Most of agriculture has moved rapidly along the continuum from agrarian to industrial agriculture in the 1900s to the detriment of the family farm, the environment, and human as well as bovine health and well being. The agricultural system in America is broken.
The Bakewell Reproductive Center was started in 2002 with the premise that a healthy agriculture is critical to our survival as a spiecies. Concentration in the form of CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) and the resulting dependence on fossil fuels as well as herbicides, pesticides, and manufactured fertilizers is a central part of the problem facing agriculture and society.
The concept of grass-farming appeared from a mix of agricultural possibilities as the one that could heal agriculture, the land, and people in America. The dovetail of the market needs as a result of a number of serious public health problems -- for example, BSE or Mad Cow disease, e-coli, obesity, and heart disease -- with the availability of a healthy meat from ruminants that contains the proper balance omega-3 and omega 6 fatty acids plus cancer-fighting CLAs (Congugated Linoleic Acids) is a rare occurence.
Once the Bakewell Reproductive Center began to sort through breeds to find ones that would work in a 100% grass-fed program, we found that the diversity and variability among the existing stocks prevented us from providing large volumes of a consistent, high quality product to the consumers. We then turned to ultrasound and linear measurement to find cattle with the quality and quantity to satisfy the market.
Cattle first had to meet our 100% grass-fed protocol (see www.hardwickbeef.com) and then also meet our standard for intramuscular fat, tenderness and volume of meat. We found that a certain percentage of cattle of the "English" breeds and some crossbreds of these breeds did meet our criteria. In the process of sorting through numerous cattle we found that one breed, the Devon, always had the quality characteristics we were seeking (that is, intramuscular fat and tenderness) although many individuals did not have the volume of meat we desired.
We became very enamored with the Devon breed and eventually found a number of females that met our exacting criteria. The challenge was to find sires that met our criteria. We traveled to see and measure some of the bulls in America and found they came up short in the area of volume of meat-indeed a number of breeders had been trying to breed the Devon in a way that would make it more acceptable to the feedlot industry. There was an attempt to make them taller (read slower maturing), to put some leg under them, and in general to make them larger.
At that point, we decided to broaden our search for suitable Devon sires to the rest of the world. We started in New Zealand and Australia since their health status would allow importation of genetic material to the US. We were looking for sires that would be prepotent, reproductively superlative, and have a high volume of high quality meat.
