Meet the Michigan Family Farm that Supplies Beef for Marrow Detroit Provisions
We sat down with Tom Dykstra of Moraine Park Farms, who raises the high-quality beef found in our friendly local butcher shop and the beef bacon in grocery stores throughout metro Detroit. Moraine Park Farms humanely raises antibiotic and hormone-free cattle in Zeeland, MI.
Q: One of the core values at Marrow Detroit Provisions is to support local farms and recreate a short supply chain. Can you share the farmer’s perspective on how this supports your business?
A: I think the value of the short supply chain is just the inherent transparency that it represents. I think total transparency is what the customer deserves, and wants, and maybe they don’t understand how rare that is these days.
Everyone likes the idea of farm-to-table and sustainable agriculture, but most people underestimate the challenges involved, and the growing pains that come along with it. What happens to a lot of small farms is when they begin to grow, they don’t grow at a steady pace. When an opportunity presents itself you want to grab it, and it comes with peaks and valleys. It’s easy to raise 10 cows a year and sell them to people on Facebook (like that’s that easy). And it’s easy for a giant farm to raise 10,000 head a year and sell them all on big contracts. But in the middle, I feel with independent businesses of any type, whether they be a farmer, or a butcher shop, a restaurant, or anything like that; it’s easy to be boutique and small and it’s easy to be large and efficient, but the challenge is that middle of the road.
I think the way that Moraine Park Farms and Marrow work so well together is that we grow together. We both try very hard to supply what the other one needs to flourish, so we work with what we have and we try to use everything optimally and efficiently so that we can fuel the demand. The way this relationship works so well is that we both provide consistency, reliability, and kind of a safety net so that way we take out a lot of the peaks and valleys in the supply chain.
Q: At Marrow Detroit Provisions we partner with farmers whose practices show a respect for the land, the environment, and the well-being of their animals. Can you share with our readers how that applies to your farm and your feeding practices?
A: Like us, cows crave a balanced diet, and so I want to provide a balanced diet, not an all-or-nothing diet. I’m probably one of the largest grazers in the state of Michigan, but I’ve found that 100% grass-fed beef is like a strong IPA, you have to have a palate for it. My passion is getting away from paradigms with the typical cattle feeding looked at as an all-or-nothing thing. People think that it either has to be 100% grass-fed or 100% grain-fed. I’m trying to find the balance everywhere.
You know 20 years ago, I remember reading an article about Oskar Blues Brewery in Colorado. When they started, the guy was raising his own cattle. He was feeding on spent brewer's grain. About the same time I started getting brewer's grain from some of the local breweries for my cattle. To me, it was just like a win-win situation because, you know, we had this barley that had already been profitably used by them for making the beer. And really, you could either compost it, or landfill it, or feed it to something; and a cow being a ruminant animal is really ideally suited to utilize those brewers' grains. It just worked great and the cows loved it. It was nutritious. It’s just a great symbiotic thing for everybody.
I have a farm on the West side of the state by Lake Michigan and then we have a large Ranch in the western U.P. by Lake Superior, so both areas get an incredible amount of lake effect. Our ranch is on heavy glacial soil and heavy clay, so you stay green through the summer. Of course, I let the cows graze. That’s healthiest for the animal and it’s easiest for me because I don’t have to do anything. If they’re out on the pasture I don’t have to feed them, I don’t have to scoop up manure, I don't have to do anything, I don't have to start a machine, I just walk out there and look at them and give them some salt. Obviously, I want to do that as much as possible, but there are times when that’s not the best solution. From October through April, you’ve just got wet, heavy ground and if you put hundreds of thousands of pounds of cattle out there with sharp hooves on your wet heavy ground, they’re going to destroy it during the winter months. So Michigan presents challenges but also benefits because of the seasons, and because of the kind of microenvironments and climate.
There are specialty vegetable farms around where I can get parsnips and squash that for whatever reason, didn’t make the grade to put it in the produce section, so I can feed them ugly vegetables. And cherry juice was a big thing that we did. They squeeze the juice out of the cherries as a by-product and then the growers make maraschino cherries. That natural cherry juice is nutritious and it keeps the brewer's grains fresh longer. I mean, they’re just so many little symbiotic relationships in the way we feed.
I just like to bring it all back to basics. Number one: what's best for the land, what’s going to be sustainable for the land, long-term. Number two: what’s going to be best for the animals because we want healthy, content animals. You know, focus on the components of animal welfare and humane treatment. A new meaning of animal husbandry is to simply address the environment you provide them and give them the ability to just be an animal. To choose where they lay down, to choose when they eat when they drink, to give them shelter if there’s bad weather or food when there’s no access to grass. That makes it easier on me too. It’s way easier and more profitable to have healthy content animals and it gives you the best meat so now you’ve created a premium product. It all just flows together, it’s just common sense stuff like what makes them happy, makes the meat good, and makes a customer happy.
It’s not that difficult. I think we just make it difficult sometimes but if you just take a step back and, you know if they’re skinny, give them more food if they’re cold give them some shelter I mean it’s just like anything else let it be simple.
