September 10, 2010
By Melissa Pasanen
Full Article
WEST TOPSHAM — A balmy, blue-sky day last week prompted farmer Walter Jeffries to comment on the perfect weather. He was not referring to perfect weather for haying or for heading to a state fair, but to perfect weather for piglets: 56 piglets born in less than a week, to be specific.
At any given time during the year, about 250 pigs, including 40 breeding sows and three boars, range over 60 or so acres of pasture and woods on Sugar Mountain Farm, located along the Orange and West Topsham town line a few miles southeast of Barre.
One of the challenges, Jeffries said, is finding a market for the 40 percent of the pig that is edible, but is not the familiar pork chops, ribs, roasts, hams and bacon.
The Jeffries recognized one large stumbling block to growth early on — and are reminded of it weekly when Holly Jeffries leaves the farm at 4 a.m. with two to five “finisher” pigs, aged between 6 and 8 months depending on the season and weighing around 250 pounds.
She drives almost three hours to Adams Slaughterhouse in Athol, Mass., where she drops off the pigs, picks up the previous week’s meat and then heads back to Vermont and does the delivery circuit before returning home, 18 hours later.
The long drive is not good for the people nor for the animals, Walter Jeffries said.
“It stresses the pigs. It makes the meat less good. Even the best slaughterhouse is still not as good as doing it on farm.”
The family determined just a year after they got their first pigs that they wanted to build their own on-site slaughter and meat processing facility. Jeffries said, it’s a matter of “basic business security.”
Slaughterhouse slots are in high demand regionally due to a declining number of facilities.
“We need to know that when we breed a pig, we’re going to be able to deliver that pig to a customer’s plate,” Jeffries said. “Within 10 months time, we could lose all the facilities. Just over the last few years, two burned down, several retired; another was closed down. We can’t farm if we can’t slaughter.”
The farm would also keep more of the profits, Jeffries noted, quickly rattling off the percentage of income the farm now pays a middleman to do something he’d much rather do himself. “We could almost double our income without increasing production,” he said.
The family met with state Department of Agriculture representatives in spring 2008 to discuss building an on-farm butcher shop that would take their meat from slaughter to smoke house. By June 2009, all the permits were in place.
The foundation and outside walls of the new structure can be seen at one end of the uninhabited old farmhouse rising from the original foundation of a hay shed. Like the compact and cleverly designed, environmentally sensitive 250-square-foot family home the Jeffries built on the farm, the project is do-it-yourself with a slender budget of $150,000. They have put in $33,000 of their money and collected $12,000 in community-supported agriculture pre-buys, but have been stymied in their ability to secure loans through either conventional banks or more community oriented funds.
Some potential lenders don’t like that they’re doing all the work themselves, Jeffries said, adding that using subcontractors would multiply the cost tenfold to about $1.5 million.
Other lenders argue that Sugar Mountain should build a facility that can offer processing to other farms. Jeffries said that opens up a nest of issues, from the bio-security risks of bringing live animals from other farms onto their closed farm to much higher insurance premiums and different permitting regulations. He believes their facility can help other farmers at least indirectly.
“We look at it like we’re freeing up 500-1,000 slaughter slots a year at other facilities.”
Jeffries showed off a schematic of the floor plan from the administration area, to the stun/squeeze chute, to the brine-cure corner. The couple and their eldest son, Will, 18, spent more than a year learning meat-cutting from veteran local butcher Cole Ward. Will has long term plans to develop Sugar Mountain prosciutto, salami and pepperoni.
The project will be completed with or without outside funding, Jeffries said, just a little slower than it might have been. He is generating cash for materials through selective logging of the farm’s wooded acreage and expects the facility to be up and running by summer 2011.
The family has also received helping hands from local businesses such as Allen Lumber and the farmer from whom they purchase hay, who have both granted extended credit terms. A concrete supplier lent them a concrete pump truck.
“It takes a village,” Jeffries said with a smile. “It also takes a village to eat a pig.”