Mark Ellison: Pasture Poultry, Farm Economics, and Regenerative Stewardship #124

I chat with Mark Ellison of Grandad Farms in Emmett, Idaho, about how a health-driven search for better food eventually led him to start raising his own chickens, pigs and laying hens.

Mark started with a borrowed patch of ground and a few hundred meat chickens. Today, Grandad Farms is raising animals on pasture, developing corn-and-soy-free feed, working toward organic certification and trying to build a farm to guide people to know exactly how their food was raised.

We get into the economics behind his roughly $35 chickens and why comparing that directly with a $5 Costco rotisserie chicken misses a lot of what goes into each system. Mark explains his argument around subsidized corn and soy, labor costs and why he is willing to raise a slower-growing, more expensive bird.

We also talk about why he moved away from Cornish Cross chickens toward Freedom Rangers, what organic certification does and doesn’t tell you about how an animal was raised, the surprising reality of pasture-raised pigs, and what he has seen happen to his land after repeatedly moving poultry across it.

Towards the end, the conversation gets into broader topics around raising children in a family business, Mark’s Christian understanding of stewardship, and why producing food for his neighbors is tied closely to how he thinks about faith and responsibility.

Timestamps

00:00 – Intro: Mark Ellison, Grandad Farms

00:17 – Why Mark started farming

04:18 – Processing chickens and animal stewardship

06:29 – Corn-free, soy-free chicken feed

10:35 – Why a pasture chicken costs $35

18:47 – Labor and immigration in agriculture