I'm selling beef, but the truth is, I don't really want to be a beef salesman.
Ideally, you wouldn't need someone like me to buy beef from a local ranch.
You'd know a farming family down the road. Their kids would be involved in the operation, helping raise the animals, marketing their products, and building relationships with families in the community.
You'd buy directly from them, they'd keep more of the money, and your family would have access to good food from people you actually know.
That's the food system I want to see. But that's not the food system we have today.
We're Missing Multiple Generations on Our Farms
According to the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture, the average American farm producer is 58.1 years old, and more than a third are 65 or older.
Think about what that means for the future of our food.
For generations, farmers have done what they know best: raising livestock, growing crops, and managing land.
And for a long time, that system worked well enough for many of them. They could focus on production, sell into commodity markets, and make a living without having to find individual customers.
But over time, that system has become increasingly difficult to sustain.
Decades of intensive tillage, continuous monocropping, overgrazing, and certain other agricultural practices have contributed to soil degradation in many areas. As soil health declines, farms can become increasingly dependent on purchased fertilizers and other inputs to maintain production.
Meanwhile, the costs of fertilizer, equipment, fuel, chemicals, and other necessities have put additional pressure on farmers.
And we're learning more about the long-term consequences of how we produce our food.
Here in Louisiana, we can see some of those consequences in our own waterways.
When excess fertilizers and other nutrients wash off agricultural land, they can travel through rivers and eventually reach our lakes, bayous, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Those nutrients can fuel excessive algae growth, which eventually depletes oxygen in the water through a process called eutrophication.
In the Gulf, this contributes to the seasonal "dead zone," where oxygen levels become too low for many aquatic animals to survive comfortably.
Fish and shrimp may be forced to move into other areas, while bottom-dwelling organisms that can't escape are particularly vulnerable. These conditions can disrupt fisheries and the coastal communities that depend on them, including Louisiana's shrimping and oyster industries.
And it doesn't stop at the coast. Nutrient pollution can also contribute to harmful algal blooms and declining water quality in freshwater lakes and rivers, affecting fish, wildlife, and recreational fishing.
Meanwhile, soil erosion carries away valuable topsoil that took generations to develop. Certain agricultural chemicals can also move into soil and water, raising concerns about environmental contamination and human exposure.
The way we manage our farmland doesn't just affect what happens on the farm. It affects the water we drink, the seafood we harvest, the ecosystems around us, and ultimately the communities we live in.
And the frustrating part is that many farmers are operating within an economic system that makes changing these practices difficult.
We're asking farmers to produce affordable food, protect our environment, improve their soil, and somehow remain profitable in a system where they often have little control over what they're paid.
Something has to change.
But here's the problem: transitioning to different farming practices and selling directly to consumers requires more than knowing how to raise cattle or grow crops.
It requires building an entirely different kind of business.
Websites, social media, marketing, customer service, online payments, packaging, and delivery logistics.
And while some older farmers have embraced these things, we can't reasonably expect every farmer who's spent 40 or 50 years producing food to suddenly become a digital marketer.
That's where the next generation was supposed to come in.
Imagine a family farm where the parents and grandparents focus on production while the younger generation builds the brand, tells the farm's story, and develops relationships with customers.
The younger generation wouldn't have to leave the farm to find an opportunity. They could create one right there.
And instead of relying entirely on commodity markets, the farm could develop its own customer base and earn a better return on the food it produces.
But somewhere along the way, we've lost much of that connection between young people, family farms, and their communities.
And rebuilding it won't happen overnight.
So Why Am I in the Middle?
I understand that I'm another middleman between the farmer and the consumer.
Believe me, I see the irony.
For years, we've talked about cutting out middlemen so farmers can earn more and families can pay less.
And here I am, selling someone else's beef.
But there's a gap in our local food system that isn't going to disappear just because we wish it would.
Farmers are busy producing food. Families are busy working, raising kids, and trying to get dinner on the table.
Someone has to connect the two.
Someone has to build the website, educate customers, collect orders, coordinate deliveries, and make buying local food as convenient as going to the grocery store.
Right now, that's the role I'm trying to fill with Bon Vivre.
I'm not the one raising the cattle. Gray Ranch does that.
My job is to help create a market for their beef by making it easier for families in Southwest Louisiana to buy it.
And I'm not pretending that being a middleman doesn't add costs. Marketing, distribution, and delivery all take time and money.
But those services have value when they help farmers reach customers they otherwise wouldn't reach.
The goal isn't to create another layer of dependency between farmers and consumers.
It's to help rebuild the connection that has been missing for generations.
The Goal Is to Make My Job Unnecessary
I don't dream of being the biggest beef distributor in Louisiana.
I dream of seeing family farms become thriving businesses again, with this model replicated in communities throughout the country.
And I can't take credit for coming up with that idea.
A lot of my thinking has been influenced by Joel Salatin, who has spent decades demonstrating how farms can build direct relationships with customers while managing land differently.
But even he didn't invent the idea of families buying food directly from local farmers. In many ways, it's simply a return to how communities once operated, with some modern tools making it possible again.
I don't think we need to invent an entirely new food system. I think we need to rebuild the connections we've lost.
I want young people to see an opportunity in owning a farm, whether that means returning to their family's land or starting an operation of their own.
I want farmers to have enough customers that they can invest in their land, improve their practices, and pass something valuable down to their children.
And I want families to have better access to food produced without unnecessary agricultural chemicals, with the ability to know and trust the people growing it.
I want American farmers and ranchers to own their land, their businesses, and the means of producing our food. I want them to have more control over how they farm, what they produce, and what they earn.
Because when farmers have reliable customers and a profitable business, they have more freedom to make decisions based on what's best for their land, their animals, and their communities.
That creates opportunities to rebuild soil health, restore native grasslands, reduce unnecessary inputs, and produce food in ways that better protect the environment we all depend on.
And when those farms become profitable, they create opportunities for the next generation to come home, build a life, and stay.
But none of that works if farmers can't make a living.
We can't expect farmers to take better care of our land while making it nearly impossible for them to earn a decent living doing it.
And we can't expect young people to return to family farms if there's no financial future waiting for them.
Every Local Purchase Helps Close the Gap
This is where you come in.
When you buy beef through Bon Vivre, you're doing more than purchasing something for dinner.
You're helping demonstrate that there's a market for food produced close to home.
You're showing farmers that families are willing to seek out their products when someone makes them accessible.
And you're helping create the kind of demand that could make local agriculture a more attractive opportunity for the next generation.
Because ultimately, this isn't just about beef.
It's about whether your children will grow up in communities surrounded by productive family farms or whether those farms will continue disappearing.
It's about whether families can know where their food comes from and have meaningful choices about how it's produced.
It's about whether farmers can make enough money to improve their land instead of constantly fighting rising costs just to stay in business.
And it's about rebuilding communities where producing food that nourishes our bodies is once again something worth passing down.
Maybe one day, the farmer's son or daughter will be the one running the website, delivering the beef, and telling their family's story.
Maybe they'll have enough customers to make a good living without ever having to leave the farm.
And maybe you won't need Bon Vivre to connect you anymore.
If that happens, I won't consider it a failure. I'll consider it progress.
Because this was never really about selling beef.
It's about making sure the people who produce our food have a future, and the families who depend on them have a better way to eat.
That's what I'm trying to build.
Help Us Rebuild Local Food
We're starting with locally raised beef from Gray Ranch, available in manageable portions and delivered to families around Lake Charles.
No need to buy half a cow or purchase another freezer.
Just good beef, raised close to home, with a real connection to the people who produced it.
Every purchase helps demonstrate that local farms can have a future when local families choose to support them.