Johanna, Al and Jesse Deal

Franklin County, Texas

According to siblings Johanna, Al and Jesse Deal who run the Deal Farm today, their father was a conservationist and a visionary. He always said that in the future, we will not feed grain to cows, only grass. Because the world will get so starved for food, all the grain will have to be used for people. That's how they farmed then and it's how they farm now on 690 acres of Northeast Texas. "Our cows just make a big circle," Johanna says. "They come in from pasture for milking and walk right back out to pasture."

At certain times of the year when the pasture isn't enough to keep them at peak health, the 200 Jerseys the Deals milk receive a small ration of mixed small grains—barley, soy, corn, milo, clover hay, minerals and salt, and kelp. Carefully tended by Jesse and Al, the pastures are what graziers refer to as a "salad mix" of legumes and grasses: white Dutch clover, hairy vetch and iron and clay peas in summer, and Austrian winter peas in February and March. Jesse decides which pastures are to be grazed on any given day.

The Deal Jerseys thrive. "Our herd is very long-lived," Johanna says. "Our last cow that died was 17, but typically they're 12-13 years old." She attributes this to excellent care and genetics. "We've always had Jerseys. One of the first cows our Daddy bought was an old cow straight from the Isle of Jersey. In fact, this was our foundation cow. The second was a fantastic Jersey bull." They've been line-breeding ever since, with an occasional outcross bull thrown in to keep the line supple.

While the Deals' farming methods have always been largely organic, the supplementary grains they purchased before achieving organic certification were purchased from conventional sources. Johanna calls it store feed. "It's hard for people to grasp the difference in the health of our herd even in the three years since we've been completely organic. It must be the chemicals in that 'store feed' and mineral supplements we used to buy, because that's the only difference in the way we handle our cows. The incidence of foot rot is greatly reduced and the body condition of our cows has improved. Plus we get bigger, healthier calves."

"People keep asking when we're going to increase our herd size, but we don't want to do that. Our dad always said you don't make any more money milking 1,000 cows than you do 100 cows. It's just a matter of zeros! When it's all said and done, you're just paying the bank more."