Tale of Two Harrises

harris-teslaTesla drivers traveling between Los Angeles and the Bay Area stop at Harris Ranch in Coalinga for a meal. It’s a good place for serious carnivores to be seen and to meet for serious power lunches. On-site stations charge electric vehicles while their owners eat and schmooze.

Don’t know where Coalinga is? It’s about halfway between L.A. and harris-cattleS.F. on Interstate 5. You can tell when you’re near by the strong aroma of cow shit. More than a hundred thousand cattle spend the last few months of their lives on Harris Ranch, being “finished” with a diet of “corn, alfalfa hay, vitamins and minerals.” The Harris Ranch Company also operates an adjacent horse-breeding ranch.

Digression

In the days before diesel, the Southern Pacific Railroad set up coaling stations for its steam locomotives operating in the San Joaquin Valley. “Coaling Station A” eventually became the town of “Coalinga.”

End of Digression

Twenty-three-hundred miles away, in the rural community of harris_whiteBluffton, Georgia, population 100, another Harris – no relation – takes a different approach to raising cattle. Will Harris’s great-grandfather began farming the land, with the help of a hundred freed slaves, after the Civil War. A millennium earlier, a large Native American population farmed the site and developed the Kolomoki civilization, lasting three hundred years.

Twenty years ago, Will became convinced that the world would someday deplete its fossil fuels, putting an end to high-yield, chemical-based farming. Over that time, he has converted the family cattle operation to grass-fed, emphasizing organic methods, minimal waste and animal welfare – as much welfare as it can be for livestock that will eventually end up in one of the family’s two slaughterhouses.

The Harris family’s White Oak Pastures has grown to 2,500 acres. harris-familyThey raise cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys and geese. Two of CEO Will’s daughters are active in the business. They sell their products to retailers and restaurants throughout the southeast, as well as mail order, er, that is, on-line. White Oak Pastures employs about 130 people. Sales are near $30 million. Plans are to build eleven new homes in Bluffton, along with harris-white-oakrenovating existing ones, to house their farm workers. Some neighbors are wary of the diversity of those coming to work there. Will Harris is unfazed: “I was raised to be racist and homophobic, but then I realized that shit don’t work.”

The fall edition of Oxford American magazine has a good profile of Will Harris and White Oak Pastures by John T. Edge. Unfortunately, it’s not available on-line; you’ll need to buy the magazine.

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