Producers Share Direct-Marketing Strategies
DAVE LEFEVER
Lancaster Farming Staff
MIFFLINBURG (Union Co.)
Producers and processors of
agricultural products ranging
from beef, milk, and poultry to
garlic and herbs gathered on the
farm of Bill Callahan north of
Mifflinburg Tuesday to share
ideas about how to sell their
goods directly to consumers.
About 20 interested agricultu
ralists, from age eight and up,
toured Callahan’s pasture-based
beef and poultry operation. They
heard Callahan detail the meth
ods he is developing to sell what
he calls “source-verifiable” food
to the local community, includ
ing the towns of Lewisburg and
Mifflinburg.
The meeting was one of a con
tinuing series of grazing-focused
events conducted in the central
Susquehanna area of Union,
Snyder, Northumberland, Mon
tour, Columbia, and Lycoming
Counties.
Begun in 1994 by Columbia
County extension agent Dave
Hartman, the meetings primarily
offer a forum to pasture-based
producers of meat, milk and
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eggs, although the direct market
ing topic of this meeting at
tracted vegetable producers as
well.
Hartman is working to form a
direct-marketing group for local
farmers. According to a survey
he conducted last year, about 20
people from the area are interest
ed in a meat-marketing coopera
tive. Only about half of those,
however, said they would be will
ing to spend time in organizing
it. Hartman pointed out that a
large amount of commitment is
required to make such a coopera
tive work.
“Change is slow to come,”
Hartman said. “But there is a
good niche for small producers.”
In a related project, Callahan
raised the possiblity of a direct
marketer’s map that would high
light all of the farms in the area
who directly sell products. Refer
ring to a similar map already
published in Lehigh County, Cal
lahan said such a map would
provide the benefit of public as
sociation between producers.
“(The map) would put you in
a group setting,”' he said. “It
would allow you to market with
producers who are already mar
keting.”
Callahan is working with the
local Chamber of Commerce to
develop the poster-sized map
which would be displayed in var
ious public locations around the
area.
The map would be another
tool for small-scale marketers to
compete with large-scale food
vendors, Callahan pointed out.
“Our products are fresh in a
way (the supermarket’s) will
never be,” he said.
The group discussed various
other marketing tactics including
a new producers-only market in
Mifflinburg, marketing to tour
ists who come to the area for va
cation, as well as word-of-mouth
advertising through'places of em
ployment, friends and church.
Callahan said that the key to
his own operation is a low-input
approach to producing a final
product that brings a premium
price.
“I buy a healthy, cheap animal
and raise it inexpensively,” he
said.
Callahan described how he
purchases week-old Jersey calves
directly from a dairy farmer
at bargain prices prices
that reflect the undesirabili
ty of Jerseys in the veal
market.
The calves are fed milk
replacer while also learning
to forage in the pasture al
most immediately, picking
at the grass and clover that
will be their sole diet from
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weaning age to slaughter at 18 to
22 months.
“I’ve seen them nibbling grass
at a week old,” Callahan said.
The calves consume about a
50-pound bag of milk replacer
before weaning, at which point
they become totally dependent
on forage.
Part of the late fall and winter
diet for the cattle consists of for
age turnips that Callahan seeds
Bill Callahan feeds milk replacer to his latest batch of
Jersey calves. He will raise the calves on a pasture
based program to an age of 18 to 22 months when they
will be slaughtered and sold directly to consumers in the
form of hamburger. Callahan buys the Jerseys from a
dairy farmer at bargain prices when they are about a
week old. “I buy a healthy, cheap animal and raise it in
expensively,” he said. Callahan receives a premium price
for the lean, grass-fed ground beef.
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in the summertime. He also of
fers hay, either harvested from
his own pastures or bought as
needed.
At slaughter, a typical carcass
will dress out 80 to 85 percent
lean and between 400 and 500
pounds, Callahan said, most of
which is ground into hamburger.
Callahan said he prefers the
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