Shelby McClure
At Como, Mississippi farm Homeplace Pastures, animals are ethically and intentionally raised.
Growing up on the farm his great-great -grandfather established in 1871, Marshall Bartlett tackled his share of farm chores. As early as age thirteen, he was actually punching the clock, helping with the cotton harvest, spraying insecticides, and operating farm equipment at Home Place Pastures. Without the interruption of school, summers meant even more time on the farm, punctuated by hours spent hunting, fishing, and exploring the woods with his dog. “This place was paradise for a kid,” Bartlett said. “It was a great place to grow up.”
Like most of their neighbors, Bartlett’s father and grandfather were row-crop farmers. At 1,700 acres, their family farm was small compared to many of the behemoth operations around them, all churning out commodity crops such as corn, cotton, and soybeans, then selling them to large corporations.
“This place was paradise for a kid. It was a great place to grow up.” —Marshall Bartlett
But agriculture has changed dramatically over the last several decades. Managing the family farm for fifty years, Bartlett’s father watched as his profession started to lose its autonomy and American row-crop farmers got stuck in a loop, buying patented seeds from big-ag companies, buying inputs (synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals) often from those same companies, investing in expensive equipment, taking out loans at the beginning of each season, and praying that rain, drought, insects, early frost, late frost, or any number of other things wouldn’t prevent them from paying them back. The joy of farming was dissipating.
“It’s a hard way to make a living, but the only way to farm was at that industrial scale,” Bartlett said. “My parents put a big emphasis on education to give my brother, my sister, and me opportunities outside of agriculture.” After 150 years and five generations, it looked like the Bartlett family was getting out of agriculture. Marshall went to New England to study anthropology and environmental science at Dartmouth College. His father began leasing out the family fields, although he continued running the cotton gin in town (something he still does at age eighty).
Shelby McClure
While at Dartmouth, Bartlett completed a college internship with the Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute in St. Croix. There, he met others from the Southeast who, like himself, had grown up on commodity row-crop farms, didn’t want to farm that way, but felt an undeniable draw back to their homeplaces. “I met people there who were navigating the same challenge I was,” Bartlett said. “It was the first time I could admit to myself that what I really wanted was to return to the farm.”
The problem was, Bartlett was all too aware of the environmental damage industrial farming has wrought on a global scale, and he didn’t want to participate in that any longer. He began devouring books by regenerative farmer Joel Salatin—who advocates for a style of farming that enhances and enriches the land and the community around it. Salatin describes his method as “emotionally, economically, and environmentally enhancing agriculture”.
"I met people there who were navigating the same challenge I was. It was the first time I could admit to myself that what I really wanted was to return to the farm.” —Marshall Bartlett
Bartlett reached out to fourth-generation cattleman Will Harris, who manages the land his great-grandfather settled in 1866, called White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia. Like Bartlett, Harris had grown up farming with a liberal use of pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics—feeding his cattle a high-carbohydrate diet of GMO corn and soy, as is the norm in the industrial-ag model. But in the mid-1990s, Harris had done a complete 180, deciding to start managing his land and his cattle the way his great-grandfather had in the 1800s. His phenomenal success has elevated him to the status of a global leader in humane animal husbandry and environmental sustainability. Bartlett visited Harris at his White Oak Pastures, and the older man became a mentor to him.
Bartlett needed one more piece to fall into place, though. After graduation, he moved to New Orleans to serve a term with AmeriCorps helping rebuild the Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina. When he had completed his service, he still didn’t feel ready to return to the farm, and picked up a job selling meat to chefs in New Orleans. “I learned to butcher, and I learned that I could walk into a top restaurant, engage with the chef, and sell them my wares.” Bartlett also realized there is a big market for local meat, and a lot of farmers like himself who wanted to produce meat sustainably and ethically. They were just looking for a way to connect with the market. Bartlett wondered if he could be that connection.
His idealism was quickly met with intense and demoralizing realities. “There are a lot of things that have to occur between the production and the end consumer, and they’re complicated, expensive, and challenging,” he said. He decided the linchpin would be setting up his own slaughter and processing plant right there on the farm, so he could sustainably raise, process, and distribute his product directly to the consumer—something that’s not really being done in this country. “To have a truly impactful, scalable, regional food system, we needed to control it all—start to finish,” he said.
Shelby McClure
Bartlett’s vision was to develop a model that would enhance the land, the community, the lives of the animals, and the health of the consumer. He started studying the work of animal behaviorist Dr. Temple Grandin—who has made a name for herself worldwide for her innovations in slaughterhouse design with a focus on making the slaughtering process more compassionate and less stressful for the animals. Bartlett was even able to consult with her on the construction of a humane slaughterhouse for his farm.
“To have a truly impactful, scalable, regional food system, we needed to control it all—start to finish,” —Marshall Bartlett
Another major aspect of his model features “closed-loop farming,” where rather than importing grain to feed his cattle, he intentionally manages his pastures so that his livestock are able to gain the nutrition they need directly from the land and from the diversity of animals that inhabit it. He established complex grazing rotations whereby cattle, pigs, and chickens follow one another, each adding to the soil the things that the other depletes. “We’re practicing a style of agriculture that builds the soil,” Bartlett said. “It sequesters carbon and enhances the watershed, and the meat produced is more nutrient-dense than anything raised on an industrial farm.” And he’s doing it all sans antibiotics, hormones, steroids, insecticides, pesticides, and GMO grains.
Shelby McClure
Marshall Bartlett, the fifth-generation owner of Home Place Pastures, who is responsible for stewarding the farm’s future as a source of protein raised while keeping intention and sustainability top-of-mind.
Such an operation requires a lot of hands, allowing Bartlett the opportunity to also enhance the economy of the surrounding area by adding jobs on the farm. Where his father managed 3,000-acres of row crop, including rented land, with five employees, he is managing 300 acres of livestock with twenty-six employees engaged in sales, delivery, harvesting, processing, marketing, office administration, land management, running of the on-site store/restaurant/event venue, and organizing farm tours, music events, and a popular annual boucherie. Additionally, his slaughter facility is available for use to other local, sustainable farmers. “As long as they follow our standards, instead of hauling their livestock to the sale barn, they can bring it to us,” Bartlett said. “They save on the shipping costs, and I pay a premium price for ethically-raised animals. That adds revenue to Mississippi farmers and that money loops back to the community.”
Bartlett realizes though that, in the end, what the average consumer really cares about is the quality of the meat. Fortunately, the complexity and flavor of grass-fed beef and pasture-raised pork is so inherently superior to their grain-fed counterparts that the product speaks for itself. Whether the customer is a celebrated chef in a high-end restaurant or a discerning home cook receiving a Home Place Pastures subscription box—the quality, flavor, and nutrient-density of Bartlett’s meats are his best advertisement.
Shelby McClure
Hunter Evans, the James Beard Award-nominated chef/owner at Elvie’s Restaurant in Jackson, Mississippi, is an advocate of Bartlett’s local-food model. In fact, the menu at Elvie’s states clearly: “Elvie’s proudly serves produce and protein from Mississippi farmers and fresh Gulf seafood.” Evans and his partner, Cody McClain, have been sourcing meat from Home Place since 2016. “I can ask for what I want, like skin-on, or a higher fat content for a specific dish, and they make it happen,” Evans said. “And the quality is much better than what I can get from mainstream distributors.”
In New Orleans, Domenica’s Executive Chef Valeriano “Val” Chiella is also a big fan and valued customer of Home Place Pastures. “We make all our charcuterie meats in-house and require the best of the best meats,” said Chiella. “Home Place hogs are superior because of their marbling and the rich flavors they bring to our salami.” Chiella said working with organic homegrown hogs means the flavor isn’t always the same, which allows him to bring a truly unique dining experience to the table.
Nine years into his regenerative farming adventure, Bartlett admits there’s still a gargantuan learning curve for him. “It’s been more challenging, eye opening, and all-encompassing than I could have imagined,” he said. “We’re still learning about the health benefits and qualities of pasture-raised livestock, the fat composition, the nature of the protein itself, and the micronutrients that only an animal raised on pasture can provide. People buy it because it tastes great, but they should also be buying it because it’s the best meat they can put in their bodies.”
Learn more at homeplacepastures.com.
