hide farmers, processors,
other people in in the fiber andhide world in the Berkshire
Taconics, for the most part, um,and that grew out of something
that Jake noticed, which wasthat where did that come from?
Jake (28:37):
Yeah, it's a good question .
Some of it's just personalinterest, like I happen to love
local fiber, but we have in thisregion we have a larger than
typical number of small ruminantfarmers.
So by small ruminants I meangoats and sheep.
So it's a larger slice of thelivestock farming pie than in
(29:00):
most other places.
Small ruminant farmers arehaving a really challenging time
in general with processingthere.
There are fewer and fewer meatprocessors in the region who are
willing to process smallruminants for a whole number of
different reasons.
So that was something I wasstarting to talk to.
We were starting to talk tosmall ruminant farmers and then
(29:21):
in talking to them they wouldmention when you say like, hey,
what's going on, what's working,what's not, what's challenging?
They'd say, well, you know, Iused to selling hides selling my
sheep hide for $250 at afarmer's market.
That was like people were happyto spend that much money and
that was a really importantrevenue stream for me, wow Okay.
(29:41):
But it's getting harder andharder for me to find someone
who will tan my hides.
Or, you know, we share a sheep,you know, twice a year for their
health, and we have all thiswool but we don't really know
what to do with it, or we have ahard time getting it turned
into yarn, et cetera.
Wow, but we see that as animportant revenue stream for us
(30:05):
and so we started to hear thatmore and more and you know, ren
and I and the team at BAV westarted to talk about that and I
was like you know, I thinkthere's something here and it's
not obvious that it's related tome.
And I and the team at BAV westarted to talk about that and I
was like you know, I thinkthere's something here and it's
not obvious that it's related tomeat, but it is in that most of
these farmers are also raisingtheir animals for meat Right,
and if we're talking aboutcreating a stronger, more
(30:27):
resilient livestock farmingsystem, this is well a smaller
part of it, an important andcrucial part of it, which is
like how to?
So far, we're taking thesimilar approaches and, like we
had already like started toaddress it with the directory,
like we there you know theperson who needs animal health
services, whether they'reraising a fiber sheep or a meat
(30:49):
sheep or a dual purpose sheep,like they need the same vet and
they're like this.
This really complements thework we're doing and wow we see
and hear a need for it.
Um, you know, like, uh, maryburley, uh, who took over her
mom's farm lila's mountain lamblike she's really interested in
fiber as a as a part of her farmbusiness, like she's so
(31:09):
passionate about it and we wantto be able to to help her.
Just yeah, you know we werehelping her with getting
slaughter dates.
Now we're trying to help herfigure out how to improve the
fiber part of her business.
Chef James (31:18):
Well, I think it makes sense because, again,
you're talking about trying tofight and work on the zero waste
, and if you're including them,it's like, yeah, I mean hearing
all of this, it's like pullingon a couple strings on a sweater
, Exactly, and you're like okay,and you're like, oh, red whoa,
you know.
And then you guys are justgoing right after it.
(31:39):
I mean, you know, I don't knowit's very inspiring, but it's
got to be very daunting and itcouldn't be in better hands.
I mean very lucky to have bothof you.
Jake (31:50):
Wow, yeah, okay, it does feel like we're pushing a
boulder up a hill, but it's areally enjoyable experience.
Ren (31:57):
But there are moments I think, where it feels like we're
pulling on a thread and thenall of a sudden a whole bunch
comes.
Having the fiber and hidefarmers all together in the room
was one of those moments whereI was like, oh, the boulder just
walked itself up the hill for aminute walked itself up the
hill for a minute, because whatcame out of that meeting was his
(32:17):
list of priorities for whatwould need to happen to
strengthen strengthen theregional fiber shed and they
basically were the exact samepriorities that came out of the
working group meeting of meatprocessors, farmers and other
people in that value chain.
So we were.
We saw all of a sudden thisvenn diagram coming together,
like that we can work on thesethings at the same time with
(32:37):
different people and kind oflike, get more bang for our buck
.
Yeah, you know, have a biggerimpact on more farmers.
Chef James (32:45):
That's amazing, okay .
Well, I mean I guess for me, youknow, looking at all of it, you
know hearing kind of thejourney of what you all, what
we're doing here in theBerkshires, to you know, again,
between the big four and thecompanies and things there.
You know, because some of ourother areas across the US and
(33:05):
some of the people that I'vetalked to, they are dealing with
the slaughterhouse issue thatyou know they're kind of closer
to those farms and they werekind of getting steamrolled,
unfortunately, and they continueto drop off and that's very sad
to see, I think, to hear youknow, hey, we do have the
capability with theslaughterhouses here, but it can
bottleneck but we're looking atcold storage and transportation
(33:26):
.
You know, I think that's justthe power of a very amazing
community to you know, keeppushing forward and I think,
again, being an example to whatwe're doing, I mean there's
another person I was talking to,aj Richards, which he does from
the farm and he's working one-commerce, which is literally
kind of like that national mapof like here's New England, and
(33:49):
build a system that can networkall these farmers in these
regions so that if somebody goeson that website you can order
specifically from that farm andit ships direct from that farm.
So you know, I think, hearingall of this amazing work that
everyone's doing, you know it'svery powerful and you're doing
what you love to do and whatyou've been destined to do, and
(34:10):
I think that I'm excited to seethe future.
Jake (34:12):
Yeah, I think we both are.
No, I mean, if you'reinterested in the work we're
doing, we encourage you to signup for the Meetup newsletter,
and that's a great way ofstaying up to date, as well as
signing up for the Berkshire AgVentures newsletter and the
Berkshire Grown newsletter.
Okay, anything else you want toadd?
Ren (34:31):
Check out the resource guide.
Jake (34:33):
Okay.
Ren (34:34):
And there's contact information on there to add
listings or send us ideas welland also donation wise.
Chef James (34:41):
Is there any support like that you can use that?
Jake (34:43):
they find that on the website yeah, we're both, you
know, small not-for-profitsworking here in the brick shoes.
We're mainly small donor funded, so yeah so both organizations
could always use power up more,more yeah.
Chef James (34:56):
Amen to that one.
Okay, all right, well, jake.
Thank you, ren.
Thank you so much, and yourtravel to get here.
This has been outstanding Thankyou.
Jake (35:05):
Thank you, James.
Chef James (35:06):
Yeah, all right, everyone, that is a wrap.
You can check us out if youlike that.
Subscribe Also the InstagramChef Mas massey.
Let's keep it simple,chefmasseycom.
Have a good one.
Bye for now.
Hey everyone, welcome to Chef Sense.
I'm your host, chef Massey.
Alright, so welcome to thepodcast.
Super excited here We've gotJake Levin and Ren Constas.
Thank you both for being here.
How are you both doing?
Pretty good, yeah, happy toexcited.
Here We've got Jake Levin andWren Constas.
Thank you both for being here.
How are you both doing?
Ren (00:27):
Pretty good.
Yeah, I'm happy to be hereAwesome.
Chef James (00:30):
I have to say I read that really nice article that
Berkshire Grown put out and youknow, berkshire Grown, I mean
it's just it's been such anamazing organization to just
keep connecting the community.
Man, you guys are awesome.
Like I've got to get thiscollaboration.
You know that we'll get intothat you both are involved with
and thank you so much for doingthat and leading the way and
(00:53):
being an inspiration on that.
So can you kind of share yourspecific positions in your
organization with our listeners?
Do?
Ren (01:00):
you want to start, sure.
Jake (01:01):
My name is Jake Levin and I grew up here in the Berkshires
.
I've been working as a wholeanimal butcher in the Berkshires
for 12 years now.
I moved back home to work withJeremy Stan at the meat market
and have been working variouscapacities ever since then in
the Berkshires and Hudson Valley.
I've also been on the board ofBerkshire Grown for 11 years now
(01:25):
.
When Berkshire AgriculturalVentures, which is the
organization I work for, firstgot started about seven years
ago, I was pretty excitedbecause they were filling an
important gap that wasn't beingfilled in terms of supporting
farmers and agribusinesses and Ithought it was a great
complement to the work BerkshireGrown was doing.
Then, at the height of COVID,my now colleague, dan Carr, who
(01:50):
works for BAV, convinced BAVthat there was some serious need
to focus more attention on ourlocal meat processing systems,
the local meat processing valuechain, and by value chain I mean
the system that takes the rawproduct, the live animal, all
the way to the consumer andevery step of the way, with a
(02:12):
particular focus on meat process, on the meat processing
bottleneck.
You know COVID really drewstark relief to what a critical
issue that was.
Those problems existed beforeCOVID but COVID really
highlighted that and made thegeneral public much more aware
of that.
You know the Berkshires andHudson Valley is livestock
farming is a really importantpart of the agricultural systems
(02:33):
here.
Dan is a livestock farmerhimself.
So when BAV started to explorewhat could be done on that front
, I was one of quite a fewpeople they reached out to to
sort of form a sort of looseworking group to help inform the
direction BAV takes, thestrategy they take.
The result of that was a reportthat they commissioned from a
(02:54):
consultancy group called KitchenTable Consultants to make
recommendations on what BAVcould do to further support
livestock farmers and meatprocessors in the region.
The sort of findings of thereport was there probably isn't
a real need for anotherslaughterhouse, counter to
popular opinion.
You know slaughterhouses have alot of capacity.
The challenge is it's thatsmall window of time when
(03:17):
everyone's sending their animalsto a slaughterhouse.
That is challenging.
But regionally we're quite richin USDA meat processing
facilities when they saw a realopportunity was to working with
the existing meat processors toexpand capacity, to improve
operations, to be able to bringmore animals in and serve more
livestock farmers.
So based on that recommendation,berkshire Agricultural Ventures
(03:39):
applied to a regional foodsystems partnership grant, which
is a USDA grant, and thatpartnership consisted of working
along with BAV is BerkshireGrown One Berkshire, berkshire
Regional Planning Commission andKitchen Table Consultants who
originally wrote the report.
So in 2021, berkshireAgricultural Ventures was
(04:01):
awarded the RFSP the RegionalFood Systems Partnership Grant,
and the first thing they did wasto post for someone to manage
and run that grant and thesubsequent program that came out
of that grant the Local MeatProcessing Support Program and
they reached out to me to see ifI knew anybody who might be
interested in applying or if Imight be interested in applying,
(04:21):
and I had been a meat cutterfor over a decade at that point
and I was ready to sort of stepout of a cold cement box and try
something a little different.
And so I applied for the job andluckily, I was hired.
So I've been working now withBAV as the local meat processing
(04:42):
support program manager forjust over two years.
There's a lot we are doing inthat program, but one of the
most important and satisfyingparts of the job has been the
livestock working group thatwe've convened to help inform
the work we do, and that's acritical part of the partnership
.
So Berkshire Grown was ran intothat grant to help manage and
(05:06):
facilitate the livestock workinggroup in the subsequent
meetings.
Chef James (05:09):
Wow, so I'll hand it over to Brett oh, there we go,
wow Okay.
Ren (05:13):
I come into the story.
Almost exactly a year agoactually, I met Jake and Dan and
Margaret, who's the executivedirector of.
Berkshire Grown.
Who's the executive director ofBerkshire Grown?
At an interview I saw the joblisting on a listserv and it was
really up my alley, just what Iwas looking for.
I was coming out of seven yearsof work in agriculture, kind of
(05:47):
moving between production andslightly more bigger picture ag
service work, some logisticssupport, which really tied into
the work that I do now with thelivestock working group Okay.
So I had just completed twoyears of farming work at a
vegetable farm and at a sheepfarm in Pine Plains in Millerton
New.
Chef James (05:59):
York, oh, okay.
Ren (06:00):
And was looking to move more, just to give my body a
break and move more intocomputer work and also after
having worked in agriculture inthis area, I was starting to
really notice some patterns andI wanted to work on some of
these bigger picture solutions.
So I was so excited to see thejob posting and then talk with
(06:21):
Jake and Dan and Margaret andhear about their approach to
bringing farmers together withother people who are working in
those value chains and getpeople in the room together and
talk.
Chef James (06:32):
Yeah, wow.
Ren (06:34):
So yeah, so I've been working with Jake and the
livestock working group forabout a year.
Okay, and I coordinate theworking group.
So I do everything, fromsending the emails setting the
times for the meetings, Ifacilitate the meetings and then
jake and dan and I worktogether after those meetings to
kind of pull out the importantthreads of what we're hearing
(06:55):
and use that information to keepinforming how we're going to
the directions that we go tosupport farmers and to support
this food system wow, that'samazing and that's just so much
to do.
Chef James (07:06):
I mean both of you, you know, taking that on with
this project.
When do you see this like Imean you're working on it now
like the big rollout is there.
Are you underway?
Is there kind of like a, aschedule of events, as you're
kind of like working through theprocess?
Is that kind of hard to say?
Jake (07:24):
That's a great question.
It's an ongoing process.
You know, we are really lookingat the whole value chain and so
that requires lots of differentkinds of efforts and different
kinds of projects.
So you know, sort of breakthings down, I would say,
(07:45):
basically the way that the localmeat processing support program
has functioned so far.
Really it falls into twooverarching categories.
One of those is everything thathappens sort of under the
umbrella of the livestockworking group and that's really
focused more on the value chaincoordination and infrastructure
(08:06):
development.
The other side of the work thatI'm really focused on is the
technical assistance andfinancial assistance that we
provide meat processingfacilities in the middle of the
value chain operators.
So to sort of back up a littlebit, berkshire Agricultural
Ventures is a not-for-profit.
So to sort of back up a littlebit, berkshire Agricultural
Ventures is a not-for-profit.
(08:26):
We're based in Great Barringtonand we have a service area of
four counties in three states.
So Berkshire County inMassachusetts, litchfield County
in Connecticut and Columbia andDutchess County in New York.
Bab's mission is to help fosterand support a more just and
equitable and resilient localfood economy.
And really the way I like tothink about it is we have BAV,
(08:51):
has Berkshire agriculturalventures has two main tactics
for for doing that kind of work.
One is we provide technicalassistance, so that's sort of a
wonky term for basicallyconsulting Okay To farmers and
agribusinesses, and that Again,this is broadly speaking for the
whole program.
That can be anything fromgrazing planning or irrigation
(09:14):
planning all the way to businessplanning, financial planning,
marketing support, feasibilitystudies etc.
So it's a wide gambit.
A lot of the work we do isactually focused on business
technical assistance.
That's where we see a huge needWriting business plans, writing
marketing plans, etc.
Wow.
The other side of it is we domicrofinancing.
Oh, and the bulk of what we dois we do low-interest loans to
(09:40):
farmers and agribusinesses, andwhen I say low-interest loans, I
mean really low-interest loans.
Wow.
So the prime rate right now is9%, I think about around 9%.
Okay, we're offering 3% loans.
So that's basically it's noteven enough to really pay for
our services, but it's enough tosort of help support our
director of lending, and then wealso do micro grants, so up to
(10:03):
$5,000 in grants to farms andfood businesses, and the thing
that we do more and more ofthese days and has all of us at
BAV quite busy right now is sortof connecting the two things.
We do a lot of grant writingsupport, so either in-house or
we'll hire a grant writer towrite a grant on behalf of a
(10:24):
farm or food business and wehave a really high success rate
with that.
So that is basically the otherpillar of what I'm doing in the
local meat processing supportroom is I'm working with
existing meat processors,providing them with technical
assistance.
Again, that's like sometimesit's focusing on their
bookkeeping and financialmanagement, sometimes it's
(10:45):
focused on their HR management,sometimes that's for food safety
planning and facility designand operational.
On top of that, we offer loans.
So we have an $840,000revolving loan fund that
dedicated to meat processors.
So we're issuing loans.
So far in the last two years Ithink, we've issued about almost
(11:06):
half a million dollars in lowinterest loans to meat
processors to meat processorsand we've secured just over a
million dollars in grant fundingthat's gone directly to meat
processors.
Chef James (11:20):
Oh, that's amazing, wow, congratulations.
Jake (11:21):
Thank you.
Yeah, it's really rewardingwork.
Yeah, so that's the one side ofwhat I've been doing, that's to
work directly with meatprocessors to help them improve
their operations so that theycan work with more farmers in
the area.
On the other side of this work,I do really closely with Wren
with the Livestock Working Group.
So the goal of establishing theLivestock Working Group was
(11:45):
really twofold.
One was to help facilitate andfoster better communication
across the regional value chain.
Okay, and so Ren can talk moreabout it in a second, but we
have 10 members in the LivestockWorking Group representing that
whole value chain, oh, wow.
The other part is for thatgroup to help identify areas of
value chain coordination andinfrastructure development that
(12:08):
BAV and Berkshire Grown canfocus on to further support the
resilience and strengthening ofthose systems.
The Livestock Working Group hasidentified a few key issues, but
some of the things that havedeveloped out of the work that
Ren and I have been doingtogether and we've been doing
with Livestock Working Group isRen manages the listserv and the
(12:30):
newsletter that we send outcalled the Meetup Okay, very
cool.
Manages the listserv and thenewsletter that we send out
called the meetup okay, um, verycool.
We've developed and arecontinuing to develop a
livestock resource guide, slashdirectory and we have
established a free hotline inpartnership with agriforging
food safety.
So that's a food safety andhasap uh hotline.
(12:51):
Hasap standsCP stands forHazardous Analysis and Critical
Control Points.
It's again a very wonky term,but it basically is the food
safety plan that anyUSDA-inspected meat processing
facility has to work off of andgo by, and it's a very confusing
and overwhelming topic the foodsafety and HESA planning and
(13:12):
both farmers and meat processorsoften have questions about it
but don't have an outlet forgetting those questions easily
answered.
Oh, okay, so we have developedthis hotline that anybody can
call into and get the answersfrom a food safety expert,
nicole Day, who's been anincredible partner in all of
this.
And then we have coming down thepipeline a whole bunch of tools
(13:34):
and workshops that we'recurrently developing.
So we have a marketing workshopthat we're going to kick off
sometime next year for livestockfarmers.
We are developing a tool withKitchen Table Consultants and
our friend and colleague, mattLaRue from Cornell Cooperative
Extension.
Matt developed a meat pricingcalculator tool years ago.
(13:56):
That's really useful.
So we're developing a paralleltool, that's the cost of
production tool, because inorder to figure out your pricing
, you need to know how muchyou're spending, and that's a
question a lot of farmers don'tknow how to answer.
So this will be a calculatortool to help you develop your
(14:19):
cost of production, which thenyou can take those numbers and
more accurately use the cop, themeat pricing calculator tool.
Okay, um, wow.
I'll let you talk more aboutthe meetup and the directory
sure yeah, there's a lot to sayabout that.
Ren (14:28):
Yeah, amazing okay yeah, so the meetup is the same name for
the listserv and the newsletter, and the listserv is hosted on
Google groups.
We have about a hundred membersright now, I think.
I think we have 101 exactly.
Chef James (14:45):
Okay, okay.
Ren (14:46):
Yeah, and the idea is to similar to the livestock working
group, to have people kind ofbe able to be in conversation
with each other, who worktogether all the time, whether
that's farmers and processors ordistributors and service
providers who are making up thismeat value chain in the region
(15:07):
but don't always get a chance tohave a forum to talk to each
other ask questions or problemsolve together.
Share resources.
So we're seeing it getting usedmore and more.
People are putting questionsout there and getting their
questions answered.
We send out a digest about oncea week, every 10 days, sharing
events and resources andinformation that we're gathering
(15:28):
from all over the place just toput that information out there
okay um, and, and then thenewsletter has about 250
subscribers and we send that outevery other month and it
summarizes the work that thelocal meat processing support
program has been doing recently.
(15:51):
We usually send out the reportof the most recent working group
meetings so that people can seewhat we're talking about and
how things are developing.
We also share updates in theregion, whether that's a butcher
shop that's opening up or aprocessing facility that's
gotten USDA certification.
We share events, webinars fromall over the country that people
(16:14):
can tune into to learn aboutmeat related information,
marketing trainings anddistribution trainings, and you
got all kinds of conversationsthat are happening online that
people can tune into and then,we spotlight somebody who's
doing work in this world that wethink is interesting, that
we're learning and gettinginspiration from that.
(16:35):
We think other people could alsolearn from.
Last month we spotlightedFoodworks Group, which is the
consulting group that we'reworking with.
That's heading the and I'mgoing to butcher it they're
heading the study on local.
Oh no, I'm just going to giveit to you to say Okay, yeah, I
realized I left that out.
Jake (16:55):
That's a big project we have going on right now, is so
the livestock working group, Iwould say like, has really
identified like four or fivemajor issues right.
So further value addedproduction opportunities, and
value added production I mean interms of meat, I mean things
like sausage, jerky, meat sticks, but also things like bone
(17:16):
broth, rendered lard, pet trees.
Chef James (17:18):
There we go.
Okay, I was going to ask thatyou know pâtés, meatballs, meat
pies, et cetera.
Jake (17:26):
So that's something that Livestock Working Group has
identified.
So we need more value-addedproduction opportunities.
That was also identified in theoriginal Kitchen Table Studies
consultant report.
Logistics and transportation,which is a tricky wicket but one
Ren and I spent a lot of timetalking about and thinking about
Cold storage capacity Workforce, which is always challenging
(17:54):
and an idea that was also in theoriginal report by KTC and
continues to be somethingdiscussed with Livestock Working
Group, which is a moreorganized sort of effort towards
aggregation and or co-brandingof meat products.
Chef James (18:10):
Okay, like a cooperative sort of umbrella.
Jake (18:12):
Could be a cooperative Could be there's a lot of
different ways it could go butessentially a way of creating a
sort of new market stream forlivestock producers entering new
markets, or a new sales channelLike e-commerce.
It could be e-commerce, itcould be, you know.
(18:34):
So back to the value-addedproduction part of the.
The origin of that conversationwas like we were talking about
cold storage, right, and like,okay, so we everybody feels like
they need cold storage.
What is it?
And then we'd ask people whatis in your cold storage right
now, whether it's something coldstorage you have on your farm
or you're making space somewhereelse, or you just are storing
(18:56):
it at your meat processor, whichunfortunately happens.
What came out of theconversation and Matt LaRue
calls this the cold storagefallacy, which is about 10% of
that for most farmers wereproducts that just are really
hard to sell.
So feet, bones, fat, organ meatand me being a butcher with a
focus on value-added production,I was like well, there's a real
(19:17):
opportunity there.
And a lot of the farmersreported that they just tell
their processors to throweverything out at this point,
that they've reached their limitof what they can keep in their
cold storage, so throw the restout and that's painful for me
because that's essentially moneybeing thrown out.
If there was the opportunity toturn those bones into bone
broth, take those chicken liversand turn them into liver pate
(19:39):
or a dog treat.
But when you start to talkabout that, there becomes a
capacity issue, which is, likeyou know, if off the shelf farm
one of my favorite poultry farmshere in Marlborough they may
only have 10, 50 pounds ofchicken liver and you know that
50 pounds of chicken liversounds like a lot to some people
, but as a meat processor that'snot that- much and so it's hard
(20:00):
for a meat processor to justifymaking chicken liver pate just
for 50 pounds of chicken liverfor one client.
But what if we took 10 farms inthe region?
and they all pulled theirchicken liver together and it
was labeled whatever BerkshireCounty Chicken Liver Right, it
could also have the farm's name,so then it would be co-branded.
(20:21):
It could be one aggregatedsystem.
But there are other questionslike who's going to manage or
operate that?
Who's the facility that's goingto do that?
How do farmers decide who ispart of this pool or not?
So those are some of thequestions we're working on right
now.
But FoodWorks Group is to helpus answer some of those
(20:41):
questions.
We got some funding Bav gotsome funding from the state of
Massachusetts to lookspecifically at value-added
production and cold storageneeds with them to conduct a
market analysis and feasibilitystudy on ways in which we can
expand or create new value-addedproduction opportunities and
more shared use cold storageopportunities.
(21:03):
So we're at the halfway point.
It's been a really excitingprocess, a lot of really cool
stuff that's come out of this sofar and we're really excited to
see sort of the final reportand we have some funds set aside
to help with implementation ofwhatever the recommendations
that come out of that report are.
Chef James (21:22):
That's amazing.
Is it in a sense, anopportunity to like those that
are a part of this programming?
Everybody has a percentage inon cold storage as a specific
location and that's part ofeverybody divvying equipment in
a joint situation.
Jake (21:39):
Yeah, so you're dividing cost.
Yeah, yeah.
Chef James (21:42):
I was curious about that because it's like it's just
so hard in farming and in whatyou get for what you're doing
and trying to get to, that youknow zero waste is so hard.
Wow, that's amazing to knowthat, though.
Yeah.
Jake (21:55):
Okay, wow.
And's amazing to know thatthough.
Yeah, okay, wow.
And then you haven't eventalked about the directory yet,
which is one of my favoritethings.
Ren (21:59):
Yes, the directory is ever-growing.
Jake (22:03):
It's in an.
Chef James (22:04):
Excel.
It's in a Google Sheetsdocument right now.
That's awesome.
Ren (22:07):
And we have 12 tabs, so each tab is for a different kind
of like.
I think of it as a yellow pages.
It helps me wrap my mind aroundwhat it is, so each tab would
be like a different section ofthe yellow pages, so there's um
livestock equipment sources.
There are distributors umpossible outlets for wholesale
(22:28):
veterinarians.
I think we just added a tab forlike general farm repairs and
fix it people.
Chef James (22:36):
Okay.
Ren (22:36):
Really it's.
It covers a lot of differentareas and then in there we have
different entries for you knowwhether it's a store or a person
and their contact informationand their location, and then the
services they provide.
The geographic area that theythat they work in, if that's
relevant and it's growing.
The geographic area that theywork in, if that's relevant and
(22:57):
it's growing.
So we're continuing to getinput from the working group and
other farmers and other peoplethat Jake works with through TA
and expanding it, and we alsojust recently got a grant from
the Extension Risk Management.
Education that will allow us tomove it from Google Sheets onto
a more user-friendly onlineplatform.
Chef James (23:19):
Wow Okay.
Ren (23:21):
Maybe with more like filtering tools and yeah.
Chef James (23:25):
Wow.
And so like right now,hurdle-wise, I mean all this,
all the amazing work, and Idon't think people really
understand you know there's somuch into farming, there's so
much into you know meatfabrication and your passion,
and you're building this andbeing a part of this amazing
process and like putting thattogether.
Do you see?
I mean, are there certainhurdles that kind of come to the
(23:45):
forefront on some of this thatyou're like how do we chisel
away at this one?
Yeah, I don't even know where tobegin, I mean with the with the
resource, the resource guide,with the directory.
Jake (23:56):
So one hurdle is just like you know I'm gonna use, I'm
gonna pick up my neighbor, afellow new melboro person, matt
ferrara.
He's a hoof trimmer.
He's out on the road every daytrimming hoofs for dairy farms
and stuff.
He has a truck.
His number is on the truck.
If you you know, if you're afarmer and you know him, you
know him.
But if you're a new farmer it'svery hard to find Matt.
(24:18):
He doesn't have a website, hedoesn't have a Facebook page,
and so that's just beenchallenging for Ren and I just
like how do we track down thisinformation?
Chef James (24:29):
And make it open to everybody as a centralized area
to go to.
Jake (24:32):
Yeah, so there's logistics to that.
But then when we talk aboutpart of the reason we created
this directory, it started outas just a processor directory,
because people would email us orcall us and say, hey, who else
is out there, who's smokingbacon or where can I get my lamb
slaughtered?
And we decided just to compilea list of all of the processors
(24:53):
in the region, including theirinspection status and where they
are, etc.
So we created that and madethat public.
And then when Ren and I wereworking on the transportation
and logistics issue and peoplewere emailing us and saying, hey
, I need to get my.
You know, I have three wholepegs a week that need to go into
New York City because I havethree butcher shops or you, you
(25:15):
know one butcher shop and tworestaurants who buy those for me
every week.
Yeah, but I don't want to drivedown there every every week.
Who should I call?
So we started to put together alist of different logistics
operators and then it was apretty short list and we're like
, oh, this, there's a real needhere wow, so you circle that.
Chef James (25:32):
What could what?
What do we do that?
Jake (25:34):
and that was confirmed by further conversations with
livestock working group of likeyeah, this is, this is
challenging like.
Another example for why we'refocused on logistics and
transportation is, uh, just touse one example, eagle bridge, a
really great solder house up ineagle bridge, new york, about
an hour and 40 minutes away fromhere.
They're one of the mainprocessors for our region.
(25:55):
You know, any given week theremight be 10, 20, 30 farmers from
berkshire county driving upthere and back once or twice a
week separately, bringing theirlivestock down and then getting
the cut and wrapped, finishedfrozen product and bringing it
back to the farm.
It's that, you know, that'spainful.
I'd much rather see umchristian stovall from hidden
(26:16):
mountain farm out in the fieldwith his sheep than on the road
driving up the eagle bridgetwice a week okay passing three
of his other farmer friends, youknow.
Yeah, so is there a way we cancreate more efficiencies around
that?
But but wow there's a lot thatgoes into figuring that out it
really.
Chef James (26:30):
It's unbelievable.
So, literally, it's likegetting the cold storage big
enough and maybe puttingtogether a transportation unit
that our producers and farmersthey're kind of like.
You're a part of this ordinance, you know the group.
That's hands-off.
This is what we're here to helpyou orchestrate and you can
focus on what.
You're where you want to seethem, which is their passion.
Jake (26:53):
Yeah, yes and no.
I mean part of the challenge islike Berkshire Grown or
Berkshire Agricultural Ventures.
They don't necessarily want tobe in the business of running a
logistics company, and so that'sthe other part of what Ren and
I are doing is like, who is outthere who might want to be in
that business?
Chef James (27:08):
Oh, I see Like a partnership.
Jake (27:09):
Yeah, what can we do to support them?
Can we give them alone?
Can we write a grant so thatthey can get grant funding to
start this business?
Okay, can we help them network.
A lot of what Ren and I do issimply just networking right.
Chef James (27:21):
Okay, okay.
Jake (27:22):
Oh, climbing tree farms, going to New York City once a
week to drop off pigs, and so isKinderhook Farm.
Have you guys talked to eachother yet?
Yeah, and you, sometimes theyhave, sometimes they haven't,
and that's been some of thereally wonderful outcomes of the
work we're doing and it's notthat sexy you can't say.
(27:49):
Well, this week we connectedthese three farms and they're
now coordinating, they'regetting their product down to
New York City.
People want to see a big newtruck or a new building, but a
lot of it is that smaller stuffand then, maybe we'll get to
that bigger thing eventually.
Maybe there will be that bigtruck one day that's going down
Route 22 and down to New YorkCity.
But right now we're not quitethere yet.
No one's quite there yet.
So just slowly putting thatstuff together.
Chef James (28:09):
Okay, wow, that's amazing.
Okay, well, I mean it soundslike, I mean it's.
You guys are just off to anamazing start with all of it.
Are there any like other topicsin it that you'd like to talk?
Jake (28:20):
about.
Ren (28:20):
Sure, yeah.
So last month we gathered fiberand hide farmers, processors,
other people in in the fiber andhide world in the Berkshire
Taconics, for the most part, um,and that grew out of something
that Jake noticed, which wasthat where did that come from?
Jake (28:37):
Yeah, it's a good question .
Some of it's just personalinterest, like I happen to love
local fiber, but we have in thisregion we have a larger than
typical number of small ruminantfarmers.
So by small ruminants I meangoats and sheep.
So it's a larger slice of thelivestock farming pie than in
(29:00):
most other places.
Small ruminant farmers arehaving a really challenging time
in general with processingthere.
There are fewer and fewer meatprocessors in the region who are
willing to process smallruminants for a whole number of
different reasons.
So that was something I wasstarting to talk to.
We were starting to talk tosmall ruminant farmers and then
(29:21):
in talking to them they wouldmention when you say like, hey,
what's going on, what's working,what's not, what's challenging?
They'd say, well, you know, Iused to selling hides selling my
sheep hide for $250 at afarmer's market.
That was like people were happyto spend that much money and
that was a really importantrevenue stream for me, wow Okay.
(29:41):
But it's getting harder andharder for me to find someone
who will tan my hides.
Or, you know, we share a sheep,you know, twice a year for their
health, and we have all thiswool but we don't really know
what to do with it, or we have ahard time getting it turned
into yarn, et cetera.
Wow, but we see that as animportant revenue stream for us
(30:05):
and so we started to hear thatmore and more and you know, ren
and I and the team at BAV westarted to talk about that and I
was like you know, I thinkthere's something here and it's
not obvious that it's related tome.
And I and the team at BAV westarted to talk about that and I
was like you know, I thinkthere's something here and it's
not obvious that it's related tomeat, but it is in that most of
these farmers are also raisingtheir animals for meat Right,
and if we're talking aboutcreating a stronger, more
(30:27):
resilient livestock farmingsystem, this is well a smaller
part of it, an important andcrucial part of it, which is
like how to?
So far, we're taking thesimilar approaches and, like we
had already like started toaddress it with the directory,
like we there you know theperson who needs animal health
services, whether they'reraising a fiber sheep or a meat
(30:49):
sheep or a dual purpose sheep,like they need the same vet and
they're like this.
This really complements thework we're doing and wow we see
and hear a need for it.
Um, you know, like, uh, maryburley, uh, who took over her
mom's farm lila's mountain lamblike she's really interested in
fiber as a as a part of her farmbusiness, like she's so
(31:09):
passionate about it and we wantto be able to to help her.
Just yeah, you know we werehelping her with getting
slaughter dates.
Now we're trying to help herfigure out how to improve the
fiber part of her business.
Chef James (31:18):
Well, I think it makes sense because, again,
you're talking about trying tofight and work on the zero waste
, and if you're including them,it's like, yeah, I mean hearing
all of this, it's like pullingon a couple strings on a sweater
, Exactly, and you're like okay,and you're like, oh, red whoa,
you know.
And then you guys are justgoing right after it.
(31:39):
I mean, you know, I don't knowit's very inspiring, but it's
got to be very daunting and itcouldn't be in better hands.
I mean very lucky to have bothof you.
Jake (31:50):
Wow, yeah, okay, it does feel like we're pushing a
boulder up a hill, but it's areally enjoyable experience.
Ren (31:57):
But there are moments I think, where it feels like we're
pulling on a thread and thenall of a sudden a whole bunch
comes.
Having the fiber and hidefarmers all together in the room
was one of those moments whereI was like, oh, the boulder just
walked itself up the hill for aminute walked itself up the
hill for a minute, because whatcame out of that meeting was his
(32:17):
list of priorities for whatwould need to happen to
strengthen strengthen theregional fiber shed and they
basically were the exact samepriorities that came out of the
working group meeting of meatprocessors, farmers and other
people in that value chain.
So we were.
We saw all of a sudden thisvenn diagram coming together,
like that we can work on thesethings at the same time with
(32:37):
different people and kind oflike, get more bang for our buck
.
Yeah, you know, have a biggerimpact on more farmers.
Chef James (32:45):
That's amazing, okay .
Well, I mean I guess for me, youknow, looking at all of it, you
know hearing kind of thejourney of what you all, what
we're doing here in theBerkshires, to you know, again,
between the big four and thecompanies and things there.
You know, because some of ourother areas across the US and
(33:05):
some of the people that I'vetalked to, they are dealing with
the slaughterhouse issue thatyou know they're kind of closer
to those farms and they werekind of getting steamrolled,
unfortunately, and they continueto drop off and that's very sad
to see, I think, to hear youknow, hey, we do have the
capability with theslaughterhouses here, but it can
bottleneck but we're looking atcold storage and transportation
(33:26):
.
You know, I think that's justthe power of a very amazing
community to you know, keeppushing forward and I think,
again, being an example to whatwe're doing, I mean there's
another person I was talking to,aj Richards, which he does from
the farm and he's working one-commerce, which is literally
kind of like that national mapof like here's New England, and
(33:49):
build a system that can networkall these farmers in these
regions so that if somebody goeson that website you can order
specifically from that farm andit ships direct from that farm.
So you know, I think, hearingall of this amazing work that
everyone's doing, you know it'svery powerful and you're doing
what you love to do and whatyou've been destined to do, and
(34:10):
I think that I'm excited to seethe future.
Jake (34:12):
Yeah, I think we both are.
No, I mean, if you'reinterested in the work we're
doing, we encourage you to signup for the Meetup newsletter,
and that's a great way ofstaying up to date, as well as
signing up for the Berkshire AgVentures newsletter and the
Berkshire Grown newsletter.
Okay, anything else you want toadd?
Ren (34:31):
Check out the resource guide.
Jake (34:33):
Okay.
Ren (34:34):
And there's contact information on there to add
listings or send us ideas welland also donation wise.
Chef James (34:41):
Is there any support like that you can use that?
Jake (34:43):
they find that on the website yeah, we're both, you
know, small not-for-profitsworking here in the brick shoes.
We're mainly small donor funded, so yeah so both organizations
could always use power up more,more yeah.
Chef James (34:56):
Amen to that one.
Okay, all right, well, jake.
Thank you, ren.
Thank you so much, and yourtravel to get here.
This has been outstanding Thankyou.
Jake (35:05):
Thank you, James.
Chef James (35:06):
Yeah, all right, everyone, that is a wrap.
You can check us out if youlike that.
Subscribe Also the InstagramChef Mas massey.
Let's keep it simple,chefmasseycom.
Have a good one.
Bye for now.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!