Craft Crops is VERY excited to announce that we are partnering with Walnut Range Farms to offer Nebraska raised, grass fed/grass finished beef to our customers in the Omaha area. Walnut Range Farms is a family run operation (Forrest and Jessica Swanson) dedicated to providing top quality beef that is humanely raised.

Walnut Range Farms is a great partner for Craft Crops because of their commitment to practices that increase soil health, animal health, and ultimately, human health. The cattle at Walnut Range Farms eat high quality forages on the wide open range, year round. Cattle are moved and rotated frequently to get the most benefit from the grasses, maximizing energy, protein, etc. In addition, when cattle are allowed to graze on the landscape, they act as “topsoil builders”, eating and trampling grasses to cycle nutrients and fertilize the grass to stimulate more growth.

Walnut Range Farms has found through lab tests that their beef has drastically lower Omega-6 to 3 ratios and drastically higher beta carotene values (HERE is one article discussing Omegas). In fact, after testing different forages over the years they have found their Omega-6 to 3 values to be at a 1.18:1. I challenge you to take a Google search and compare that to other beef. We really do have the best beef in the world grown by local ranchers in our area, and Craft Crops is happy to partner with one of them.

I’ve spent a few years relentlessly looking for answers when it comes to the topic of “soil health”.  As a Soils Engineer (Geotechnical Engineer is my actual title, but always involves an explanation), I studied the physical properties of soil that would impact the strength, permeability, swell potential, etc.  However, there were always things that I found in soil that didn’t seem to make sense especially when it came to the topsoil (which we would normally strip off of a site and try to ignore).  I thought chemistry and physics were the answer to those questions.  Therefore, I studied how calcium and magnesium will impact soil structure, and how negatively charge clay particles hold various ions, etc., but knew I was missing something major. Then I studied biology, the life within the soil, and everything came together.  I also quickly realized that I, nor anyone on this planet during this life-time, will ever fully understand the biology in the soil due to its complexity, but I did realize I needed to change the way I looked at soil. Previously, soil to me was inert fractions of rock, weathered to various degrees, but that is far from what soil should be and that with never produce abundant life.  Soil that is full of life produces abundant life.  However, you can’t have healthy, living soil without living plants and animals to support the soil. All life is mutually dependent. Healthy soil produces healthy plants and healthy plants in turn feed the soil to produce nutrient-dense food which will improve human health. At Craft Crops, our focus is on living soil to produce healthy food. Life comes from life.