'Locavores' taking root
New movement: Eat food from where you live

Steve Pardo / The Detroit News

PINCKNEY

Two hundred buffalo roam free here, nibbling on grasses, milling about and following the lead of Lakota, the 1-ton sire responsible for 30 calves a year.

Ignore the wooden gates at the 80-acre TMZ Farm, look past the electric wires, and it's easy to imagine that this is what the plains may have looked like a few hundred years ago before buffalo -- technically bison -- were hunted to near extinction.

TMZ owner Kevin MacRitchie now sells about 100 a year as meat. Sales have increased 35 percent a year since he brought them to the farm in 2000, he said. He also sells scores of beef cattle each year, partly because customers are becoming more involved with their food.

"People now want to know everything about the animal," said MacRitchie, 42. "There's been a lot of scares with meat recalls and inhumane treatment of animals that go through the big giant processing plants. Americans are finally waking up to the health benefits -- and the risks of not eating healthy."

"Locavore" has entered the modern-day lexicon. In its simplest terms, it means eat food from where you live. A general rule: food that comes from 100 miles away or less.

Michigan has at least 20 farms catering to the movement -- homey sites that eschew fertilizer, antibiotics, steroids and, in many cases, even grain. Customers purchase and technically own the animal while it's being raised.

"You're buying a share of the live animal," said Kris Hirth, of Old Pine Farm near Chelsea. "I'm just storing it."

Hirth's cows, sheep, goats, chickens and emus are raised on grass, organic feed and hay that are pesticide- and fertilizer-free. When people buy a portion of her livestock, they actually buy live stock.

Customers are welcome to visit their animals before they're turned into meat. But that's not very common, she said. Even people who go the extra distance -- literally and figuratively -- and buy local, steroid and hormone-free food apparently have their limits.

Costs vary but generally range from around $3 to $6 a pound for bulk animals depending on the farm and the cuts offered. A prepackaged quarter of beef (about 150 pounds) costs about $450 at TMZ Farms. That includes more than a dozen steaks, including New York strip, tenderloin and Delmonico; five roasts; and more than 50 pounds of hamburger.

Jim Sarna, is a 32-year-old carpenter in the Manchester area south of Ann Arbor. He tries to act "green," believes in buying local and is a repeat customer of Old Pine Farm. Recently, he ordered a half-hog and a quarter of a cow.

"A local economy is a stronger economy than a national economy," Sarna said. "I prefer to buy as locally as possible to support the movement. Plus the meat is delicious."

The locavore movement includes produce. Agriculture is a $63.7 billion industry in Michigan, second only to manufacturing. The state is getting in on products made locally. Four years ago, the "Select Michigan" program began in Grand Rapids and expanded to southeastern Michigan. The consumer education program is aimed at helping shoppers identify Michigan-grown products.

"More retailers are picking up on Michigan products and local products," said Scott Corrin, of the Michigan Food and Farming Systems, a nonprofit organization out of Michigan State University promoting local agriculture efforts.

Farmers markets -- stalwart supporters of locally grown goods -- jumped from 90 statewide to about 150 this year, Corrin said.

Inquiries to MacRitchie's farm and other local food suppliers spiked when the Hallmark Meat Packing Co. scandal broke in January. An undercover video showed workers at the California facility administering repeated electric shocks to cows too sick or weak to stand on their own.

Getting closer to nature, becoming aware of where food actually comes from, is part of the charm of the locals, MacRitchie said.

"What you're seeing here is more buffalo than existed in America at one time," MacRitchie said, pointing to the herd stationed on the rolling hills of the TMZ farm.