By Casey Jarmes | The News-Review
WHAT CHEER – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig visited Phillips Family Farm, a direct-to-consumer beef seller located outside of What Cheer, on Jan. 23. Phillips Family Farm owner, April Phillips, began selling bulk beef peer-to-peer at the Iowa City Farmers’ Market last year. This year, she plans to begin selling beef by the piece. She stated that it had been a little slow during her first year, but that she believed business would pick up with the smaller amounts sold. “This way they can try it and know the quality before they go with a bigger amount,” said Phillips.
She also intends to begin selling 10 or 15 pound monthly meat subscription boxes, that will also have chicken and eggs. Phillips stated that she did not plan to ship these subscriptions and would instead deliver at the farmers’ market.
Phillips noted that, because calves are born in the spring, weaned in the fall, and not ready until the next August or September, it’s hard to know how many to sell or keep. Phillips told the secretary that she had difficulty getting appointments to get her meat inspected for sale at lockers last year, forcing her to sell bulk halves or quarters. She stated that she had managed to get appointments this year, but that they had told her they were otherwise full for the rest of the year.
Naig stated that he heard people talk about this difficulty all the time. He stated that there was a lot of difficulty dealing with poultry, due to labor issues at lockers. He noted that, after COVID, lockers were booked for two entire years. Naig stated that he would like USDA inspected facilities to allow inspected meat to be approved across state lines. He recommended Phillips look into the Cooperative Interstate Shipping Program.
Phillips helped her father raise cattle in her youth. A year and a half ago, with her father getting older, she came back to help her father on the farm, starting her beef business as a way to add extra income.
“We have really good genetics in our beef, and they grow good, and we have the genetics for marbling and everything like that. So it just seems like it made sense to feed some out and start selling them this way,” said Phillips.
Naig brought up his Choose Iowa program, which tries to promote locally grown meat and produce. He stated that there is increasing demand for local farm goods and that surveys overwhelming showed that Iowans wanted to and were even willing to spend a little more to buy local goods. He stated this was more than a passing trend. He stated he was working to try and get farmers in contact with schools, grocery stores and restaurants that want to buy from Iowa farmers like Phillips.
April’s husband Nate Phillips told Naig that the biggest thing holding his wife back was not having the resources to develop those relationships. He stated that they did well but not great and that it was hard, as a family of five, to set aside enough money to expand their business through things like building a cooler building to store meat, especially when things are so expensive. Naig stated that things were tight, with a lot of farmers only needing a little bit of support to be able to expand. He mentioned a grant program that helps farmers build coolers. Naig also talked about labelling rules, property taxes, trade missions to Vietnam and Indonesia, new world screw worms, E-15 gas, and Chinese soybean demand.
