Land Stewardship Project

Land Stewardship Project
  • About Us
    • Our Mission
    • Long Range Plan
    • Staff Directory
    • Board of Directors
      • LSP Board Committees
    • LSP Steering Committees & Working Groups
    • Contact Us
    • Past LSP Projects
    • Employment & Volunteer Opportunities
    • LSP Publications
    • Financial Statements
  • The Latest
    • Community Care
    • Songs for the Soil
    • CSA Farm Directory
    • Upcoming Events
    • News
      • News Releases
      • Media Contacts
      • LSP in the News
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • Land Stewardship Letter
    • LIVE-WIRE Sign-up
    • Myth Busters
    • Fact Sheets
    • Farm Crisis Resources
  • For Farmers & Landowners
    • Farmland Clearinghouse
    • New Farmers
      • Farm Beginnings Class
      • Journeyperson Course
      • Farm Dreams
      • Accessing Farmland
      • Farmland Clearinghouse
      • Beginning/Retiring Farmer Tax Credit
      • Beginning Farmer Profiles
      • Fresh Voices Podcast Series
    • Retiring Farmers & Landowners
      • Farmland Clearinghouse
      • Farm Transition Planning Course
      • Conservation Leases
      • Beginning/Retiring Farmer Tax Credit
      • Land Transition Tools
      • Transition Stories
    • Soil Health
      • Cover Crops
      • Grazing
      • No-till
      • Microbiology
      • Soil Builders’ Network
      • Soil Builders’ E-Letters
      • Soil Health Steering Committee Members
      • Ear Dirt Soil Health Podcast Series
    • Cropping Systems Calculator
    • Conservation Leases
  • Creating Change
    • Community-Based Food Systems
      • Ear Bites Community-Based Food Podcast Series
    • Policy Campaigns
      • Soil Health & Climate Change
      • Healthcare
      • Factory Farms
        • Anti-Competitiveness & Price Gouging
        • LSP Powerline Story Center
      • Federal Policy
        • A Farm Bill For Us
      • State Policy
        • MN Farm, Food & Climate Funding
      • Developing Leadership
    • Justice & Stewardship
    • Organizational Stewardship
  • Get Involved
    • Your Membership Matters
    • Take Action!
    • Upcoming Events
    • Land Stewardship Action Fund
    • Connect with LSP
      • Stay Connected
      • Join, Donate, or Renew Today!
      • Shop
      • Employment & Volunteer Opportunities
      • Legacy Giving
    • Network with LSP Members
      • Farmland Clearinghouse
      • Soil Health
    • Farmland Clearinghouse
  • Join, Donate, or Renew Today!
  • Stay Connected
  • Contact Us
  • Shop
Search
More...

Breaking the Meat Processing Bottleneck

Endowed Chair Puts the Right People in the Right Place to Address a Critical Problem

By Brian DeVore
January 3, 2025

Share

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • email

A cornerstone of creating a regenerative agricultural system in the Upper Midwest is reintegrating livestock onto the land in a way that farmers can add value to forages and grains while cycling nutrients in a manner that manure becomes a way to build soil biology, rather than a waste product to be disposed of. Over the years, the Land Stewardship Project has worked with numerous innovative farmers who are proving that such an environmentally sustainable system can be obtained via managed rotational grazing of cattle, sheep, and goats, as well as through deep straw production systems for hogs.

But it’s become clear that even the most innovative livestock production system is not sustainable in the long run unless farmers can find a way to receive a fair price for the meat and other animal products they produce. And a key way to make livestock an economically viable option on small and medium-sized farms is to provide rural communities with a consistent, quality local meat processing infrastructure.

That’s why the recent announcement that the new Endowed Chair in Agricultural Systems at the University of Minnesota will focus on local meat processing is such welcome news. And that the Endowed Chair will be occupied by three people who have extensive backgrounds in the meat industry is even more exciting. In December, the board of directors for the U of M’s Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA) announced that Tom Nuessmeier, Paul Sobocinski, and Julio Cesar Tena Soria will be serving in the Endowed Chair position. Additionally, through the Endowed Chair, funding will be provided to support Ryan Solberg, a graduate student within the public policy master’s program at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

The Endowed Chair was set up in 1995 to, according to the program’s website,  “provide a unique opportunity for leaders in the academic, business, farming, government, and nonprofit sectors of agriculture, rural development, and related fields to contribute to and help shape the future of rural Minnesota.” The program is managed by MISA, which is a unique partnership between the U of M’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) and U of M Extension, as well as the Sustainers’ Coalition, a group of nonprofit community organizations that includes LSP.

Being named to the Endowed Chair position means Nuessmeier, Sobocinski, and Tena will have the resources needed to dig into how we can support efforts to, among other things, develop apprenticeship opportunities for meat processing entrepreneurs wanting to enter the industry and own a business. As with family farmers, small meat processors are grappling with how to hand off their businesses as they near retirement. Faced with a dearth of younger people who are trained to take on a meat processing business, and lacking the basic legal and economic resources needed to make the transition, many local processors have simply closed shop permanently.

This has put farmers who direct-market meat in a precarious situation, which many having to reserve slaughtering slots more than a year in advance. They also find themselves spending several hours hauling animals to the few remaining processors, which cuts into the time they could be spending farming.

The diminishment of local options for processing animals comes at a time when the meatpacking industry in general has become consolidated at an unprecedented level. This is bad news not only for farmers hoping to direct-market what they raise, but for the rural economy in general, as well as the workers in processing plants, many of whom are people of color and new immigrants.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the dangers of relying on a handful of meat giants to process our nation’s livestock.  As the illness flourished in the tight confines of meat plants, processing capacity plummeted and in some cases farmers were forced to euthenize their animals. The few local processors remaining were overwhelmed with the demand, while plant workers were putting their own health at risk to the point that many died. Meanwhile, Big Meat carried on business as usual, making more money than ever.

Nuessmeier, Sobocinski, and Tena serve as the directors of the Minnesota Farmers Union’s Solving the Local Meat Processing Bottleneck Project. A few years ago, an initial group of project leaders, including Sobocinski, interviewed 57 small meat processors and issued a report with several recommendations. Thanks to this report and the work of LSP, MFU, and our allies, the 2023 Legislature funded numerous initiatives that support small meat processors, including creating a Meat & Poultry Processing Liaison position at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, providing $544,000 for small meat processor training and employee retention grants, and bolstering funding for the popular AGRI Meat, Poultry, Egg, and Dairy Processing Grant program. The AGRI grant program is instrumental in supporting small and mid-sized processors across the state and has a huge impact in supporting the development of regional food systems.

Having the Endowed Chair focus on local meat processing is good for both practical and symbolic reasons. On the practical side, these three people can help take local meat processing a step further in resolving the problem it has recruiting the next generation of workers and entrepreneurs. On the symbolic side, having a U of M institution recognize the need for a better local meat processing infrastructure is an acknowledgment that reintegrating livestock onto the land in a sustainable manner is something worth supporting with public resources. It’s a major contrast to how the land grant system often seems committed to promoting the consolidated, industrialized model of agriculture.

“Our board recognizes the real importance of small processors to sustainable livestock farmers and emerging farmers, and we look forward to the project’s effort to recruit a diverse workforce that is inclusive and will contribute to small processors’ resiliency, so vital for our rural communities,” Helene Murray, MISA’s executive director, said in a media statement announcing the awarding of the Endowed Chair.

And I can’t think of three people more qualified to pursue this work. Both Sobocinksi and Nuesmeier are hog farmers as well as former LSP organizers. In that latter role, they worked extensively on issues related to livestock consolidation and helping farmers fight to attain fair access to markets. (On an LSP Ear to the Ground podcast, Sobocinski talks about some of the results of that organizing.)  Tena began working with the Bottleneck Project in March 2024 and leads the group’s outreach to the Hispanic community.

I’m looking forward to seeing what this team comes up with in the coming year — this is an initiative involving the right people with the right priorities. And the timing couldn’t be better for tackling an issue that has impacts on our food supply, rural economies, farms, and the land. Breaking this particular bottleneck could generate beaucoup benefits.

LSP managing editor Brian DeVore can be contacted via e-mail.

 

 

Category: Blog
Tags: ag consolidation • livestock production • local meat processing • Minnesota Farmers Union • regenerative agriculture • reintegrating livestock • rural economic development

Upcoming Events

×

July 2025

Tuesday July 15

5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Organic Fruit & Vegetable Field Day
Tuesday July 15
5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Organic Fruit & Vegetable Field Day
1805 Dudley Ave, Falcon Heights, MN 55113, USA

Join U of M researchers and Extension for updates on organic fruit and vegetable research and tour the Student Organic Farm and the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station in Saint Paul. Topics include: organic insect management, integrating livestock into vegetable farms, new crops for Minnesota, irrigation strategies, and more. Free to the public.
 
For details and to register, click here.

Wednesday July 16

9:30 am – 2:30 pm
Russell Hedrick Soil Health Event: Cottonwood County
Wednesday July 16
9:30 am – 2:30 pm
Russell Hedrick Soil Health Event: Cottonwood County
27092 Co Rd 8, Comfrey, MN 56019, USA

Details here.

Thursday July 17

9:30 am – 2:30 pm
Russell Hedrick Soil Health Event: Pipestone County
Thursday July 17
9:30 am – 2:30 pm
Russell Hedrick Soil Health Event: Pipestone County
518 30th Ave, Jasper, MN 56182

Details are here.

Friday July 18

9:30 am – 2:30 pm
Russell Hedrick Soil Health Event: Lac qui Parle County
Friday July 18
9:30 am – 2:30 pm
Russell Hedrick Soil Health Event: Lac qui Parle County
1174 295th Ave, Dawson, MN 56232

Details are here.

Tuesday July 22

9:00 am – 2:30 pm
Ray Archuleta Soil Health Series: Sartell
Tuesday July 22
9:00 am – 2:30 pm
Ray Archuleta Soil Health Series: Sartell
2611 17th St N, Sartell, MN 56377, USA

Details are here.

View Full Calendar

Recent Posts

  • ‘Bringing Small Grains Back to Minnesota’ Meeting Aug. 2 in Madison  July 14, 2025
  • Get Your Farm Photographed & Receive Free Images! July 10, 2025
  • ‘Fishing, Farming & Food: Rush Creek’s Fish Kill Anniversary & Why it Matters’ Event July 12 Near Lewiston July 8, 2025
  • Contributing to the Cause July 8, 2025
  • Contact the MPCA by July 22 About Revising its Feedlot Rules July 2, 2025

Montevideo

111 North First Street
Montevideo, MN 56265

(320) 269-2105

Lewiston

180 E. Main Street
Lewiston, MN 55952

(507) 523-3366

Minneapolis

821 E. 35th Street #200
Minneapolis, MN 55407

(612) 722-6377

  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Land Stewardship Project. All rights reserved.

https://landstewardshipproject.org/breaking-the-meat-processing-bottleneck