Happy cows, happy farmers, and rosy-colored veal from Kentucky fields where tobacco once sustained a community

Joseph Monroe raises grass-fed calves in Henry County and
markets them with Our Home Place Meat. (Photo by The Berry Center)

When tobacco money largely disappeared in Henry County, Kentucky, it left an economic hole and an opportunity. Mary Berry, daughter of local farmer-activist-author-poet-philosopher Wendell Berry, saw hope in pasture and cattle and put her nonprofit on the case.

"The Berry Center began to think about ways small farmers could make more, and more predictable, money from their cattle operations and landed on the idea of producing veal," Jacalyn Carfagno reports for the Kentucky Lantern. The community did not want to raise the milky, white veal of the past. It chose to focus on the European model: "In Europe veal is different, a rosy-colored meat from calves raised outside, nursing and eating grass."

Thus, Our Home Place Meat was piloted in 2017 with sustaining funds from the nonprofit Berry Center. Its first challenge was "persuading farmers to raise the veal, guaranteeing them a price for it, and finding markets for it," Carfagno writes. “The program began with the principle of guaranteeing a price that took into account farmers’ expenses and added a reasonable profit." Program director Beth Douglas told Carfagno, “With the market you are gambling. We tell the farmers how many cattle we will purchase and at what price. That allows the farmers to plan for the year.”

The program has developed creative partnerships with wholesalers who value relationships such as What Chefs Want!, a Louisville-based wholesaler. They also addressed animal-welfare qualms about veal "by preparing a multi-course meal at The Berry Center in 2017 using rose veal, inviting chefs to taste the product," Carfagno reports. "He cooked sliders, ribeyes, strips and filets, even veal blanc, which he described as 'the national French hangover food' to demonstrate the flavor and versatility of rose veal."

Our Home Place Meat is thriving and John Logan Brent, a member of the Berry Center board and a farmer who sells to the program, "sees a future when this pilot program can grow up and become a full-fledged agricultural cooperative that can pay its own administrative costs," Carfagno writes, "but believes it will have to achieve a scale of about 1,000 head processed annually to get there."

The effort is driven by Wendell Berry's vision, and that of his late father and brother and father, John Berry Sr. and Jr., who founded and headed the now-defunct Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association: "prosperous, well-tended farms serving and supporting healthy local communities."