We Have to Do Something – So, They Did!

Kim Wells looked at her husband Steve in the early 2000s, and they both agreed, “We have to do something about the farm.”?That something, became a business the Wells have built literally from the soil up after transforming their traditional row crop farm to an organic, grass-fed beef operation raising meat and selling direct to customers.?

The road to Barnard Processing LLC and their regenerative cattle business took a lot of travels and a few tests along the way to get there.?Wells (whose maiden name is Heltzel) began, “When I was a child, I had a Potawatomi Grandmother and Dutch Grandfather – it was all about, growing and planting.”

“My father worked in the high iron business and then he drove truck for awhile.?He actually ended up working at various nuclear facilities working shut down, turnarounds,” she went on.?“We would be in a location nine or 10 months.?I went to 10 different schools before graduating high school, all over the southwest, Texas, Florida, and back to Michigan frequently.?It gave me a good education on parts of our nation and what goes on in them.?Every summer, we went to Michigan and spent time with our grandparents, helping with their five-acre garden that supplied food for the family and a store.?My grandparents had some livestock too – hogs and beef.?My uncles also lived all around and had dairy and hog farms.?Agriculture has always been part of our family.”?

Wells also had a career that took flight, literally, as a flight attendant for Reno Air, “In 1986, I decided I needed to plan on something for the future too.?I was in this area of Missouri and saw my first 40 acres, bought it, and then spent very little time there.?Every fall, I came out about a month.?Then, in 1999, I moved here full time and bought the additional 80 acres next to me.”?

“I also met the most amazing farmer – Steve Wells, my husband. Steve is a fourth-generation farmer from right here,” she happily recalled. “We were row crop farmers at the time with a cow-calf operation. We grew soybeans, corn, winter wheat, oats – just the typical ‘apply,’ ‘apply,’ ‘apply,’ and left with not much style farming.”?

“In 2002-2003, we lost quite a bit on the row crop side and spent one evening looking at each other saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do something.’ We did a lot of talking about what we saw for the future of farming and agriculture and made our plans to go organic and raise all cattle as well as sell meat direct.?That’s when we started.?It took until 2006 until we could sell our first beef as meat.?I thought we were going to starve to death – so did the kids,” she said.?

Between the two of them, Steve and Kim have five children, 11 grandchildren, and one great grandchild, “They are amazing, every one of them.?There are no rosy glasses around here – it’s just life every day.”?

The Wells have sold at farmers’ markets and ran a butcher shop in Kansas City in City Market until she said, “COVID came along and turned it into a ghost town.?That’s going to be years, rebuilding from.”?

Still, they are holding tried and true to the farm to fork movement, “This is what’s important, building up local supplies. The only way to do that is if you have access to a meat processing facility. We had issues getting meat processing appointments back to 2016.?Then, in 2019, we bought this ancient facility that has been here since 1939 in the town of Barnard.?So yeah, we refurbished it.?This month, we will have been open two years exactly.”?

Getting licensed as a processing facility is not for the faint of heart, Wells admitted, “Oh my gosh, you want to talk about a paperwork trail??The number of hoops you’ve got to jump through is crazy.?Just as an example – they give you a model of paperwork you have to follow.?They told us, you have to use our words, in your own words, in our format, with your own format, tailored to your facility.?Everything I changed to tailor to our place they said, ‘Oh no, you can’t say it like that.’?But I will give them this, we have some fabulous meat inspectors in our area. They are very helpful and have a good knowledge base in them and they are very dedicated to keeping food supplies safe – they really are.?I am very grateful for that.?I had to invest in a huge bank of file cabinets though!”?

Jumping through hoops and finding a way is exactly what the Wells are willing to do to provide a quality beef product and to also build community, “Another cool thing about this place is, half of our staff live in Barnard with a population of 239 people, and the rest of us live within 15 minutes.?My own kids work here (two of them) and so do long time farmers from the area.?Right now, we have seven employees.”??

Challenges come with any business, Wells said, “The biggest stressor truly is being shut out of any kind of funding.?I am not talking handouts; I am just talking about getting loans. Because, of course, this is a ‘risky business,’ and the way to get around the riskiness is to have people buy direct.?There are farmers around every single city, yet we are programmed into going to Walmart.?We need to be well aware of the fact that people out here farming are not robots, we have families behind us, and we need people to understand that we are out here.?We are doing it right.?We are actually healing the land, and not destructive in our practices.”

The Wells lease a couple other farms in addition to the land they own.?One is a Century Farm they have leased around 15 years, “The most important thing is the grazing, and the stocking rate is huge.?You cannot overstock property.?We run one animal per six acres. We also inter-seed our pastures and broadcast different grasses and legumes.?Our fertilizer is the manure from our cattle.?Once in awhile, we add a little something like seaweed mixtures and fish emulsions.?It’s important not to put the toxins on.”?

“Fly control is another thing,” Wells continued about their cattle practices. “We use diatomaceous earth (the skeletal remains of diatoms), and when it’s free fed to cattle and livestock the body can absorb the minerals from it.?As it travels through their system, the tiny fish bones slice worms and those small bones are also in the manure, slicing the fly larvae and reducing the life cycle of the flies.?It does not impact a lot of the other insects unless they come in direct contact with the manure pile.?We have so much insect activity and worms. We are not out there spraying and all that and it makes a big difference.?With our cattle, we also don’t cut our bulls.?They stay bulls until we butcher them.?We butcher young bulls about 14 months of age, and they didn’t go through the trauma of having been castrated.”?

The Wells raise cattle in an area with ample rainfall, “We are surrounded by lots of beautiful ponds in a very hilly area.?So, the runoff to our ponds is from our place because they are in the hollows.?We get a lot of rainfall here, ahead of the game this year by 10 to 15 inches.?We are getting rain usually about once a week.?This year has been crazy and driven my husband a bit mad trying to get hay done, but we’re not complaining.”?

While the environment for raising grass-fed beef has been mostly a positive one, the acceptance of this style of agriculture has not always been well received, “We have been so shut out it’s not even funny.?I have been laughed out of every bank in a 400-mile radius.?I was called the ‘hippie tree hugger’ for years.?You know, I would hear, ‘How dare I speak about grass-fed beef when only cornfed does it for me?’?Yet we’ve proven it.”?

Still, there are challenges, and one of those is getting a fair valuation on their product, “Just as a for instance, our value of what we raise on our financial statements has never been allowed to be more than a $1 a pound yet the industry is $1.60 a pound. And, it does not matter that I have sold consistently for years at $3/pound.?We just don’t fit the ‘norm’ and we don’t fit into most farm programs because we don’t throw money at crop insurance and the sprays and pesticides.”??

“It has been nice in a respect that in the last five years (give or take), it’s changing somewhat, I have stayed strong on sharing common sense and truth.?So now, I am getting a lot of different feedback like, ‘Wow, I am so glad you’ve continued.’?Before it was all these questions, ‘How can you keep jamming at this?’?I just tell the naysayers, ‘My land is getting healthier every year.’?We make it work.?I get my lace up boots re-soled every year, and I am not a shopper.”

Then sometimes the unexpected happens, “I had an accident with my hands on June 10 a year ago. ?I had used my meat saw for over a decade.?I am only five-foot-four and a half and maybe 110 pounds dripping wet. But, I always kept a lot strength. I mean, I had two older brothers more than six-foot tall. Back in 1994, I nearly severed my spine in two. I was off duty as a flight attendant and we went up in a 172 Cessna, popping around before the Fourth of July, and we hit a massive weather event in the mountains that slammed us to the ground.?I went back to work after that in the skies and my doctors told me then, the stronger you keep your muscles, the less issues you will have.?So, I have always pushed myself.?I am not a stranger to hard work or healing.”

“Back to on June 10 when I was cutting meat,” she recalled. “I turned around and did not turn the saw off.?That’s the first rule, turn it off, and I didn’t that time.?When I looked back, the person helping me on the saw was pulling a piece of meat through and struggling with it slightly. I reached over to nudge it in, and it slipped, making an inch-and-a-half cut into my palm.?It took out my middle finger, so I have no middle finger on my right hand anymore.?It also bent my ring finger, and my little finger is coming back some.?But I spent all day yesterday on the cut floor and have operated the saw since then. As I say, ‘I have been in car wrecks too, but I still drive.’?Stuff happens, we aren’t always going to be able to escape the dangers of what we’re doing.”

“The thing is too you know, sometimes the grandkids tell me I have a gory sense of humor.?I have a phantom flip finger and no high fives anymore, just high four,” she laughed, adding it’s going to be fun on Halloween this year with the costume planning.

Wells said there won’t be any quitting when it comes to moving forward with their dreams for their land and cattle either, “You know, we need to stand strong on local food supplies, whether that be here or worldwide.?Locally produced food needs to be brought back to the communities. Add what you need to from elsewhere, but let’s get what we can going in every area.?The consolidation that has taken over all our industries is one of the most detrimental things I have ever seen quite truthfully.?You know, I know it sounds like I am trying to be on stage at a pageant – (I have never been in a beauty pageant either).?But I am going to say it anyway, I can still really hope for world peace.?There you have it.?I want world peace.”

One day, one person, one acre, and one good cut of quality beef at a time is the route Wells plans to take to get there.?

Follow this family agricultural endeavor at:?https://www.facebook.com/BarnardProcessing/