Our Interview with the Stockman Grass Farmer

Georgia Family Converting Farm to Grass-Finishing Operation
By Becky Gillette
AUBURN, Georgia. A farm owned and operated by the same family for more than 100 years dating back to the early 1900s began transitioning to a grass-finished beef operation in 2021. Steele’s Dairy, the old 24-stanchion flat dairy barn, supported four generations of the family. Two sisters, Stephanie Wilbanks and LaDonna Bartmas, now own the farm and work with their cousin, John Huber, who owns the grass-finishing beef operation Broad River Beef, LLC.

John’s grandfather, Farris Steele, ran the dairy until he passed away in 1990. Stephanie and LaDonna’s grandfather and uncle, L.J. and James Steele, maintained small cow-calf operations there after they retired, but could never do as much as they wanted due to health problems.

“Succession planning to maintain the land as a family farm was basically done after the fact and only worked through Providence and the generosity of Stephanie and LaDonna’s aunt, Adele Steele,” John said. “I had already seized on the idea of grass-finished beef as the best option for a sustainable and profitable farm enterprise about the time that Stephanie and LaDonna took ownership of the farm.”

While the grass-finished beef business started in 2021, they had been preparing for decades earlier due to extensive research. “We read almost every book in the Stockman Grass Farmer library, talked with Steve Campbell several times about selecting and finishing cattle, and worked with Charlotte Smith on email marketing,” John said. “We fought the urge to jump in and learn through trial-and-error and instead leaned on the knowledge of really experienced people. Adapting that knowledge to our local conditions was really the only unknown part. There are no other farms in our area that are doing Management-intensive Grazing or grass-only finishing, so there are no local stores that stock what we need. SGF has been a great resource to help us find suppliers across the country for equipment, mineral mixes, apple cider vinegar, and other needed items.”

The farm sells small-sized frozen beef packages, primarily throughout Northeast Georgia and the Atlanta area. They offer standardized packages as small as 1/16th beef and hope to provide individual cuts sometime in the future. The meat is processed at a local USDA-inspected facility and then they arrange delivery directly to their customers. Their website, https://www.broadriverbeef.com/, is the primary tool for taking orders and communicating with the customers.

“For cattle, we are buying yearling and slightly older heifers from other farms,” John said. “They are basically culls because the frame size is too small for the sale barns. These heifers will stay on our farm until they are about 24 months old and ready to process. It’s a challenge to find frame size four and smaller cattle that will fatten on our ‘low-octane’ forage. So far, we have been buying commercial Red Angus and Black Angus cattle. This winter we picked up some commercial Red Angus steers to see how they might work.”

The overall idea is just to purchase the cattle they need for finishing and let others take care of the genetics and cow-calf operations. However, the drought late last spring helped them identify the very few heifers that didn’t require doctoring and continued to gain weight in tough conditions. Then John’s dad, Arvle, helped them with AI to a Pharo Cattle Company Red Angus bull.

“We are looking forward to seeing the results of that mating,” John said. “We also recognize that long-term we probably need to have our own stock of animals to select for finishing, so we’ll continue to observe the heifers and use AI as the opportunity arises.”

The perennial forage on the farm is primarily fescue. Annual rye, cereal rye, and durana clover are seeded for additional forage. They try to minimize hay, but have used a combination of bales from local farms and hay cut from their pastures. Fortunately, the pastures had been limed over the years, so the pH is good. John said the focus now is on increasing phosphorus and a few micro nutrients as well as improving our forage diversity.

“Beyond upgrading the forage and gradually developing our own herd, there are multiple other transitions happening simultaneously at the farm,” John said. “The main transition is that we’re trying to become even better at selecting and grass-finishing cattle while we’re building our tribe of customers. We want to improve the farm and restore some of the older buildings. Eventually, we would like to have an on-farm store.”

However, the goal is to make the farm pay for the improvements rather than rely on off-farm income, so they have to be patient. This year, they’ve been able to add some semi-permanent fencing that makes daily operations much more efficient. All of the family members involved have widely varying experience, personalities, interests, and time available to contribute.

“Part of the transition is finding out how to best work with each other,” John said. “Ultimately, we want to have a clean hand-off to the next generation that will have the privilege of working the farm. Decisions are made collectively on purchasing cattle, daily farm operations, selection and timing for processing, and pricing. LaDonna and Stephanie’s families live nearby and contribute most of the labor that keeps the farm going. The family uses an Excel spreadsheet on Google Docs to coordinate the daily tasks and pass along key information.

Everyone has an off-farm job, so they make a blank calendar each month and fill in the days each person can contribute, then figure out who will cover the open dates. The Excel spreadsheet also captures pasture rotation, cattle weights, and other important records. Marketing responsibilities are shared with a division of labor between the website and social media.

LaDonna said her biggest challenge is educating people on the difference between grain-fed, grass-fed, and grass-finished. “Trying to get them to understand that the quality of meat we are selling is so much better than what you get at your local grocery store or even another local farm is difficult,” LaDonna said. “My husband compares it to cooking with margarine (grain-fed), grocery-store butter (grass-fed), and extra virgin olive oil (grass-finished). They aren’t even the same product.”

John agrees.  “I go to a CrossFit gym and many folks there are very serious about fitness, food, and health,” John said. “When they ask me about what I do, it opens a flood gate of questions because there is so little knowledge about beef production practices. It kind of shocked me a bit and shows how insular our thinking is. We probably make way too many assumptions about potential customers. If these health-savvy people need more information, then we really need to focus our efforts on giving people basic information about the benefits of grass-finished beef. We want to make sure our customers understand the value to their well-being and know how to cook it properly to get full enjoyment from the meat.”

For more information, send an email to family@broadriverbeef.com or call 706-310-8060.