Pure and Simple Organics offers farm to table organic beef, pork and lamb
ELKLAND, MO. – What started out 26 years ago selling her organic farm to table meat to friends and family has turned Jessica Lynn Robinson’s Pure and Simple Organics farm into a successful venture. Word of mouth and organic Facebook groups have given Jessica a place to market her all-natural replacement stock and meat, with customers driving all the way from Virginia to purchase her organically raised hogs.
Jessica has been on her 18 acres of land in rural Elkand Mo. since 2014 and she says that 95% of her customers come to her because of her organic practices. How her animals are raised is important to her and her customers.
“I had a lady that moved here from New Jersey and wanted to buy meat from me but wanted to see everything first. It was key to her to walk around and see how the animals were treated.”
Jessica prefers to raise her own stock, but she also buys from the different organic groups she is a part of as long as they have been raised naturally. Her cattle are made up of pure watusi and watusi-dexter cross cows and she also has a few beef and dairy cross calves that she has sourced from other organic producers. Jessica has added a longhorn bull to her program to keep in line with the type of meat her customers prefer.
Jessica has kept all of the heifers from the watusi-Dexter cross and will breed them to her longhorn. Her customers like the meat quality the watusi-dexter cross produce and she has the dairy-cross for the same reason.
“The dairy cross take longer to finish on grass and hay but they taste better.” She explains, “All of the cattle are grass fed with no grain supplements.”
Jessica does purchase and feed out a few white headed dorper lambs on forage only for customers, but the bulk of her operation are the hogs. The heritage breed hogs have approximately 8 acres of land and wooded areas to forage through for nuts and native grasses and weeds.
“I have Red Wattle, Mangalista and Large Black heritage hogs. The Mangalista are like the Kobe beef of hogs and will produce a highly marbled tender cut.” The large black heritage will produce a dark meat that is very lean with little to no fat but what is there is very finely marbled. They are a critically endangered breed that are not well-known, but I’m trying to help increase the numbers.”
Jessica has several sows that are used in her breeding program, and they are able to farrow in open sheds and lots.
“At about 10 days the piglets become mobile and the sows will start bringing them up into the main barn.” I try to castrate them at about 10 days, but it always depends on the sows attitude and if I can get to them at that time.”
At approximately 8 weeks the piglets are weaned and moved where they are fed a small amount of grain that is sourced locally by a feed mill. Jessica also adds a custom non-chemical mineral from Turner’s Supply in Hartville to the feed and they receive a small amount of organic hay.
“They grow very well on very little feed. Most people will tell you they need 6-8 pounds of feed to finish out, but these are only getting maybe 1 pound a day.”
All of the hay is purchased local and has not been sprayed or chemically fertilized she explained, and she normally purchases from the same people every year.
“People will call me and tell me they have some lesser quality hay with weeds in it, or they have just baled a pasture that has not been touched in several years and want to know if I am interested in it.”
All the livestock on Pure and Simple Organics are raised in an all-natural and organic environment with no vaccinations given. If an animal is looking rough or losing weight Jessica will take a fecal sample to a local vet for worm analysis.
“If I know of a natural process that will work better, I use it.” She says. “I use natural de-wormers such as charcoal which I make it myself now, and diatomaceous earth; walnuts are also a great natural de-wormer.”
The cattle get mainly diatomaceous earth mixed with salt free-choice to make it more palatable to them.
Jessica’s main goal on her farm is to help others to raise their own food and she does that by hosting several farm tours. She has found about half the people she has taught over the years will try it once or twice and decide it is a lot of work and then come back to her.
“It does make them appreciate the home-grown food more.” “You can come and see how the fences are put up, see the shelters and see how the animals are.” Jessica added.
She herself has learned a few things from other farmers, but then a lot is on her own.
“I almost learned by trial and error and a lot of it is just, wow that doesn’t work very good.”
