Source: TUFTS UNIVERSITY submitted to NRP
NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE CONSERVATION PROJECT
Sponsoring Institution
Cooperating Schools of Veterinary Medicine
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
STATE
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0213226
Grant No.
(N/A)
Cumulative Award Amt.
(N/A)
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Oct 1, 2003
Project End Date
Sep 30, 2006
Grant Year
(N/A)
Program Code
[(N/A)]- (N/A)
Recipient Organization
TUFTS UNIVERSITY
200 WESTBORO ROAD
N. GRAFTON,MA 01536
Performing Department
ENVIRONMENTAL & POPULATION HEALTH
Non Technical Summary
Farm land is disappearing in southern New England at a faster rate than in any other area of the country. Farmers are becoming decreasingly diversified and their businesses are more subject to suffering from downward commodity prices of their product. This project will conserve farmland by developing "ready to hand-off" new food animal products for adoption by commercial farmers and landowners at the local level. By focusing on marketing new products, we will remove the risk to the producer associated with developing new products.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1310799310025%
1313210101025%
1313310101025%
1316299301025%
Knowledge Area
131 - Alternative Uses of Land;

Subject Of Investigation
3210 - Egg-type chicken, live animal; 3310 - Beef cattle, live animal; 0799 - Rangelands and grasslands, general; 6299 - Marketing, general/other;

Field Of Science
1010 - Nutrition and metabolism; 3010 - Economics; 3100 - Management;
Goals / Objectives
We will research and develop models of alternative food animal products on our campus farm. Further, we will do market research and develop brands and consumer demand. In addition, we will model methods of improved pasture and environmental management.
Project Methods
We will purchase chicks of an uncommon breed, the Aracauna chicken and raise them in a free-range manner. Also, we will purchase 4 cows and 12 neonatal calves and graft the calves onto the cows. The calves will be raised on milk, pasture, and grain and marketed as meadow veal. The market research will determine the best way to get these products to market. We will manage pastures, hay production, and manure injection in ways applicable to small scale sustainable agricultural projects.

Progress 10/01/03 to 09/30/06

Outputs
We successfully created a master brand, Azuluna, which stands for locally produced, high quality livestock products from animals kept on pasture. We branded and test marketed blue eggs, pasture based but milk-fed veal, lamb, and pork. Currently the eggs are being sold in a number of retail stores at a premium price. We have had under contract approximately 25 private producers of Azuluna veal and continue to see it successfully sold by a private distributor to high end restaurants and hotels under the Azuluna brand.

Impacts
We recognize that farms are disappearing in New England faster than anywhere else in the country due to development pressure, higher costs of production, subsidized imports, and loss of supporting infrastructure. We were able to provide a way for family farmers to diversify and to provide local consumers with high quality local livestock products at premium prices. We were able to begin to reverse the trend of taking animals off of pastures and to develop sustainable pasture-based models in order to improve the quality of our soil.

Publications

  • No publications reported this period