Doc and Connie Hatfield, along with 13 other ranchers in Oregon, joined forces during the farm crisis of the ’80s to sell their beef directly to consumers while maintaining their economic stability. The group formed a cooperative in 1986 named Country Natural Beef (CNB) to make their ideas a reality. Initially, they marketed 200 head in 1987 and have grown to market 60,000 head annually of all-natural, holistically grazed beef from 100 ranches throughout the West.
The co-op is a consumer-driven, producer-controlled company where each rancher is a member of the board of directors that works by a consensus agreement where each member has an equal voice.
According to the CNB website, their values are to sell to consumers beef with the same quality as what they would expect from their own families. This involves holistically raising cattle with responsible grazing, distributing profits back to ranchers to support the local community and finding common ground bridging the rural/urban divide.
What makes the co-op unique is the ranchers go to retail stores to talk with customers and do cooking demonstrations at some of the stores that sell CNB products, such as Whole Foods, New Seasons Market, PCC Community Markets and Newport Meat Company. They also invite retailers out to the ranch.
What also sets CNB apart from other traditional processors is the cattle are not finished in a confined traditional feedlot. CNB works with feeders in Idaho and Oregon, such as Beef Northwest Feeders, where the cattle can access pasture and meet animal welfare guidelines. CNB meets all the requirements for Global Animal Partnership (G.A.P.) Step 4 Certification by using no feedlots, and the animals are on pasture for 75% of their lives with at least 50% plant cover.
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The cattle are processed at AB Foods LLC in Washington and CS Beef Packers in Idaho.
The Grazewell program
The co-op has also implemented the Grazewell program of regenerative agriculture that sets CNB apart from other “natural” programs.
Dan Probert, marketing director at CNB and owner of Lightning Creek Ranch in eastern Oregon, joined CNB in 1996 and told WLJ he had been one of the first individuals involved in implementing the company’s Grazewell program.
The Grazewell program adopts regenerative ranching practices of healthy habitats and soils with biodiversity while sequestering soil carbon. The land management decisions of Grazewell principles are based on the long-term health and productivity of the land, ensuring they are economically, ecologically and environmentally sound.
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Probert said they looked at other programs like the Savory Institute’s Ecological Outcome Verification and Audubon’s Certified Ranch program’s work in holistic management for the Grazewell program, but they took it one step further as those programs end at the ranch gate.
“What we said is we’re going to go the next step and talk about the finishing phase of our animals because they are grain-finished,” Probert said. “We set up a pilot project now which is part of the climate-smart program and we’re essentially integrating our cattle into a cropping system.”
Probert said integrating cattle into a cropping system is one of the tenets of regenerative agriculture and reduces the need for synthetic inputs.
By working with Sustainable Northwest and Northway Ranch Services, the Grazewell program will initially get a baseline of the soil health and the diversity of species composition of the ranches in the co-op over the next three years. Once the baseline is established, practices will be implemented for each ranch with the assistance of Sustainable Northwest and Northway to improve the resource baseline. The program will work with ranchers to increase their level of familiarity with holistic and regenerative ranching based on the ecosystem across their ranch. In five years, they will return to the ranch, measuring the improvements made to the ranchland.
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To establish the baseline, CNB, in partnership with Sustainable Northwest and Northway Ranch Services, received a $10 million grant from USDA’s Climate Smart Commodities program to implement climate-smart grazing practices, such as using a cropping system in beef production.
According to the company, by 2025, they hope to have regenerative grazing practices across 6.5 million acres managed by members in the CNB co-op. At that point, CNB estimates, they will sequester 6-9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), or the CO2 equivalent of burning 10 billion pounds of coal or 1 billion gallons of gasoline.
Probert said the co-op is structured to grow as its customers grow.
“What we try and do is meet the needs of our retailers as they’ve grown, and they’re all growing and have all added stores,” Probert said. “There’s a need for growth just to stay up with them and then the other need for growth is for ranchers that wish to join our program and align with our values.”
If you are interested in joining a network of forward-thinking ranchers, please contact Alec Oliver of CNB at aleco@countrynaturalbeef.com.
