by
Brian Mann on January 27th, 2011
Nicholville sits just outside the Adirondack Park in St. Lawrence County and a Maine company says it hopes to launch a feed lot that would handle about 5,000 head of cattle at a time.
This from the Watertown Daily Times.
“Our intent is to keep the facility running and hopefully add quite a bit to the agricultural community up there,” [Erick P. Jensen, Pineland Farms Natural Meats president] said.
“We have strong relationships with several retailers in the Northeast, including Whole Foods and Hannaford. The market is strong and continues to grow.”
The newspaper notes that this operation won’t bring a new slaughterhouse to the area. Here’s a link to the full article.
Tags: agriculture, economy, farming, st lawrence county
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The words “Feed Lot” and “Natural Meats” don’t really fit in the same sentence, but there is very little truth in marketing these days. I suppose they could call it “Harvesting Solar Energy” and be a little more truthful. I find myself wondering if it makes more sense to run an operation of this size, or would it be better to run five smaller operations. The manure is a problem, and will eventually ruin the local drinking water. Local planners should plan…and tax…with this future problem in mind.
If this facility has an adequate means to contain, utilize, or dispose of its wastes in a safe and legal manner, I think it’ll be great. This is an example of what needs to be done not only in the North Country, but all across the country. That is to say, utilizing local available resources and manufacturing locally goods and services that people need. In this case it’s beef. But there’s nothing to say it can’t be other products. Like electricity, bio-fuels, food stuffs, wine, spirits, beer, even clothing from hemp grown here, or dare I say, medicinal marijuana. We need to get back to making the things we consume right here in our own back yard…..