Most businesses face a key decision early: pursue economies of scale or specialize in products with premium value. The Elzinga family in May, Idaho chose the latter path. Its business niche is producing organic beef and selling it directly to consumers through online and store retail.

Glenn and Caryl Elzinga began following organic practices on their Alderspring Ranch 22 years ago, and formalized it through USDA organic certification in 2005. Formerly the ranch was solely a cow/calf operation, but now the Elzingas annually grass-finish 400 yearlings to sell as processed beef under the Alderspring label.

FAMILY BUSINESS: Glenn Elzinga, and daughter Melanie ride the Hat Creek Ranges above Salmon River Canyon. (Photo: Abigail Elzinga)

“We have four partners that are organic, grass-fed cow/calf operations from which we buy yearling calves,” explains Glenn Elzinga. “For us to purchase their yearlings, they need a grass-fed Black Angus genetic. They're smaller framed cattle."

He explains that on the conventional Angus paradigm, most cattle don't grade choice until they hit 1,400-1,500 pounds, but the calves he's getting grade choice between 1,000-1,200 pounds. "You want them to grade quicker because it takes longer to get them to grade on grass. The average age at processing is 22 months,” he adds.

Of the Elzinga’s annual beef production, 40% goes directly to seven partnering grocery stores, spread from Georgia to Alaska. “Our beef has consistency,” says Elzinga explaining its appeal to their store partners. “One thing, it's every two-weeks fresh. And the other thing is we taste test like crazy. Every two weeks we do steak tests for flavor and tenderness on eight different lot numbers, individual animals. These stores know that, and they're buying because of the consistency.”

The remaining 60% of their beef is sold and shipped directly to consumers through Alderspring.com. Every Monday morning, early, Alderspring ranch hands can be found at ranch headquarters with the music turned up and jokes snapping across boxes being filled with beef orders.

“It's actually a good teambuilding thing,” Elzinga laughs. He notes that everyone works together, but adds that it took some time to understand how to fulfill orders and ship a perishable product within three days anywhere in the country.

And the town of May (population 208) isn’t close to much. To reach a USDA organic processing facility, the Elzingas haul cattle six hours across the Montana border. “In the old days when we started, the hard thing is one week you may have two steers," Elzinga recalls. "You're trying to maintain a fresh market in two stores, and you have ten Internet customers. And you have to bring those two head up there. That gets so ugly! There’s no economy of scale. I sent my guy off this morning with 15 head of good, fat finished animals which is way more cost-effective.” 

Organic shift

Certifying their ranch operation as organic was an easy shift for the family as they were already following most of the protocol. “We had stopped using [cattle insecticide],” Elzinga explains. “We weren’t using organophosphate ear tags, because they give me a headache. And we were embracing management intensive grazing to control flies. With this the cattle don't return to a given pasture for 21 days during a typical grazing cycle, breaking the lifecycle of most flies."

The process worked well and when it came time to evaluate based on the organic protocol, Elzinga says it was a "baby step for us to become organic."

When they first certified organic, the Elzinga family had a smaller ranch and privately leased several pastures. “That became more difficult than it was worth,” Elzinga says of working with multiple landowners, “and we purchased a bigger place to have a single area certification that we could more easily control. In 2007, we gained organic certification on our BLM [Bureau of Land Management] and Forest Service leases. We have great cooperation from these agencies.”

The high cost of organic control for noxious weeds is what the Elzingas didn’t take into consideration. Last year, over $30,000 was spent on weed control, mainly on the 46,000 acres of public lands they graze. Their Hat Creek allotment is 98% intact native vegetation, intensifying the management to keep noxious weeds out. As Federal agencies do not use organic control, the Elzingas personally do all the weed management on their public leases to maintain their organic certification.

“First of all we had to convince the agencies we were serious, and second of all, that we could be trusted with our expertise,” Elzinga recalls of the many meetings held. “We just had no idea what we were getting in to! Hat Creek has 120 miles of roads. I just rode them all again on my motorcycle to patrol for new weed infestations.

He explains that the road access, with hunter and recreational use is a perfect vector for noxious weed seeds to get into public lands. Tires get wet, pick up weed seed in mud and create trouble. After monitoring, they have to control those weeds and almost 90% of the work is by hand - whether pulling or string trimming plants below the root crown for control.

The Elzinga family wishes they had known how going organic would initially cause productivity loss on their hay meadows. It has taken nearly a decade to regain hay yields as the soils were heavily dependent on nitrogen amendments.

Nitrogen prices took off about 10 years ago, and the Elzingas decided to save money and back off their pasture fertility. The move to organic hay was costly, and the family feels they are just getting back to normal hay productivity, and the key is bringing back soil microbial health to meet the demands of the pasture and hay ground.

 “However, the question remains, what were, and are, the actual nutritional yields? We always measure in tonnage, and now I'm realizing there is more in production than just that number. Chemicals, soil structure and soil chemistry also affect the nutrition value.”

- Hemken writes from Landry, Wyoming.

Tomorrow a look at the changing organic market.