Roanoke, Virginia – USDA MPPTA Client Story
Meet Hannah Varnell, a farm animal veterinarian residing in Roanoke, Virginia. Alongside her husband, her beagles, and even Martian the goat, she is the driving force behind Wellfarm Veterinary Consultants, a veterinary company dedicated to delivering mobile wellness and herd health services to a variety of animals, including cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, camelids, and backyard poultry across Virginia and West Virginia.
Herd Health
Wellfarm Veterinary Consultants embodies a holistic philosophy of animal agriculture. Their core focus is on herd health and preventive medicine, a mission aimed at reducing disease, enhancing growth, and maximizing profitability for the farms they serve. Each client receives a herd health plan tailored to their specific farm goals, and they can rely on an accessible, proficient, and dependable veterinarian as an integral part of their team.
The Path to Wellfarm Meats
Yet, Hannah's aspirations extend beyond her veterinary practice. She is actively working towards adding Wellfarm Meats to her endeavors. Collaborating with her partner, Shaanthi Nair, Wellfarm Meats will mark their initial venture into sustainable and ethically guided meat processing. Their vision embodies the "One Health Movement," which harmonizes animal health and environmental health. This vision includes setting the gold standard for herd health, humane production, and sustainable agriculture while ensuring the health of production herds and minimizing environmental impact—all while optimizing a farm’s profitability.
Wellfarm Meats processing facility will also address the processing backlog faced by farmers in Virginia. Farmers frequently endure extensive travel to secure slots at USDA-certified processing plants, challenging both their time and resources.
A Path of Resistance
There is no shortage of resistance to challenges of the status quo in animal agriculture. Wellfarm's founders have engaged all levels of the public and private sectors to break into this space but despite having extensive training and experience as food animal veterinarians, this holds little merit in the meat processing industry.
Another pivotal goal of Wellfarm Meats is to bridge a gap in the cattle veterinary system. While veterinarians are integral to various aspects of meat processing, there is a notable void between USDA-certified vets who oversee food safety, meat inspection post-slaughter, and animal welfare at slaughter, and veterinarians like Hannah who operate at the grassroots level in rural communities. The gap encompasses aspects such as animal transport, the livestock market, and feed yard holding areas.
MPPTA Support
In their pursuit of establishing Wellfarm Meats, Hannah and Shaanti have enlisted the support of Chris Roper from the MPPTA program at Flower Hill. They have received invaluable guidance in navigating grant applications and identifying opportunities. Although they are in the preliminary stages of their meat processing plant journey, they have conducted feasibility studies, gathered business documents, and are actively seeking funding through various grants. While their application for the USDA MPPEP grant was not successful in the first round in 2023, Chris, and the team at Stepwell Strategies (https://www.stepwellstrategies.com/), and Steward (https://gosteward.com/) are supporting their second application to MPPEP this fall.
“We’ve been doing a lot of grassroots work over the past year and a half with a lot of failure and a lot of rejection. FlowerHill and Chris Roper have been instrumental in keeping us informed of opportunities.”
Apart from federal grants, Hannah is also pursuing in-state grants. However, many of these grants require that she has secured land for the production facility. Finding a location with a central location and suitable access has proven to be a substantial challenge, involving intricate negotiations with local county governments and economic development boards that can take several months of research, relationships, and site evaluation before knowing that a site is not going to be a fit. This creates a huge bottleneck effect for the progression of the business venture.
Remaining Steadfast
Despite facing rejection and enduring a challenging path, the Wellfarm Meats team remains steadfast in its mission. She underscores the significance of seeking technical assistance and acknowledges the pivotal role played by MPPTA in supporting individuals with aligned goals in the meat processing supply chain, especially those who are underrepresented in the field. Other significant supporters of this mission include the Reinvestment Fund (https://www.reinvestment.com/), the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network (https://www.nichemeatprocessing.org/), and the many animal health and animal agriculture friends, mentors, and community established along the way.
In her own words, "You have to start somewhere, and I can't imagine anybody successfully applying for this grant without getting technical assistance. MPPTA is a big help to getting noticed and heard." Hannah's journey is a testament to the resilience and dedication required to create sustainable and ethical solutions in the meat processing industry.
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Please note: The Meat and Poultry Processing Technical Assistance (MPPTA) Program is funded through a cooperative agreement with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. The MPPTA Project Coordinators do not offer or provide direct contractor services or financial capital, grant writing, or project management services, nor does the voluntary use of MPPTA guarantee the success of a grant application or the grant-funded project