We Need Your Feedback

USDA announced a new grant program specifically targeted to farmers who raise and market their products as climate-smart. This is a huge possibility to share some of our learnings on how to raise cattle in a manner that captures carbon. I remember working with a group of IU students back in 2009 to determine the carbon balance of Fischer Farms in raising beef.  Our analysis then determined for every 1 pound of beef we sell, we put 5 pounds of carbon into the soil! As many of you have heard, a big part of this is our annual use of ryegrass and corn silage to feed our cattle. We also practice rotational grazing on our pasture acres. We’ve continued to expand this to using sorghum/sudan grass mix and are now just getting into the use of Biologicals (bacteria & fungi) to improve the soil and capture more carbon. 

This grant specifically wants farmers and ranchers to market their products to customers as climate-smart. So to show the USDA that we have been doing this, please reply to this email with a quick comment about why this is important in you choosing Fischer Farms for your meats. We will then combine these comments in our grant application. 

We are hoping the grant will help us with the research that we have been doing to quickly expand our knowledge on how to maximize soil health and capture as much carbon as possible. Additionally we will provide incentives for other farmers to adapt these practices. We are also hoping the grant will allow us to finish some of the processing equipment that got phased 2 in our new building. Net result is the grant can help us lower our costs and improve our farming practices and help other farmers. I’m really excited about the potential!