"Climate-smart" feedlots?

Today Team Wild Idea learned that we were not selected as a USDA—Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant recipient. Despite this setback, we will ride on and continue to produce the healthiest meat on the planet—meat that's 100% prairie grass–fed, grass-finished, and field harvested. We reviewed the list of grant recipients and were thrilled to learn that regenerative organic rock stars like Mad Agriculture and Maple Hill Creamery will receive critical grant funding to scale up. We were also disheartened to see multiple producers that send their animals to feedlots will receive millions of taxpayer dollars. There is nothing climate beneficial about a feedlot (ask John Roulac , Rose Marcario , or Regenerative Organic Alliance ). They are inhumane, potent polluters, and represent all that's wrong with the broken chemical-industrial agricultural system.

Please see below for an excerpt from Wild Idea's application, and if you stand with us, please consider picking up some of our buffalo meat at wildideabuffalo.com.

Let the buffalo roam!

—Phil

Excerpt from Wild Idea's USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Grant Application

Founded by Dan O’Brien in 1997, Wild Idea partners with Native Americans to raise, harvest, process, and sell grass-fed buffalo on preserved and restored native prairies. Wild Idea and its affiliated ranches are positively impacting over 300,000 acres of grasslands. The vertically integrated company’s grass-fed buffalo meat is rich in omega–3 nutrients and leaner than beef, making it some of the healthiest red meat on the planet. The company also supplies sustainable leather to companies like Patagonia .?Approximately half of the company’s employees are Native Americans and women represent half of the leadership team.??

The company’s buffalo are 100% prairie grass–fed, grass-finished, and spend their entire lives on the prairie as part of a prescribed grazing system on managed grasslands. By keeping its animals on pasture their entire lives, the company bypasses Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) entirely and, in doing so, reduces enteric emissions.?CAFOs, which finish most of the red meat sold in the U.S., store their excess manure in lagoons or pits, where they break down anaerobically (in the absence of oxygen), which exacerbates methane production.??Manure that is directly applied to the soil—Wild Idea’s model—has more exposure to oxygen and therefore does not produce as much methane. The 100% grass–fed model also reduces the cost of expensive off-farm inputs, such as grain. Wild Idea Buffalo Co.’s climate-smart approach to nutrient management converts manure from a thorny industry problem to a cost-effective solution for building healthy soil.

The company’s buffalo are humanely harvested in the field using an innovative method for mobile slaughter, which is unique to Wild Idea Buffalo Co. In bypassing the conventional slaughterhouse model, Wild Idea Buffalo Co. has reduced its transportation costs, set a high bar for traceability, and reduced its carbon footprint.?