For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Organic Transitions page and our Organic Transitions page.

Consumer demand for “natural” meat produced without growth hormones or antibiotics is said to be growing so rapidly it is outstripping supply. But many of the farms that produce such meat are seeing only a trickle of the demand.

Most farmers who reject the use of antibiotics and hormones on animals have small operations, and finding their way through state and federal regulations to a processor who can handle their small volume can bedevil their efforts to grow.

Paulette Mastin, owner of M4-D ranch (soon to be called Hawk’s Eye Ranch) in Bartlett, said she has “probably” seen some increase in demand in the last year. Mastin began raising beef 10 years ago as a way to feed grass-fed, antibiotic- and hormone-free beef to her family. The operation grew as friends, family and even strangers approached her to buy beef.

As a farmer who sells directly to consumers, Tennessee law bars her from selling specific cuts of meat, she said.

“We can sell a whole steer, a side of beef, and we can let two families join together to split a side,” she said.

Despite that limitation, the demand is more than she can meet, she said, because she can’t get the pasture she needs to expand her operation.

“Pasture land near Memphis is very hard to come by,” she said.

Mastin blames the USDA’s conservation reserve program for the dearth of pasture land. She lost the original pasture she leased when the owner decided he could make more money from the federal government by putting it in the conservation reserve, she said.