Word: ranched
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Getting It Right If a factory farm is hell for an animal, then Bill Niman's seaside ranch in Bolinas, Calif., an hour north of San Francisco, must be heaven. The property's cliffside view over the Pacific Ocean is worth millions, but the black Angus cattle that Niman and his wife Nicolette Hahn Niman raise keep their eyes on the ground, chewing contentedly on the pasture. Grass - and a trail of hay that Niman spreads from his truck periodically - is all the animals will eat during the nearly three years they'll spend on the ranch. That all-natural...
...model for how the new paradigm could work is Niman Ranch, a larger operation that Bill Niman founded in the 1990s, before he left in 2007. (By his own admission, he's a better farmer than he is a businessman.) The company has knitted together hundreds of small-scale farmers into a network that sells all-natural pork, beef and lamb to retailers and restaurants. In doing so, it leverages economies of scale while letting the farmers take proper care of their land and animals. "We like to think of ourselves as a force for a local-farming community...
Other examples include the Mexican-fast-food chain Chipotle, which now sources its pork from Niman Ranch and gets its other meats and much of its beans from natural and organic sources. It's part of a commitment that Chipotle founder Steve Ells made years ago, not just because sustainable ingredients were better for the planet but because they tasted better too - a philosophy he calls Food with Integrity. It's not cheap for Chipotle - food makes up more than 32% of its costs, the highest in the fast-food industry. But to Ells, the taste more than compensates...
Environmental Impact: Living with the Land To prevent his ranch from becoming overgrazed, Niman shifts his cattle around the land, ensuring that the grass has time to recover between feedings. The result is a surprisingly low-impact hamburger, since grass doesn't need chemical fertilizer to grow and its presence helps prevent soil erosion. There's no need to clean up manure - with Niman's low cattle density, the waste just fertilizes the land...
...Charles Bubany, a professor who teaches criminal procedure at Texas Tech University School of Law, says the admissibility of the evidence likely will boil down to whether the judge had a reasonable belief that there was criminal activity taking place at the ranch, regardless of the after-the-fact discovery of the false report. The same judge who signed the search warrant and green-lighted the raid, Texas District Judge Barbara Walther, is presiding over the criminal cases...