One of the newest developments in meat processing is a thousand years old.
Field harvesting is steadily growing in popularity as producers and processors alike recognize this method's advantages in terms of humane animal handling and meat quality. For many ranchers, field harvesting is integral to a “one bad day” approach to animal husbandry… providing the animal with a quality, pasture-raised life, followed by one bad day at harvest time.
Liz Riffle, owner and operator of Riffle Bison Farms in West Virginia, shared that philosophy with attendees at the recent Farmer Veteran Coalition stakeholder conference. She noted that field harvesting reduces the stress animals experience in conventional slaughter, which enhances the quality of the grass-fed bison meat she produces.
“It’s so much less stressful for the animal,” Liz said. “When you harvest in the field, you're not getting the stress hormones in the animal, which means we aren’t eating those stress hormones.”
She added, “Plus, it’s a lot easier to load and haul an animal after it’s been dropped than a live animal. And, most processing facilities in our area aren’t set up to handle live bison, giving us more meat processing options.”
Liz and other commercial producers are learning to navigate the regulatory requirements that allow field-harvested bison and beef to undergo the inspection and food safety protocols that allow their products to be sold in restaurants and retail stores.
Elsewhere, Indigenous communities are reviving field harvesting because of its cultural and spiritual significance. It is an event that brings people together to celebrate the role the animals — traditionally bison — play in connecting people with healthy food, healthy land, and healthy families.
Dawn Sherman of Tanka Fund and Nick Hernandez of Makoce Agriculture Development in South Dakota shared their philosophy on the importance of field slaughter to indigenous communities during a recent online roundtable with Flower Hill Institute Regional Directors Chris Roper and Dave Carter.
Nick said, “We’ve been doing this for eight years as a community organization, not only as a way of reconnecting with traditional foods but also to teach our community members about the more traditional ways of harvesting animals.”
Dawn added, “This is a way of re-engaging our youth with their cultures and practices and passing along traditional knowledge.”
Carcass utilization is a challenge for most smaller processing enterprises. Nick notes that their cultural harvest helps instill the importance of utilizing every part of the animal.
“Our focus is not creating waste, but instead utilizing every part of the animal. Traditionally, every part of the animal was used for food, tools, food storage, clothing, and other things. That includes using the organ meats.”
“This is helping to restore healthy food to our communities, and to restore our cultures,” he said.
In an era when technicians in lab coats are bringing us meat cultivated in a petri dish, Liz Riffle, Dawn Sherman, and Nick Hernandez demonstrate that husbandry and harvesting methods rooted in thousands of years of tradition produce some of the best meat possible.
Note: Flower Hill Institute’s Online Toolkit has information on the regulatory requirements for marketing meat from field-harvested animals.