BLYN — Imagine going to the farmers’ market and picking up a couple of local steaks to go with your local potatoes and salad fixings. Or perhaps your appetite veers more toward some local bacon to accompany your farm-fresh eggs.
All that’s what Curtis Beus, the Washington State University Extension agent for Clallam County, is hungry for.
It’s also what local farmers could provide, if they had access to a USDA-approved slaughter facility.
Yet this part of Washington state is without one — until Sept. 23, when a mobile unit will lumber onto the Bekkevar farm at 273054 U.S. Highway 101, a few miles east of Sequim.
Demonstration
The mobile slaughter truck and trailer, a stainless-steel “miniature slaughterhouse,” according to Beus, will be here for one demonstration day, during which the USDA-approved staff will slaughter and butcher nine North Olympic Peninsula animals: three pigs from Nash’s Organic Produce, one meat goat from Sequim and five beef cattle from farms in Chimacum and Dungeness.
The goal of the demo, Beus said, is to show Clallam and Jefferson county’s livestock producers how they might use a mobile unit to put more meat on the local market.
Today, if families want local beef, pork or lamb, they must invest in a whole animal “on the hoof,” Beus said.
They’ll have to pay to have the livestock shipped off the Peninsula to a USDA slaughter facility; then they’d better find freezer space for a whole lot of meat.
Consumers here cannot buy just a few lamb chops or flank steaks, Beus said, since the north Peninsula has no USDA slaughter facility of its own.
Seattle, Bremerton and Rochester have USDA shops, while the mobile slaughter unit, based in Pierce County, serves that area’s Puget Sound Meat Producers Cooperative.
The unit wouldn’t ordinarily come this far north, Beus said. But if there’s enough demand from farmers in Clallam, Jefferson and Kitsap counties, a second mobile unit could be stationed in Port Orchard. That would make it feasible for farmers to sell cuts of meat.
Local meat
“The producers could sell at the farmers’ market, or to restaurants,” so shoppers and chefs could choose local beef, pork or lamb, Beus said.
“Or they could sell their meat at the grocery stores,” said Cheryl Ouellette, who runs a farm outside Puyallup and uses the mobile slaughter unit.
Access to the mobile unit could provide a significant boost to small farmers on the Peninsula, she added, since it would allow them to expand their operations.
They can save on costs by feeding leftover produce to the animals, added Ouellette, who raises a variety of livestock and vegetables on her farm, known as The Pig Lady’s Piglets and More.
Bringing meat into the food chain will also enhance the health of Peninsula farmers’ markets, Ouellette believes.
“Research has shown that farmers’ markets do better,” she said, “when people can come and shop for an entire meal.”
The markets in Port Angeles, Sequim and Port Townsend feature seafood vendors, so there’s no shortage of local protein sources. But of course there are many would-be shoppers who are hungry for cuts of beef, pork or lamb.
Rural places such as this, Beus said, have fallen victim to the massive meat-processing industry.
Livestock producers “have been taken over by very, very large meat companies. The small Mom and Pop shops couldn’t compete.”
But now, with what he calls the “renaissance” in interest in local, sustainable foods, farmers may well find enough carnivores to make raising livestock worthwhile, said Beus.
He estimated that Clallam County has 100 small farms with livestock while Jefferson has about half as many.
He and Ouellette will both be on hand at the mobile-unit demonstration, and hope many of those producers will join them at Bekkevar between 9:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. Sept. 23.
The slaughter facility, Ouelette said, is “just one small piece of the infrastructure missing” for them.
For information, interested farmers and others may phone Beus at 360-417-2280.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com
