Beef is big business in Pennsylvania. There are 150-thousand beef-cows on farms and feedlots across the state... and most of them are raised on commercial grain feed.

But here on Natural Acres Farm in Millersburg, Central Pennsylvania... there are only 120 cows... and they're all munching on grass...

Steve Shelley is in charge of marketing beef for Natural Acres. He says cows are designed to eat grass... but most farmers today find it cheaper to purchase feed made from grains like corn.

You know farmers nowadays, well that's the way their dads did it, so they're doing the same thing. It's much easier to go out and dump a bucket of feed into a pen, for that animal to eat, than it is for that animal to be out, to get the best benefit from the soil.

Shelley says cows raised on corn get sick more often than grass-fed cattle. The constant antibiotic treatments and veterinary care necessary for feedlot cattle are absent on Natural Acres ... The cows are healthier — and since Shelley's marketing his product to consumers interested in "healthier meat," the animals also don't recieve growth hormones or other chemicals often found in commercial beef.

Natural Acres runs an organic foods shop on-site. But Shelley says the market for such products is pretty small in Central Pennsylvania. The farm does sell most of the beef it produces... but by shipping to restaurants and stores around the state where people are willing to pay premium prices.

In a grocery store you may pay anywhere from a dollar 75 a pound to two dollars for a pound of beef. Retail, we get four oh nine.

Shelley says it takes longer to raise cattle on grass. Grain-fed cows are ready for slaughter within a year, but Natural Acres cows can take six months to a year longer to reach the same size.

But being able to charge more for beef isn't the only perk associated with raising cattle on grass.

The animals rarely get sick. And I have talked to hundreds of people who raise animals on pasture.

Jo Robinson is author of the book, "Why Grass Fed is Best." She also runs the website "eatwild.com," which compiles research on grass-fed cattle.

The big surprise I think, and this wasn't known until about 1998 is that an animal raised on pasture has five times the amount of cancer fighting fat called conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA.

Robinson says CLA helps prevent cows from developing tumors. There is some evidence suggesting CLA has the same effect on humans — but it's not yet clear if eating grass-fed beef is a way for people to fight off cancer.

Robinson does point out that CLA is just one of the reasons there's a growing demand for grass-fed beef.

Some people gravitate towards pasture finished meat because it's free of hormones and antibiotics. Some people are aware of the nutritional benefits. They like the fact that it's lower in saturated fat, higher in omega 3 fatty acids, higher in vitamin E, and a number of other substances. It's simply a healthier product all around.

Robinson says she first started looking for American grass-farmers in 1997, and only found about sixty. Now, she says, the market has grown to include at least ten times that number... which still only represents a small portion of the American Beef Industry.

Paul Slayton is director of the Pennsylvania Beef Council, the non-profit organization charged with promoting the state's beef industry. Slayton says less than one percent of the the state's beef production comes from grass farms. But he says those farms do fill an important role.

I see it being a very viable part of our production in this part of the country, because we have such an ecclectic consumer group. And there are some consumers that just won't eat anything else but organic. And somebody's going to be providing their food.

As the beef industry is recovering from public concern over mad cow disease, and e.coli bacteria, Slayton says anything that convinces people meat is safe... is fine by him.

And as for the taste of grass-fed beef... Steve Shelley from Natural Acres Farm says it might be more familiar than many Pennsylvanians think.

Many times when I go and do a taste test at a store or something... a lot of the older people, when they try it, they make the comment, this tastes like beef used to taste.

Shelley says the meat is leaner, and can be tougher... if cows aren't fed a little grain before slaughter. But Natural Acres is experimenting with different types of grass that might lend texture to the beef.

Shelley says it's a combination of taste and nutrition that gets most people interested — even some people who had given up on beef altogether. Shelley tells one story about a man who's wife had banned meat from their house for five years.

So he bought a hamburger and finally got her to try it, and at the end of the day, he was clean across the parking lot, and he yelled over and he gave me a high five, and he said I can eat beef again! She's given me permission to bring beef into the house! Well, that really makes you feel good.

Shelley grew up on a small farm where his family raised their own cows on pasture. Now he's bringing a taste of his childhood to market... at about four dollars a pound.

Moo Moo

More information's available on the web at GreenWorks.tv. I'm Brad Linder.