Ferebee Farm – James Ferebee

Time	Subject
0:00:11	Introduction
0:00:23	James discusses how long he has been farming
0:00:46	High school 4H Program
0:01:29	How we got started farming
0:03:24	Livestock on Ferebee Farms
0:05:50	Daily chores and seasonal differences in farm work
0:07:59	Joel Salatin and the regenerative and sustainable agriculture movement
0:12:05	Livestock movement keeps pastures healthier, reduces diseases
0:15:25	Consumer demand for naturally raised product from small farms
0:18:14	Health and quality benefits from pasture raised livestock
0:23:07	Sheep’s wool: weather protection and shearing
0:25:36	Dealing with rainy and cold weather with goats, chickens, and sheep
0:29:34	Fighting internal parasites in livestock
0:31:27	Marketing challenges in the region, competing with large farms
0:33:19	Climate benefits of the Carolina piedmont area
0:36:09	Williamsburg Packing Company for butchering
0:37:03	Ferebee Farms vendor locations
0:37:27	Wool and yarn production and sale
0:38:53	Shearing sheep and being self taught
0:40:31	USDA vs. state meat inspections for sale
0:44:15	Expanding getting Ferebee Farms product to consumers
0:47:51	Working with the Catawba Fresh Market
0:49:26	South Carolina and Federal incentives and education
0:52:51	Public agricultural ignorance, people don’t understand where their food comes from
0:57:19	Looking forward and the future of Ferebee Farms

[00:00:10]

>> Louanne Hoverman: This is Louanne Hoverman, graduate student at UNC Charlotte, interviewing James Ferebee of Ferebee Farms. James?

>> James Ferebee: Hey, how’s it going?

>> Louanne Hoverman: So how long have you been farming?

>> James Ferebee: Well, I have been farming.

>> James Ferebee: So-called commercially as a business since 2015. I’ve been raising livestock since 2011.

[00:00:36]

Started out as a 4-H project, and it just kinda grew from there.

>> Louanne Hoverman: So what is the 4-H program in high school?

>> James Ferebee: Sure, 4-H is a program for youth from, I believe, it’s the age of five all the way up through the end of high school. And so there’s a lot of stuff that’s involved in 4H.

[00:00:59]

There’s the farming aspect, but there’s also other projects as well. But the idea is to, it’s an additional learning tool to teach kids about agriculture. As far as the livestock projects, let kids be able to have hands-on experience with animals, with agriculture, with growing things. So it’s a really neat program that they’re doing out with that.

[00:01:27]

>> Louanne Hoverman: How did you get started farming?

>> James Ferebee: Well, I got started when we had already been gardening ever since I was little. We had chickens and we had some friends who had goats and their goats had babies. And they gave us a couple of babies, and I guess that piqued my interest in livestock and farming in general.

[00:01:51]

>> Louanne Hoverman: So just having babies is all, a couple of goat babies is all it took to really decide to take that leap to?

>> James Ferebee: Well, at first not necessarily. At first, it was just my assigned chore to take care of the baby goats. But as with any animal especially baby animals, you can become attached to him.

[00:02:10]

And I began to really enjoy taking care of the goats. And so I got more goats and grew my goat herd from there. And then after an internship with my veterinarian during my senior year in high school I worked with him on his farm. He has a farm down in Fort Lawn, South Carolina that’s a things farm.

[00:02:37]

And so he raises sheep, pigs, and cattle and poultry. And so that got me interested in some other aspects of the livestock. And after several years with the dairy goats I kind of decided I didn’t really want to do that as a business. Just because of the intensive care that dairying requires throughout the year.

[00:03:04]

And so I started looking more into raising livestock for meat. And I got my first couple of pigs. We raised those just for the family pork, and I got started with my sheep as well.

>> Louanne Hoverman: What kind of livestock do you raise?

>> James Ferebee: Well, my primary focus is my sheep, so I’m primarily a shepherd.

[00:03:29]

I raise Gulf Coast sheep. The Gulf Coast sheep are a landrace breed that originated In the southeastern United States. They’re descended from sheep that were left here about 500 years ago by European explorers. And so they adapted to the environment of the Southeast with minimal human selection. So they’re a much hardier breed that has high resistance to heat, a high parasite resistance.

[00:03:57]

And they thrive in a sub-tropical climate much better than [INAUDIBLE] breeds. So [INAUDIBLE], their numbers dropped about 80 years ago whenever modern medicine came around for livestock. And enabled [INAUDIBLE] European breeds to survive. And so they’re currently a very rare breed, and it’s slowly slowly starting to show signs of recovering.

[00:04:36]

And so I’m working with other breeders throughout the region to preserve this breed of livestock. And then the other livestock that I raise, I have a small number of goats, I’d kept a few around for personal milk consumption. So I have some Nigerian Dwarf and Oberhasli dairy goats.

[00:04:56]

And then I raise feeder pigs throughout the year as well. I don’t usually raise any particular breed, usually mixes and crosses of heritage breeds. And then with our poultry, our laying hens are various heritage breeds. And then our meat herds are just the regular commercial broiler chickens and white turkeys that we get from the hatchery.

[00:05:26]

And we raise them out on pasture to provide all-natural pastured beyond organic meat.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Okay, can you describe a typical day on the farm?

>> James Ferebee: Sure.

>> Louanne Hoverman: And I think we may need to separate this kind of seasonally. Because I think when it’s mating season’s gonna be a little bit different than when it’s maybe not mating season.

[00:05:49]

>> James Ferebee: Sure, absolutely, I’m not currently farming full time. So right now I have another part time job as well as the farm is not quite big enough to provide a full income at the moment. So usually day in day out is just regular morning and evening chores. So I’ll come out, feed and water the animals, check on everybody, [INAUDIBLE], which is [INAUDIBLE] season, there are babies being born.

[00:06:17]

So I’m keeping a close eye on our flock of ewes, checking to see if any new babies are born. Making sure that the babies that have already been born are thriving, getting enough to eat, and that they’re doing well. During the summer when our flock is out on pasture, they are moved to fresh pasture every one or two days.

[00:06:40]

So they’re moving around fairly frequently around on our property and on our neighbors’ properties that are being leased during the summer time. And so the electric fencing that we have out here in our lambing pen is, it’s a portable electric fencing. So that way we can move it around on a daily or once every other day basis.

[00:07:06]

And we attach a solar electric fence energizer to it so that way we don’t have to be tied to a AC electricity source. And so that requires a little bit more day to day or weekly work than this time of year. So usually what we’ll do, we’ll move them around, move them to a fresh set of pasture.

[00:07:32]

And go ahead and set up the next section that they’re gonna be in the next day to facilitate the ease of movement there. And so as they move around we just gauge how much grass they’re eating. So that way they’re getting plenty to eat and not overgrazing or undergrazing any particular area.

[00:07:54]

>> Louanne Hoverman: What made you decide to add different types of livestock to the farm?

>> James Ferebee: Well a lot of it, I guess when I was getting started I was introduced to Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms up in Virginia. And he’s really We’ve been a pioneer and a major thinker in the regenerative and sustainable agriculture movement.

[00:08:19]

So conventional agriculture, they want you to raise extremely large amounts of animals inside confined areas, and move them through as quickly as possible. So that’s how our modern food system works. Most farmers make pennies on the dollar from the products that you buy at the grocery store. Most of the money that you’re spending is not going to the farmer who grew the food.

[00:08:51]

It’s going to the middle men, the packers, the people who put I think cereal. I have heard that the companies that create the cardboard for the cereal boxes get more out of that dollar than the farmers who grew the grain. And so I didn’t really want to go the route of commercial agriculture and so when I was introduced to Joel Salton in his farm up at Polyface Farm.

[00:09:20]

What he does, he has gone to a pasture based farming system, where he mimics the natural systems that we see in nature, in the natural ecosystems. And raises livestock in such a way that they’re basically just allowed to exhibit all their natural instincts, instead of trying to curb their instincts and stop them from behaving like animals do rather he is channeling their instincts so that way you can have a productive farm.

[00:09:57]

And at the same time you are producing a healthier product because you have happier animals, healthier animals. The outdoors and the rotational pasture grazing method that he uses and that I use as well by rotating livestock around the pasture, mimics the movement of great herds in places like the Great Plains or the African Serengeti, and that stimulates biodiversity in the pastures.

[00:10:28]

It fertilizes the soil naturally, so we don’t have to use chemical fertilizers. And it sequesters carbon out of the atmosphere, because instead of overgrazing one section of the pasture at a time and just grazing it to the ground by moving the livestock around it’s allowing the pastures to grow and produce a lot more grass per year than a conventionally managed pasture will.

[00:10:55]

And so that sucks carbon out of the atmosphere, puts it into the growing plants and when the cattle eat it and obviously comes out through the manure. And instead of the manure just being vaporized, like what happens with a lot of commercial factory farms and systems, it is incorporated into the soil and it builds top soil.

[00:11:16]

It increases the health of the pasture and so using the natural systems and applying them to livestock farming, it creates healthier animals and healthier product, and it improves the environment at the same time. So,

>> James Ferebee: I’m not sure where I was going with that, [COUGH]. What’s the question again?

[00:11:48]

>> Louanne Hoverman: I don’t remember.

>> James Ferebee: Okay, [LAUGH].

>> Louanne Hoverman: I was curious if by having the animals graze the pastures like you do, do their movements literally on the pasture does that help the grass and the grounds?

>> James Ferebee: Absolutely. So, in all the great grasslands of the world, the patterns you see are the large groups of livestock all bunched up together and moved around quickly.

[00:12:14]

The reason they do that is primarily for protection against predators. You have wolves, in the American great plains or you have the lions in Africa. And so, that by moving around quickly, that keeps animals healthier, they aren’t plagued by parasites and diseases as they would if they were kept in one spot.

[00:12:34]

And so there constantly moving around, eating grass and then moving to a new spot away from yesterday’s manure, which harbors all those diseases, and so they’re always getting fresh grass. And so instead of predators moving, the herbivores around in our pasture based farming system we use portable electric fencing.

[00:12:57]

So the portable electric fencing keeps all the animals together in one area instead of just spreading out across one pasture. And so by only giving them one section of pasture each day, however much grass they’ll eat each day. They’re moving around every day throughout the year whenever the pastures are growing.

[00:13:19]

And so they’re only eating grass on that one spot once usually every once a month or two. So it might be a month, it might be two months before they come back around to that one spot, depending on how quick the grass is growing. And so, unlike a conventionally managed pasture where the animals are in one spot for weeks or months.

[00:13:40]

Once the animals grazed one section, they don’t come back to that section again until it has completely recovered and the plants have recovered from where they’ve been graced. Whereas if the animals were there for longer they would graze that plant and then bite it again lower and eventually kill the grass.

[00:13:56]

And that’s why many conventional cattle farms you just see weeds out in the field that has almost no grass. And so that stimulates the pastured grasses to grow thicker. It increases the biodiversity, you usually see lot more species of grasses and other herbaceous plants growing. And it also allows the other wildlife to thrive in the pasture as well.

[00:14:24]

All the insects, the butterflies, the grasshoppers, the little field mice instead of being constantly in danger of being trampled by the others kinds livestock, the livestock are only in one spot at a time. So when the livestock move to one section, all the little creatures that live in the meadow they run out of that section where it’s safe and then once the livestock move on they can come back.

[00:14:49]

And that preserves the natural environment of the pastures and meadows and allows the wildlife to thrive alongside of livestock rather than being in competition for the resources.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Well, I had never really thought about that.

>> James Ferebee: Yes, ma’am.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Okay,

>> Louanne Hoverman: Now you’ve only been farming for a short period of time.

[00:15:16]

>> James Ferebee: Sure.

>> Louanne Hoverman: But have you noticed any changes within really anything to do with livestock farming?

>> James Ferebee: Sure, probably the biggest change I’ve seen just in the few years that I’ve really been doing this. The consumer demand for naturally raised products, organic products, and meats, and stuff like that are raised in a way that is in harmony with the environment.

[00:15:50]

The consumer demand for that has really skyrocketed. 50 years ago or so, people didn’t really consider whether or not the cow that their hamburger came from ate grass or, Was kept in a factory barn or was allowed to live out on the pasture.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Or even 15 years ago it really wasn’t.

[00:16:15]

>> James Ferebee: It really wasn’t. [INAUDIBLE]

With the environment or the climate or pollution. And so people are a lot more environmentally aware now. And so not only are they concerned about the climate, but people are also realizing that conventionally grown needs or other agriculture products are really not as healthy as those that are managed in an ecological way.

[00:16:52]

So our meats, our land is 100% grass fed and you can In this day and age, we’ve got phones, so you can go on the Internet and Google scientific studies that compare grass fed meats to grain fed meats. And those studies have shown that grass fed meats are consistently higher in vitamins.

[00:17:13]

Vitamins that are high in minerals, they have good fats rather than the bad fats and they are also high in like omega-3 fatty acids as well and people are coming to understanding and people know more about all these. Little nutrients and things that are helpful to their health whereas again 15, 20 years ago if you asked your average person what omega-3 was, most people wouldn’t even know what the word even means.

[00:17:45]

Whereas now, it’s a buzzword. You can see it in marketing whether it’s been added artificially or naturally to a product. People are a lot more aware of what’s in their food than they were a couple of decades ago.

>> Louanne Hoverman: The health benefits, do you know if it comes from is it the grass?

[00:18:09]

Is it being able to graze, and move? Is it a combination?

>> James Ferebee: Well, I think it’s really combination. Livestock raised in a conventional setting are generally less healthy than livestock in a pasture based setting, just because they weren’t designed to live in one spot all their lives. Pigs were not designed to live in.

[00:18:34]

Factories with concrete floors for all their life they were you know, you see their wild counterparts of the wild boar or you know in Africa you’ve got Warhawks or whatever. You know they’re they’re roaming free through was there wallowing in mud and, you know just children’s story books you know, everybody knows that you know, pig belongs in mud.

[00:18:56]

You know [LAUGH] however, it’s whether or not you know it’s healthy for them to live, you know, just in mud, like most story books tried to portray, you know, in nature pigs like to find you know what areas and wallow in them, because for a number of reasons they do it to cool down, they do it because the mud helps kill parasites.

[00:19:17]

But they live outdoors. They are allowed to behave like they are designed to do. And so they don’t have all the health issues that most conventional livestock have. And so because of that, they don’t need to be treated with antibiotics, or artificial hormones, or steroids in order to stay alive or to stay healthy.

[00:19:40]

And many times, those drugs that are given to most livestock through the meat, or through the milk, or through the eggs. And so again, awareness of the Places. Well, where do you think, you know perfect breeding ground for these bacteria to change and become resistant to antibiotics? Well, just look at a modern factory farm where they’re constantly feeding and low doses of antibiotics to the animals to keep them healthy.

[00:20:16]

It’s a perfect breeding ground for the bacteria to adapt to that. And then those bacteria come around and thank humans and we have nothing to treat them with. So you know, you have that issue there and then you adjust the, you know, issue with drugs in general or not, you know, it’s not healthy to have, you know, lots of drugs in your system unless you have some health problems that needs that to fix it.

[00:20:40]

So pasture livestock, they don’t need to be all drugged up like most conventional livestock. And then the grass is a natural diet. In nature, you don’t see Bison or wildebeest going around and harvesting corn or seeds from all these plants and eating large amounts of it, they’re grazing.

[00:21:03]

They’re designed to digest leafy greens, and. Plants that generally have very complex fibers and that’s why their digestive system is built to digest cellulose which most animals can’t do and turn that into protein, into food, whereas grains, which are very simple carbohydrates, they are very high in sugars.

[00:21:31]

If you take any animal that’s been on pasture, and you just suddenly give them a lot of grain, they are going to get sick cause their bodies aren’t uses to it. You have to slowly let them acclimate and adapt to be able to digest grains, because it’s not a natural food stuff for herbivores in the wild.

[00:21:54]

>> Louanne Hoverman: Is the reverse true, if you take these conventionally farmed animals that are living on grain, and you-

>> James Ferebee: Sure.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Put them to pasture?

>> James Ferebee: Sure. Well, because their digestive systems are adapted to what they’re eating, if you’re gonna change the die you have to move it slowly to go reverse as well because they don’t have the correct microbes in their gut to digest and cellular and so if you’re making in the and it’s that and so because livestock natural diet, they’re not being fed large amounts of grain.

[00:22:42]

They don’t need to be given drugs to keep them healthy. All of that combined. It’s a combination of a lot of that that creates a more healthy product, so.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Since they do spend so much time on outdoors, how are they affected by weather? Especially with weather changes, or drastic weather changes.

[00:23:06]

>> James Ferebee: Well, adult sheep particularly when they have full fleeces, they can withstand just about any weather that comes through. However, whenever they are freshly shorn and they don’t have the protection of their fleece, they can be susceptible to cold or rain. And same goes for the newborn lambs.

[00:23:27]

So whenever it’s gonna get really cold or if it’s gonna be raining and there’s babies or if they’ve been recently shorn, then I’ll bring them all in, into the barn where they can be warm and dry. But for the most part, you know, they’re perfectly fine in most weather.

[00:23:51]

Wool insulates, wet or dry and most people don’t know this but not only does wool insulate against cold. It keeps heat in it also insulates against the heat to keep The animal cooler. So, in the summer, if a sheep has zero wool, then they can over heat and get sunburns just as much as a sheep with a full fleece could get over heated in the summer.

[00:24:18]

And so that’s why we sheer our flock in fairly early in the spring time. So, that way they grow back a little bit of wool before summer, so that way they have enough wool to protect them from the sun and the sunlight from burning their skin, since white sheep have very fair skin and are susceptible to sunburn.

[00:24:39]

And it also allows the air to circulate around next to their skin and keep them cooler than they would be otherwise. Yeah, so that’s one of the ways that they’re able to stay cool in the summer and then this breed of sheep in particular, the Gulf Coast sheep, you’ll notice that they don’t have any wools on their legs or on their face.

[00:25:01]

And the wool on their bellies is very thin or sometimes non existent. And so that way the wool on their backs and sides can keep the sun off of them and help circulate air. But then air also can circulate underneath the sheep, around the legs, and around the face and can suck heat away from the sheep and keep the sheep cooler.

[00:25:22]

So those are a number of ways that they’re adapted to the heat and stay cool in the summer. So, yeah.

>> Louanne Hoverman: How do the goats and chickens fare in extreme weather?

>> James Ferebee: Sure, well, goats would have you believe that just a few drops of rain would kill them.

[00:25:43]

However, if it’s summertime and there’s a pop up thunderstorm, it’s not gonna hurt them to get wet. But since they don’t have wool like sheep, they are a lot more susceptible to the wet in the wintertime. If it’s just cold, then they can take just about any temperature as long as they’re able to acclimate to the winter weather but the goats can’t be cold and wet.

[00:26:04]

And so, if it’s gonna be raining in the winter time, then they are brought into the barn or at least have access to a barn where they can run in for shelter. And then during the summer, it’s very similar to the sheep where they don’t have wool, but they have longer hair that helps keep the sun off their backs and keep them cool.

[00:26:25]

And obviously, during summer for any livestock a constant supply of cool fresh water is very important as well. With the chicken, they’re not really affected by the heat a whole lot, if it’s particularly hot sometimes they’ll be a drop in the number of eggs laid, as they’re putting more of their energy into keeping cool rather than laying eggs.

[00:26:50]

One of the ways that the chicken’s stay cooler in the summer is to dust bathe,. So they’ll sort of scratch around in the dust and get it all up underneath their feathers and usually that’ll do that in the shade to stay cool. And in the winter, again, our hands have access to shelter constantly.

[00:27:15]

So if they wanna go out in the rain, they’re welcomed to, but usually, they choose to stay under shelter except for some of the bravest ones. But yeah, access to shelter if they need it and then in the summer constant fresh supply of cool water. In the winter usually will increase their feed intake so that way they’ve got the extra calories to stay warm, so.

[00:27:40]

>> Louanne Hoverman: Okay, I know in the Charlotte area this past winter it was extremely wet.

>> James Ferebee: Yes.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Do you have it very wet?

>> James Ferebee: We did, and we certainly had many issues with mud. So you can see out here in this pen, [INAUDIBLE] purchased some old hay bails that were starting to rot from my friend who grows the hay, and I just unrolled them.

[00:28:11]

So the big round bails of hay, and I just unrolled them out here to put a layer over top of the mud to keep the animals up out of the mud in the dry, especially since the lambs were getting ready to start being born. So that’s definitely been helpful to keep control on the mud.

[00:28:28]

Other than that, putting down straw and hay, or weed chips, or into keep down the mud, there’s not a whole lot that we can do whenever there’s so much rain coming down, [COUGH]

>> Louanne Hoverman: Fortunately, you don’t have a lot of goats cuz you said, the goats don’t tolerate wet and cold.

[00:28:49]

>> James Ferebee: The goat don’t tolerate wet and cold. And so if there’s just a few, you can see our hay feeders here they have over hanging roofs where a lot of times the goats will go underneath there if it’s just a little bit bit of rain. And then we’ve also got our other little shelters, we’ve got the little igloo doghouse here, as well.

[00:29:12]

But, yeah, whenever the rain’s really coming down hard then we’ve got to move the goats up to the barn so that way they can stay warm and dry up there.

>> Louanne Hoverman: What are some of the challenges farming in this area?

>> James Ferebee: Well, with sheep and goats in particular, a big challenge for any sheep and goat farmer in the Southeast is internal parasites because of our warm, subtropical climate.

[00:29:45]

Internal parasites thrive, and so one of the ways that I deal with that, first of all, the Gulf Coast sheep are already resistant to those. They’re not as susceptible as some other breeds, [INAUDIBLE]. Most internal parasite have three or four week life cycle and so if it’s longer than that before the sheep come around back to that same pasture, then the parasites will have died by then.

[00:30:14]

And so rotationally grazing keeps the parasite levels low. Also, moving our poultry around following the sheep and goats helps as well because poultry will eat a lot snails and slugs which harbor a lot of internal parasites that affect sheep and goats. And so those parasites can’t survive in a chickens’ digestive system.

[00:30:41]

So when the chicken eats the snails or slugs that’s an intermediate host to that parasite, it dies instead of being passed back into a sheep or a goat. And so by using multiple different species moving around from the same area various times throughout the year it sort of confuses the parasites or the pathogens since most of those parasites and diseases are species specific.

[00:31:05]

And if they don’t have the proper host, they’ll die. And so by using multiple species that helps each of them to have a better health and not have as many issues of this. I think probably one of the other biggest challenges is just marketing, can be an issue especially whenever.

[00:31:35]

One of the things that a lot of people sort of think is that you’ve either got to go big or get out. That’s the mantra that industrial agriculture wants to push. Is that you’ve either got to be this big corporation or you can’t survive at all and so one of the things that I’ve been doing right now with the farming is not providing full income as a part time at the moment.

[00:32:05]

Although my goal is to eventually get to point where it’s able to provide a full salary. But, When you’re starting at farming, going and selling your products retail trying to find a wholesaler, you’re going to retain a lot more of that, each food dollar, you’re gonna have a much higher profit, than if you’re selling large amounts to some big buyer like Tyson or whatever big industrial food provider.

[00:32:41]

And by direct marketing your products, you can start with friends and family. You can give somebody, a friend, some of your product to try. That’s one of the best ways to get people to know about your product, let them try a little bit. Once they’ve tried it and they come back for more, they can tell their friends about it and so just starting small, starting with word of mouth marketing is definitely very helpful there.

[00:33:13]

>> James Ferebee: Yeah?

>> Louanne Hoverman: Are there any benefits or strengths to farming in the the area?

>> James Ferebee: I really like this area because it doesn’t get extremely hot like some areas in the summertime but it also doesn’t get extremely cold in the winter especially up north. And that’s really nice with the livestock because areas like that get extremely low temperatures or extremely heavy snowfall, you’ve got another set of challenges with livestock.

[00:33:46]

Sometimes you have to keep them all in a barn or you have issues like the ranchers out in North Dakota right now, with the snow storms that have just come down through there. It’s dumped feet of snow on the ground up there in North Dakota and so they’re having to dig out their cattle out of the snow.

[00:34:05]

And obviously, they’re experiencing losses up there whereas, here in the southeast, even though we might have some extremely heavy and sometimes insanely heavy rainfall at times, and mud to deal with, we don’t really have the types of weather extremes that you see in a lot of places. And especially during the summer, our higher amounts of rainfall can be really helpful [INAUDIBLE] keep some pasture growing for much longer.

[00:34:34]

Whereas, especially out Vespers, [INAUDIBLE], come summer, a lot of times, all the grasses die out and then you got to find hay or you got to buy feed from some other state and ship it in. And that has a lot of challenges there because a lot of farmers are relying on what’s growing on their property to feed their animals.

[00:34:59]

If you’re having to buy feed, [INAUDIBLE] that’s definitely out of your pocket. That’s that much less profit that you’re going to be getting that year.

>> Louanne Hoverman: From what it sounds like, they’re not acclimated to that feed as they’ve been in the past.

>> James Ferebee: Exactly, you’ve got to be able to slowly acclimate them to it.

[00:35:23]

However, now hay, hay is essentially dried grass so it’s usually not an issue to go from pasture to hay. If you’re going from hay to pasture, you do need to move it a little bit slower because fresh grass has a lot more liquid and so you can mess with it a little bit, but usually that’s not much of an issue.

[00:35:47]

But yeah, that can definitely be [INAUDIBLE].

>> Louanne Hoverman: You mentioned distribution, you’re feeder [INAUDIBLE] and you also said about chickens were slaughtered, right?

>> James Ferebee: Correct.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Yeah.

>> James Ferebee: Yes, ma’am.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Where do you send them?

>> James Ferebee: Well, I use Williamsburg packing company. They’re a small independent butcher down in Kingstree, South Carolina.

[00:36:18]

And they handle all of all of my butchering for my poultry, pork, and lamb. So I take the last right down there for processing. And they slaughter, and package, and freeze the meat for me, and then I go back down there and pick it back up and sell it retail here out of my freezers.

[00:36:41]

So I’m currently a vendor at several local farmer’s markets, in addition to the Catawba fresh market, which, I mentioned earlier, is an online farmer’s market. And then the remainder of my products are sold here at the farm, I have customers come here to the farm to pick up their meat.

[00:37:01]

>> Louanne Hoverman: Which two farmer’s markets do you also sell at?

>> James Ferebee: Right now, I’m a vendor at the Mathews Community Farmer’s Market, which is open year round every Saturday morning. I’m also vendor at the Old Town Rock Hill Farmer’s Market which is the seasonal summer farmer’s market that is in operation on Thursday evenings throughout the summer.

[00:37:23]

>> Louanne Hoverman: And you also sell wool and yarn from your sheep?

>> James Ferebee: I do, so a lot of the wool is sold to hand spinners who will process the wool themselves, they’ll wash it, and cart it, and spin it, and do all that. And then the remainder of the wool from each shearing day, I send it up to a fiber mill in North Carolina and they spin it into yarn for me and send the yarn back.

[00:37:53]

And then I can sell the yarn at my farmer’s market booths or on my website as well to people who like to knit or crochet, or use a yarn to make clothes and such.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Have you ever had somebody make you a sweater or something from their-

>> James Ferebee: I’ve not a sweater although that would be really nice.

[00:38:12]

I do have a pair of socks and a hat that were knitted from wool from a sheep. So my grandmother knitted the hat for me, and my sister, who also knits, she knitted the socks to barter for more yarn for herself. So I do have several items that are made from the wool from my sheep, so certainly very warm and comfortable.

[00:38:46]

>> Louanne Hoverman: Now, you mentioned you take the livestock to the processing plant. Do you shear the sheep yourself?

>> James Ferebee: I do shear the sheep myself. So finding a sheep shearer in the eastern part of North America, in particular, can be difficult, [COUGH] since raising sheep is not quite as common as it is out west.

[00:39:08]

Out west, where there are flocks of thousands upon thousands of sheep, they have a lot of sheep shearers out there. Whereas here in the east, it can be difficult and also hard to get into a sheep shearer’s schedule. And so I was interested in learning myself, and so I mostly self taught myself how to shear sheep.

[00:39:29]

I’ve visited several other farms that raise sheep and watched and helped with their shearing before I started with mine, and so I do, I shear my sheep myself. I do it all by hand with blade sheers each year. Although, as the flat grows, I may be looking at upgrading to some electric sheep shears in the future.

[00:39:56]

So yeah, I do. Currently, we’re getting ready to have our sheep shearing day this year next month, where we usually allow people to come out and visit the farm and watch the sheep being And it’s a really neat educational opportunity for a lot of people who don’t get to have experiences with animals or sheep or farms, so yeah.

[00:40:25]

>> Louanne Hoverman: Do you have any issues selling your meat across state lines or there are any issues like initially?

>> James Ferebee: Not really. So in order to sell meat across state lines, it must be processed under USDA inspection. So we start packing is the only independent USDA poultry processor in the southeast.

[00:40:48]

They’re also the only butcher in the Carolinas that is Animal Welfare approved. And so since I’ve raised my livestock naturally, on pasture, and humanely. And so I don’t want all of that work to be destroyed whenever they are being harvested [INAUDIBLE]. By not making sure it’s humane. So it’s very important to me to use an animal welfare [INAUDIBLE].

[00:41:22]

#VALUE!#VALUE!#VALUE!

[00:41:48]

So I haven’t had any issues with that since I’ve been using Williamsburg Packing since I started. So, yeah, that’s not really been an issue for me.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Okay. Yeah, I had read that Williamsburg Packing is quite popular among small to medium sized farms.

>> James Ferebee: It is, and a lot of that is because they’re the only one.

[00:42:10]

You know, the shift in American agriculture from small family farms to large industrial production has largely eliminated small local independent meat packers. Because most of the big industrial companies like Tyson [INAUDIBLE] based on the process, they control the butchers, they control the packers, they control the people who are selling it and sending it straight to the grocery stores.

[00:42:57]

So, small all independent farmers like me, you know, we can’t send our animals to their facilities because they are completely integrated [INAUDIBLE] and they don’t allow any outside livestock coming in. And so, Williamsburg Packing is one of the only independent poultry processors left in the region. And so they actually have people coming as far away as Georgia and Alabama to have their poultry processed there.

[00:43:34]

Now with larger livestock, like pork, goats, sheep, beef, there’s a lot more of those butchers around, both state in the USDA and custom-inspected. So that’s a lot easier to find. However, most of them aren’t certified humane like Williamsburg Packing is. But yeah they’re definitely in high demand since they were in the last independent butchers in the area so.

[00:44:06]

>> Louanne Hoverman: What do you think is the best way to get your products to consumers? Like if you could do anything to get them.

>> James Ferebee: Well, I’m currently working with a couple of restaurants about it potentially getting some of my products in their menus. So obviously, that’s a direct rep to customers.

[00:44:29]

We’re about ten minutes from downtown Rockhill. So we have, many of our customers, you know just drive right out to the farm and they purchase their products here. A lot of times they will, you know come out once a month or so and stock up. And then we’ve got the farmers markets, which are also popular locations for, you know, customers to shop, they can buy our products directly there.

[00:44:55]

If I could do anything, I mean, there’s not really any way a small producer can get in with a grocery store, say Walmart or Harris Teeter or Kroger. They want to have consistent products in all of their stores. Whereas across the entire continent, that’s not even something that small producers should even consider trying to do because there’s no way that you could meet that demand.

[00:45:21]

>> Louanne Hoverman: Plus the sheer volume [CROSSTALK]

>> James Ferebee: Exactly, the sheer volume with the large stores like that, their purchasing wholesale, they’re gonna pay as little as they can so that we they can you know, profit themselves. Whereas small producers, every penny on the dollar counts for a small producer, you know, in order to stay in business.

[00:45:45]

So, a small producer like me, you know, as far as a retail location, a lot of us have on farm stores. So right now I don’t currently have a farm store, I have visits by appointment only right now. For when customers are coming to pick up their meats.

[00:46:05]

But a lot of farms have their own farm stores. Some others will sell to specialty grocery stores. For example, The Peach Stand in Rockhill is a specialty type grocery store that is owned by Springs Farm, which focuses mostly on peaches and vegetable farming. But they also sell lots of other products grown by local farmers.

[00:46:29]

They sell meats, they sell cheeses, jams and jellies, and lots of different stuff. So you know, that’s a very good way for a smaller independent producer to get their product out there. And similar to that a lot of farms have their own farm stores you know will carry products from other similar small independent producers so that way, you can have a variety of products into one store.

[00:46:58]

Because frankly, most people don’t want to go to half a dozen stores just to get finish their grocery list. They wanna get their meat, their cheese, their milk, their veggies all in one area. And so if multiple farmers work together and carry each other’s products in their farm stores.

[00:47:15]

You know, that way the customers, it makes it easier on the customers and makes customers more likely to continue purchasing those products because it’s easy. They want to do what’s convenient. And so those are just a number of ways to get the products out there.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Are there any cooperative organizations like with other farmers?

[00:47:51]

>> James Ferebee: Sure, The Gotobo Fresh Market is very similar in that sense. It’s sorta like an online farmer’s market where farmers list their products and can be purchased by customers online, and then The Gotobo Fresh Market’s volunteers delivers all the products to the customers. But The Gotobo Fresh Market is run by the Gotobo Farm and Food Coalition, which is a farm co-op and advocacy group in the upstate of South Carolina around here.

[00:48:25]

And so their mission is to support small local farmers and help those farmers get their products to consumers. And so they, through the Catawba fresh market, they also do lots of wholesale orders to some customers that buy in bulk. And so sometimes they’ll get products from multiple different farmers who are members of the Catawba Farmer Food Coalition.

[00:48:59]

But yeah, there’s that. There are some others in the area, that’s the first one on my mind right there. Can’t think of any other ones at the moment, but there are several others that are out of state.

>> Louanne Hoverman: What kind of support have been available through the government, whether it be local or state?

[00:49:25]

>> James Ferebee: Sure, the State of South Carolina has a certified South Carolina program whose goal is to encourage consumers to buy local products. And so they have their website, the CertifiedSouthCarolinaGrown.com, where customers can find farms that are from South Carolina and where you can purchase the products. And then they also provide marketing materials to the farmers in South Carolina, so you can see the little certified South Carolina logo.

[00:50:02]

You know that those blueberries weren’t grown in California, they were grown right here in state. Obviously that’s a little bit larger than the more local foodshed of a city or a subregion, but that’s a neat way that they help with that. On the federal level the American Land Board helps with a lot of marketing for lamb products for US producers of lamb and sheep.

[00:50:32]

And then the federal government also does have some financial assistance that they have. They have loans and grants that they have available occasionally for some young and beginning farmers. Sometimes they have assistance if there’s unusual weather events, natural disasters, a lot of times they will provide assistance for farmers who are affected by those.

[00:51:01]

But yeah, mostly that’s it. Occasionally there’s some other programs that, they do as well, but I can’t think of anything else.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Okay, what’s an aspect of farming that really people wouldn’t consider or is maybe misunderstood by the public? Cuz just throughout talking to you, I’ve learned that grazing in a pasture helps sort of the ecosystem with all the critters in there.

[00:51:37]

And by moving around they don’t need antibiotics because they don’t get sick as often, and your breed of sheep and more resistant to parasites, which is kind of a problem in this area. So what other things will people really never think of that is either a problem or benefit, anything really related to farming?

[00:52:02]

>> James Ferebee: Well, I mean, obviously, weather can affect farming quite a lot. Not so much with livestock, but with crops especially, the weather can make or break an entire year for a crop farmer in particular.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Was there anything that really surprised you when you started farming?

>> James Ferebee: Well, I was surprised, I had always grown up visiting farms, around farms.

[00:52:34]

My great uncle has a farm up in Virginia, and so I was always really familiar with farming. But especially when I was starting to sell products and that sort of thing, I was really surprised at how agriculturally illiterate the majority of the population is. Most people, especially in cities, aren’t aware of where the food comes from.

[00:53:05]

I think one time, before I started selling the products, we butchered some of our own turkeys. And I think my mom posted about it on Facebook, and she had some comments asking, that’s so terrible. Why are you killing your turkeys when you can just go get turkey from the grocery store instead of having to kill an animal?

[00:53:25]

Because people weren’t aware that the meat at the grocery store doesn’t just appear there magically, it comes from somewhere. So would I rather purchase this meat at the grocery store from an animal who knows how well it’s treated or this turkey that I raised from the chick, took care of and then finally slaughtered?

[00:53:47]

#VALUE!#VALUE!#VALUE!

[00:54:18]

So they look very similar. But getting a sheep confused for a donkey, or a zebra, or a cow. It’s amazing how little most people know about farming.

>> Louanne Hoverman: And here I thought it was bad that people didn’t know that pickles were cucumbers originally.

>> James Ferebee: Well, and apparently there was a Gallop poll, 7% of the American population believes that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

[00:54:47]

And that sounds small, but there are over 300 million people in the United States. So 7 out of every 100, that’s a good bit of math to do in your head right there, but that’s gonna be at least 20-

>> Louanne Hoverman: Well, 10%-

>> James Ferebee: 21,000, no.

>> Louanne Hoverman: No, 21 million.

[00:55:11]

>> James Ferebee: Yeah, that’s right, 21 million, 21 million people in the United States.

>> Louanne Hoverman: Because 10% would be 30-

>> James Ferebee: Yep, that’s right, I was thinking in terms of 3 million. But, yeah, it’s [INAUDIBLE] came from, 100 years ago those people had a garden in the backyard. Everybody [INAUDIBLE] or [INAUDIBLE] morning or go outside and harvest some you know fresh vegetables and herbs to use for dinner.

[00:55:47]

Whereas today in our commercialized society people purchase their food, and often times they don’t even purchase vegetables or meat. They purchase pre-prepared food, which sometimes aren’t even recognizable as the ingredient ingredients that they’re made from, and so people are completely unaware. They’re not in touch with where their food comes from and what it takes to get it from a farm to the plate.

[00:56:18]

So that’s probably the biggest thing that I was amazed by.

>> James Ferebee: I even had one gentleman ask me if male goats produced milk. Which anybody who passed high school biology should be well aware how mammals work. They female goat produces milk, the reason that any mammal produces milk is to feed their babies.

[00:56:47]

And dairying was even bred specifically to produce way more milk than their babies needs so we can drink it ourselves. That’s how dairying works. I was completely floored. It’s amazing how little people know about that and how ignorant the majority of the American population is about food, so.

[00:57:14]

>> Louanne Hoverman: One last question, where do you see your farm in the future?

>> James Ferebee: Well, my goal right now is I’m working on increasing my flock of sheep. There’s an enormous demand for lamb in the area, especially organically raised grass-fed lamb. A lot of that is do, lamb in general in the past anyway has not been in super high demand in the American population in general.

[00:57:44]

It’s just most people aren’t familiar with it. You’re familiar with beef, beef, pork, and chicken. And then turkey for Thanksgiving. But among the younger generation, millennial’s in particular, are a lot more adventurous in their tastes. We like to try new foods from other cultures and that sort of thing.

[00:58:06]

And then also, in large cities like Charlotte or Columbia, they have large populations of immigrants and people from other cultures. And lamb, for example, is extremely popular in areas like the Middle East or the Mediterranean region, like Greece or Italy. Also people who come from the Caribbean or South East Asia, lamb plays a very large part in the traditional diets of those regions.

[00:58:42]

And also for people who have moved here from Great Britain. In Great Britain lamb is also a very popular meat. And so because in the larger cities there’s a lot of people from other parts of the world, there’s a huge demand for lamb. And also just the growing demand for lamb in the American population.

[00:59:02]

I’ve been working to increase my flock try to meet that demand, although I have come anywhere close. So my goal is to first of all continue to increase my production to meet some to those demands. And also I’d like to partner with some local chef-driven restaurants to get some of my products in the restaurants.

[00:59:25]

Maybe partner with a specialty grocery store type thing. And eventually I’d love to open up my own farm store as well to market my products directly out of there. And so my goal is to, I’d like to grow the farm to the point where it is self-sustainable and providing a full salary.

[00:59:47]

So that way I can do it full time, so yeah.