Mettenburg Farm, operated by Al and Roxanne Mettenburg near Princeton, Kan., is a place of green grasses, rolling hills, and happy animals (human and otherwise). The Mettenburgs have been living organic, natural, free-range and local for years. Turns out, now they are at the forefront of a global food movement. 
 By marketing premium grass-fed beef, they are providing mother nature’s goodness direct to consumers. As Al says: “We raise good cattle here. At a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always good cattle.”

Meet Al and Roxanne Mettenburg and family - Mettenburg Farm & the Tallgrass Network!

Tell us about your farm.

We farm on several properties around Princeton, totaling about 600 acres.

How long have you farmed?

Our grandchildren represent the 7th generation of our family in Kansas, 6th generation in Franklin County, who are involved in our farm. We began farming on our home property, which was Roxanne’s grandparents’ farm, in 1971.

When did you first decide to become a farmer?

Roxanne grew up on a farm west of Princeton with her parents, Dean and Dorothy Martin, and brother, Fred Martin. Al grew up in a rural area of Missouri. Although both pursued careers off the farm, they returned to Franklin County in 1971, to the farm where Roxanne’s grandparents, Fred C. and Gertrude Martin, had lived since the 1940s. At that time, it was a decision to return home, live in the country, and raise a family alongside animals and crops.

Tell us a little about what you grow / raise / produce.

We like to say we raise grass, turning the energy from the sun into the only truly enduring source of wealth: green plants growing in healthy soil.

            Our properties are best suited to original native Tallgrass Prairie, so we have grazed cattle here since 1971. We run a cow-calf operation and keep the calves through finish on a 100% forage diet. We also raise sheep and the occasional broilers and pastured pigs, and eggs. We sell these products direct to consumers in the Ottawa-Lawrence-Topeka-Kansas City area. Our daughter Leslie operates a USDA-recognized meat hub, FarmerGirlMeats.com, out of St. Louis, also utilizing our products. We also raise a few grain and hay crops, but our primary business is livestock.

What makes your farm unique or special? What are you most proud of?

In 2014, we became the official demonstration site for the Tallgrass Network, an accredited Hub site in the Savory Institute’s global initiative to heal the world’s grasslands through Holistic Management. Our daughter Julie is heading up this project as she transitions into management of our properties. 

            Holistic Management has provided us with the tool we needed to “connect all the dots,” so to speak, about regenerative farming today. There are so many good ideas and many people pitching “the best way,” including our Universities and the many companies selling products they want us to buy, but until we learned Holistic Management, we did not really know how to bring it all together in a farming strategy that would be most effective for us. It has also provided us with the ability to deal with drought and increasingly unstable weather patterns, which brings peace of mind.

            Being a part of this global network of Savory Institute Hubs has connected us to like-minded folks from every walk of life and every corner of the world. It has given the next generation a reason to get involved with the farm, and feels like the way to contribute to a future that will be much more positive than it has seemed in recent years. It’s an empowering movement and we are proud to be a part of it. 

            We are happy to see that our many years of work have led to this opportunity to share a better way of farming with our region and the new people who want to come into farming. People who are interested in getting involved with us can visit the tallgrassnetwork.com website.

What do you love most about farming?

We appreciate nature and the ability to work in it every day. We love the cows. We enjoy the intellectual challenges of the many factors we must manage including genetics, nutrition, ecology, marketing, and finances. We appreciate that due to its complex nature, farming provides many opportunities for our friends and family to get involved, and brings people to us who are interested in what we do. We also enjoy the solitude, serenity and wildlife. And we probably enjoy the deep connections we feel with the past and with basic laws of the universe, that it’s hard to know any other way.

What has been the hardest thing about farming?

            Making a living at it, through the energy crisis years of the 70s, the farm crisis years of the 80s, and the Big Ag years of the 90s through today. Farmers have not been in control of their own destiny and that has resulted in great hardship across our communities, perhaps most evidenced by the exodus of young people. 

            We were fortunate to have off-farm careers that helped us make it through, and ensured we still have our farm properties today. But the challenging nature of the commodity markets plus the “inputs” we have all been led to believe are necessary, together make it a rather unprofitable business for many. It seems nearly impossible for a young person to get a start today, and that leaves us older farmers wondering how we will see our operations and communities continue.

            In addition, as farmers, we often feel the deck is stacked against us. It can be frustrating when our farming organizations, who act as if they represent us, can overlook the many different voices and points of view within the membership. Just as in nature, our whole system is strengthened by diversity. We hope that organizations like Farm Bureau can work to represent all of us farmers, not just certain segments or the companies who depend upon us for their own profits.

            It is also disheartening to live and farm in Kansas, where our political system is so apparently broken in ways that make it harder to do both. It seems that our people and our organizations can no longer work out sensible policies for the good of all. We cannot have civil disagreements about important matters. Instead, neighbors believe the “talking points” coming out of the media, political parties and interest groups, and turn against neighbors. 

            The Kansas of today does not have a vision that meshes with the Kansas of the past, and that can be disheartening when we think about the state our children and grandchildren will inherit. As a once and future agrarian state, these concerns affect farmers every day.

What makes Kansas a great place to farm?

We have incredible soils, a relative lack of predators, a hospitable climate (compared to many, believe it or not!), and the many resources that living in the United States affords us. Our resource base is rich with opportunity and Mother Nature’s bounty. When it comes to the raw materials needed for farming, we have little to complain about!