Beyond sustainable
What exactly is 'regenerative' beef at James Ranch?

I have long admired the open pasturelands of Durango’s north valley. The meandering Animas River buttressed by the Sedona-like Hermosa Cliffs rising from the valley floor – perfectly narrow to provide a cozy hug as you drive up Highway 550 but not so tight as to obstruct the remarkable Colorado sky. In summer, the fields are an emerald carpet of life, while winter’s snow conveys quiet, hushed sleep. In any season, it just feels … healthy.

Driving north from Hermosa, it’s hard to miss James Ranch with its sprawling 400 acres along the east side of the highway. I have always noticed it, gazing down on the glistening fields, stock ponds, gardens and now the newly remodeled and expanded Market and Grill. Recently, it seems that more of their products like cheese, flowers and varieties of beef have expanded into Durango markets and restaurants. I have paid more notice to their 100% grass-fed and regenerative beef since those words seem to show up a lot. But other than the obvious (I know what 100% means), I was curious about the “regenerative” label and what James Ranch was actually doing that was so different.

I connected with Jenn Wheeling, who with her husband, Joe, are the owners of James Ranch Beef and partners in the overall James Ranch enterprise. They spend a lot of time thinking, tinkering and striving to manage and grow the ranch’s beef capabilities. But with only so much land (roughly 325 acres in bovine grazing) and a firm ethic that steers away from artificial inputs like herbicides and pesticides, where is there opportunity to expand the beef operation within these constraints? Wheeling explained that prior to 2020, they had essentially maximized what productivity they could get out of the ranch on the beef side.

“For many people, 2020 was a catastrophic event, but it shot us up. That year, Joe and I ran the beef freezer down to two boxes of hamburger before the 2020 crop came in,” she said. “We said, ‘What are we going to do? We don’t have enough beef to keep up. How are we going to make this happen?’” Then, the movie “To Which We Belong” was released in 2021, introducing them to a larger world of soils and regenerative agriculture. James Ranch had dabbled in some of these methods in the past, but once the film came out, “people really started to talk,” Wheeling said.

One of the people in that film is Nicole Masters, author of the book “For the Love of Soil.” In 2021, the nonprofit Quivira Coalition helped set up an event with Masters at James Ranch, packed with people from across the West. Since Masters was already going to be at the ranch, the family hired her for a day to assess their operations and provide a “report card” to help inform what they could do to increase their output. Through her analysis, Wheeling told me, Masters concluded that they were overwatering the soil.

“You are drowning all the microbiome in your soil, and you have no mycorrhizal fungi, because you are drowning it with your flood irrigation,” Masters told them. “If you can find a way to manage your water better, your soil is going to respond. And when your soil becomes healthier, your grass becomes healthier and your animals will harvest that, and you will be shocked at what happens.”

The Wheelings felt a sense of relief, as they realized they did not have to go out and find more land, but do better with what they had. This realization inspired them to shift a number of animal management practices, such as focusing on more efficient pasture management and quality of their winter feed.

Also, they had long contemplated getting a center pivot irrigation unit, which long ago was sometimes viewed as a wasteful method of irrigation. But with today’s modern technology and digital monitoring, it is highly controllable and sensitive to conditions in the field, maximizing both water efficiency and efficiency for the plants – down to the shape of the drops of water coming out of the spray nozzles.

Because the pasture where they would install this system is flat as a pancake, they could not get flood irrigation to work well there, drowning part of the pasture while leaving other parts high and dry – in effect limiting the productivity of that field.

“Around May 1 this year, we got the center pivot up and running, which is watering 70 acres better than ever before, including about 15 acres we have not been able to grow on, while using 10% less water (which returns to the Animas River),” Wheeling said.

Giving the soil the ability to breathe, not using any chemicals and proper rotation of the cows through the fields is most of what makes James Ranch “regenerative, versus just sustainable,” Wheeling told me.

And the results of all this tinkering? The animals now weigh on average around 200 pounds more each, which is the equivalent of having 15 more cattle in the field. Adding in the 15 acres that suddenly became productive due to installing the center pivot irrigation, they could theoretically add another 15-20 head of cattle, increasing their beef productivity on the same 325 acres by roughly 15%.

Ultimately, the proof is on the plate. James Ranch beef is distinctive, and, like how wine responds to geology and water and sunlight and fog, beef can have a “terroir” as well. And it does: the richness and depth of 100% grass-fed beef is undeniable. Then layer on the further complexity from the more vibrant and diverse plant community (thanks to healthier soils), and you get to dig into a much more interesting and enjoyable product that uses less Animas River water, without added chemicals. And it is all done locally, by generations of a family that have invested in time and place and community. That’s a story I love sinking my teeth into.