"Turkey farmers are getting on the regenerative bandwagon. But experts say the birds must be part of a larger regenerative farming system to warrant the term."
"On a sunny day in October, Heidi Diestel holds her iPad up to offer me a good look at a flock of pastured turkeys at Diestel Family Ranch. When they see her at the fence, the large, black-feathered birds start to crowd together and move toward her in unison, clucking and squawking as they approach.
This is what passes for a farm tour in the age of COVID. In addition to the turkeys—which will be sold whole, and make up about 1 percent of the business’s total sales this year—Heidi is gamely showing me a selection of other scenes at the 400-acre Diestel home ranch in Sonora, California. Highlights include the compost they make with their turkey waste and sell to local gardens and CSA farms, the goats they graze on the land between turkey flocks, the pasture grass that has started growing in extra thick and healthy ever since they started applying compost to it, and the old feed mill. The mill is left over from the days before Diestel Family Ranch began working with close to a dozen other farms situated throughout California and the Midwest to raise the majority of their turkeys.
Diestel is a rare mid-sized player in an industry dominated by a short list of large companies. Heidi estimates that the company produces about .5 percent of all the turkey products in the country—in 2019, that number was 240 million—meaning it’s not an insignificant player, but nowhere near the likes of Butterball, Hormel, or Cargill. (In a typical year, around 40 million turkeys are eaten on Thanksgiving, but this year, demand—and prices—appear to be down overall.) Diestel also acquired Sonoma County brand Willie Bird early this year and has worked with General Mills to provide turkey for its Epic bars."
Twilight Greenaway reports for Civil Eats November 23, 2020.
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