McCafferty Ranch are a family owned and operated cattle ranch in Central Montana owned by Joel and Cindy McCafferty (the 3rd, 4th, and 5th generations are all living on the ranch). 

In 2014, Joel and Cindy's daughter Megan (and husband Logan) moved back to the ranch, and the need to diversify the ranch's income arose.  Joel had seen hydroponics used by a friend to maintain his bull herd.  When he saw this, he immediately started thinking about how he could feed out beef cattle on barley sprouts.  After some research (although there was very limited research on the topic at the time) they jumped all in and built a hydroponic plant on the ranch. The plant was designed and built by members of the family in 2017, and they started feeding cattle on barley sprouts for direct to consumer sales.  

Their mission from the get go was to produce the healthiest and best tasting beef possible.  They feel as if they have accomplished that.  All of their beef cattle are born and raised on their ranch.  They practice gentle cattle handling from birth to processing by doing all of their cattle work on horseback.   Finally, the beef is finished on barley sprouts. 

The barley fodder has allowed their cattle to gain weight extremely well (comparable to grain finished beef) and to marble extremely well (comparable to grain finished beef).  They often tell potential customers that the barley sprouts allow their animals to gain weight much like an athlete would - through a healthy diet and exercise (their animals are fed out in a large pasture where they are required to walk distances to feed, graze and water). These health benefits are translated into the beef product.

Currently they sell beef direct to consumers through nationwide sales and bulk local orders.  Additionally, they have recently started producing beef tallow products such as soaps, lotions, and leather conditioners that are 100% non-toxic and really allow them to utilize the whole animal. They have also redesigned their hydroponic plant and manufactured an entirely new hydroponic system that is now available to purchase. This new hydroponic system is unlike any other on the market and they believe superior because of production ability, state of the art automations, and lower price points than competitors.  They could go on and on about the applications for hydroponics within the ag industry and believe that it could really change agriculture for the better.

https://www.mccaffertyranch.com/ https://www.instagram.com/mccaffertyranchbeef/

Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 04:15 Hydroponics 07:50 Sprouts as finishing ration 12:55 USDA grading system 15:13 Water used for producing sprouts 17:51 Herbicides, pesticides 19:37 Temperature 23:42 Just water and barley 26:53 Acreage 32:56 Drought in Montana 38:07 Limitations to scaling 43:59 Metabolomic analysis of beef 49:36 Feeding hydroponic sprouts to beef

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