Pastoral Lopez Island seems an unlikely site for a revolutionary innovation in small farming. Northwest Washington’s San Juan Islands are best known as a bucolic weekend retreat for frazzled urbanites. But with the help of a local community land trust working well outside of the box, island livestock growers now have access to a USDA-approved mobile meat processing unit – the first of its kind in the US – that is attracting the attention of agriculturalists across the globe.

With its tourist-based economy, vacation homes, and limited land base, San Juan County suffers from the largest income-housing “affordability gap” in Washington state. Over the past 15 years, the Lopez Community Land Trust has built three clusters of modest but appealing single-family homes for lower-income island residents. According to former executive director Sandy Wood, “This community land trust is one of about three in the nation that have a broader mission, so we also work in the areas of sustainable agriculture and rural economic development.”

“Housing is connected to livelihood and making a livelihood on the land is a major issue in this community,” says Sandy. “Affordable housing was an insufficient response to a larger systemic problem. So interest grew in supporting small-scale agriculture as one of the most desirable and viable year-round economic bases for the islands.” In 1996, when island farmers and the local Washington State University extension agent began talking about increasing opportunities for local food processing, the Lopez Community Land Trust saw an opportunity to implement the parts of its mission that extended beyond affordable housing and the confines of one island.

As recently as 2001, it was illegal for a sheep farmer on Lopez Island to sell his neighbor a lamb chop. A farmer could only sell meat directly by the whole, half, or quarter animal, requiring custom slaughter and a lot of freezer space. Most individuals, restaurants and retailers are only interested in buying meat by the cut. For farmers on the San Juan Islands, the closest USDA-approved slaughter facility was 200 miles away by land and sea. Most island livestock producers would just sell their animals at auctions on the mainland for a fraction of their retail price.

The mobile meat processing unit has provided an efficient alternative that increases the return and local customer base for farmers, and allows consumers to support small island growers. From the outside, the 26-foot mobile meat slaughter unit looks like the long white trailers hauled on 18 wheels that are ubiquitous on our freeways. But this particular trailer is attended by a USDA inspector and is equipped for the on-farm slaughter of cows, sheep, hogs, and goats. The Land Trust has retained ownership of the facility and leases it for a nominal fee to the Island Grown Farmers Cooperative, which was formed for this purpose.

Bruce Dunlop, an apple and sheep farmer from Lopez with an engineering background, has been intimately involved in the development of the mobile processing unit, as a community volunteer and a consultant. He explains, “There was really a three-legged partnership here in the county between the Community Land Trust, the extension office, and the local producers that formed a steering committee.”

A feasibility analysis was conducted with producers and consumers. Bruce reports, “The key findings from the consumer studies were that consumers definitely wanted to purchase local meat products; they wanted to be able to buy small quantities, and they wanted convenient access, which really means farmers’ markets and grocery stores.” With this information in hand, they forged ahead. Bruce laughs now, “We didn’t know any better.”

Says Sandy, “There was absolutely no guarantee this thing was going to get the USDA grant of inspection. It was a big gamble. The program branches of the USDA were very supportive and provided much of the funding for it. But the regulatory arm of the USDA was not at all enamored with the project.” The USDA’s concern was legitimate because the implication for them was if the facility was approved, they would have to provide an inspector. Sandy reports, “But we met their specifications, and they awarded us the grant of inspection. Now I think everybody in the country wants one!”

According to Sandy the trailer and the tow vehicle cost just under $100,000. From start to finish, Bruce estimates the project cost about $350,000, though that doesn’t include countless hours of volunteer time. During the extensive testing period, the mobile processing unit lived in Bruce’s driveway. There were a few glitches to work out. In fact, they had to replace their whole hoist system because it was inadequate for large steers.

Of course slaughtering the animal doesn’t quite make it consumer-ready. Bruce explains, “When the mobile unit leaves the farm the carcasses are all hanging in a cooler being chilled as whole carcasses or quarters. Beef needs to age for two weeks, so it goes someplace where it can sit in a cooler. Then it has to be cut and packaged into consumer-friendly sizes, and that needs to be done under USDA inspection as well. We basically realized that we needed to also operate that cut-and-wrap facility.”

After weathering considerable local opposition in trying to identify an appropriate location on Lopez to build such a facility, the Farmers Cooperative found an easier option not far from the mainland ferry terminal. “We located a suitable facility that wasn’t being used that we were able to lease,” says Bruce. Since this USDA-approved facility was outside San Juan County, the Island Grown Farmers Cooperative expanded its membership to 40 to include farmers in Skagit, Whatcom and Island Counties.

Sandy says, “One of the things that surprised me was when we first started up, we were getting so many calls –way before the unit was ready to go – from high end restaurants in the Puget Sound area. ‘When is the meat going to be ready?’” While those calls still come in, the vast majority of the island meat has stayed on the islands. Some Island Grown Farmers Cooperative members on the mainland sell their meat in local grocery stores and through Seattle-area farmers’ markets, and the cut and wrap facility in Bow offers retail sales two days a week.

The slaughter truck and the cut and wrap facility employ six people full-time. The facilities are financially sustained by membership and user fees. Says Bruce, “We are currently processing 40 head of beef a month and our aging and cutting facility is at capacity.”

The mobile meat processing facility has also had an impact on how farmers manage their land and animals. Sandy explains, “If you’re going to sell at the auction on the hoof, you have to have a huge number of animals to have any kind of income at all, which is hard on the land. Now that farmers can carry their animals all the way to slaughter-ready, they can have fewer cows, rotationally graze them, and grass finish them rather than sending them to the feedlot. Because of the processing unit, farmers are able to change their practices in ways that not only support a healthier physical environment, but also give them larger profits.”

For the consumers, there are unexpected reasons to buy Island Grown meat. Animal cruelty prevention groups are interested in the mobile unit because it minimizes the animals’ suffering. “The unit and the animals are right there in the pasture. They’re stunned in the field where they’re sitting happy as a clam – or a cow! And they don’t have the trauma of transport or the slaughterhouse environment. From a meat perspective, when animals are traumatized before slaughter, their endocrine system responds in such a way that it toughens the meat.”

And if that’s not convincing enough, Sandy says the USDA inspectors who have worked in the mobile unit are impressed. They say this is the healthiest meat they’ve ever seen. They don’t really enjoy working in the packing houses. So to be out in the field and see really healthy meat and healthy animals, they love it. On a personal level they’re very supportive.”

Sandy reflects, “We didn’t realize what a big splash this was going to make. We didn’t know that the problems of small farmers across the nation were so much like ours. But what we’ve learned is that the infrastructure for small-scale farming is just evaporating everywhere. The smaller slaughterhouses in rural areas are closing down; they’re disappearing. So the small producers are left with fewer and fewer options.”

The good news has spread quickly and groups around the globe have inquired about the project. Bruce is now working part-time as a consultant helping others launch their own slaughter facilities. “I think we will see more small-scale slaughter units coming on line” he says. “Farmers are looking at how to control their own destiny. They want to sell direct to the end consumer as opposed to on the commodity markets where you have to be big to succeed.”

Contact
Lopez Community Land Trust
Mobile Meat Processing Unit
Sandy Wood,
Executive Director
P.O. Box 25
Lopez Island, WA 98261
360.468.3723
www.lopezclt.org
lclt@rockisland.com