South Dakota

Demand remains high for ‘heritage turkeys’ grown in South Dakota

Published

6 months ago

November 23, 2023

Demand remains high for ‘heritage turkeys’ grown in South Dakota

Bart Pfankuch and Mark Andersen
| South Dakota News Watch

STURGIS, S.D. – During the COVID-19 pandemic, disruptions in the food production supply chain and workforce sometimes led to empty grocery shelves, pushing some consumers to turn to locally grown organic meats and produce.

That trend included heightened interest in so-called heritage turkeys, ancient breeds of the big birds that were common in the early days of the United States but which dropped from consumer consciousness as producers turned toward the plump, big-breasted turkeys that are grown en masse and will appear on millions of American dining tables this Thanksgiving.

While the pandemic spike has leveled off, a number of people in South Dakota remain highly interested in eschewing the cheaper, bigger white turkeys sold at chain grocery stores in favor of the smaller heritage birds grown and sold on a handful of Rushmore State organic farms.

“We saw a big surge during COVID, but there’s still an interest and a growing interest in our turkeys,” said Michelle Grosek, who runs Bear Butte Gardens organic farm near Sturgis with her husband, Rick. “Some people went back to old ways of eating, but a percentage has decided to stick with buying locally grown products.”

The Groseks raise Bourbon Red heritage turkeys, which not only make great table fare but are outstanding at keeping down grasshopper populations on the farm located west of state Highway 79 just north of Sturgis.

Many visitors to the farm across the highway from Bear Butte State Park seek a closer connection to how their food is raised. And they’re willing to pay more for a turkey that is locally grown in free-range conditions on farms without giant warehouses where birds are raised by the thousands and never leave until being trucked to processing plants.

“It’s a good market for us and growing all the time as there is more awareness of how your standard turkey or chicken is grown in a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation),” Michelle Grosek told News Watch.

In the run-up to Thanksgiving 2023, Grosek said she is butchering 10 of her own Bourbon Red turkeys and another 10 from another area farm. They range in finished weight from 10 to 17 pounds and are priced at $8 a pound, she said.

Grosek said she and her husband saw a jump in interest in their Bourbon Reds following a 2020 version of this News Watch story highlighting the increased interest in heritage turkeys. She not only heard from consumers interested in buying birds to eat but from other small producers looking for breeding stock to expand their flocks of Bourbon Beds.

“It was like a nice new community developed around that article, and I did not foresee that,” she said.

Known collectively as “heritage turkeys,” many of the ancient breeds almost went extinct in the late 1990s. But those colorful, playful and spritely bird breeds are on the rebound as a small group of niche farmers in South Dakota and beyond are once again breeding, raising and selling heritage turkeys as part of a growing farm-to-table agricultural movement.

The story of how heritage turkey breeds almost disappeared, how a genetically modified bird that cannot reproduce on its own became the nation’s preferred table fare, and how a few farmers are fostering the re-emergence of the ancient breeds is a tale that sheds light on how modern agriculture has used science and selective breeding to increase production and profits. Yet it is also a story about how some farmers are taking on the task of preserving the ancient breeds to meet an increasing demand by some consumers to know more about what they eat and how it is raised.

Breeding stock of heritage turkeys such as Auburn, Buff, Black, Bourbon Red, Narragansett, Royal Palm, Slate, Standard Bronze and Midget White totaled just 1,335 in 1997, according to a census taken by The Livestock Conservancy of Pittsboro, North Carolina.

Conservancy program manager Jeannette Beranger said in fall 2020 that the alarming decrease in birds sparked efforts to preserve heritage breed turkeys, whose total had climbed to 14,000 by 2016, the year the last census was taken. Specific breeds like Black turkeys remain rare; Chocolate turkeys have vanished.

The concern now is whether a new generation of farmers dedicated to preserving heritage breeds will step forward to replace those now retiring.

“Some of the old timers, the big-scale producers, have bowed out. The red flag is going up once again for (heritage) turkeys like in the ‘90s,” Beranger said. “We need more people breeding these birds.”

Only a handful of South Dakota producers raise heritage breed turkeys to sell. They do it out of a desire for preservation, to tap into a growing base of highly selective consumers, a preference for sustainable agriculture or because the heritage breeds are known for higher fat content and greater juiciness than the mass-produced birds.

The vast majority of the more than 200 million turkeys that Americans consume annually descend from a single breed — the Broad-Breasted White, a far different creature from turkeys of old.

Modern Broad Breasted White turkeys reach market weight in 14 to 18 weeks, compared with 28 weeks for other breeds. In heritage breeds, the extra weeks allow for more skeletal development and greater fat production, affecting juiciness and flavor.

Raised in large indoor pens, today’s commercial turkeys cannot defend themselves from predators, rear their young or reproduce without artificial insemination. They are too top-heavy to mate without assistance, with up to 70 percent of the bird’s weight concentrated in the oversized breast. They have weaker immune systems.

South Dakota is a significant producer of Broad Breasted Whites, with about 5 million turkeys raised annually almost exclusively in concentrated animal feeding operations runs by Hutterite colonies in East River. The Hutterite-owned Dakota Provisions turkey plant in Huron processes about 200 million pounds of turkeys a year and makes up a significant portion of the state’s $300 million annual poultry industry.

— This article was produced by South Dakota News Watch, a non-profit journalism organization located online at sdnewswatch.org.

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South Dakota

The athletes to watch at the South Dakota state track meet in Sioux Falls

Published

32 mins ago

May 22, 2024

Press Room

The athletes to watch at the South Dakota state track meet in Sioux Falls

SIOUX FALLS — The 2024 South Dakota State High School Track and Field Championships run Thursday through Saturday at Howard Wood Field.

Events kick off at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 9 a.m. on Friday and 10 a.m. on Saturday with the final event (the boys’ 1,600-meter relay) slated for 2:40 p.m. on Saturday.

Below, here’s at least 20 reasons (athletes/relay teams) for area fans to keep an eye on this weekend.

Halle Bauer, Great Plains Lutheran

The Panther standout and South Dakota State University recruit missed her senior season of cross country because of an injury but returned this spring and did qualify for six events. She’s slated to run the Class A 400-meter dash and 1,600-meter run and also seems likely to be used in GPL’s medley and 1,600 relays.

Bauer has placed in at least five individual events at state meets during her career.

Malia Kranz, Watertown

The Arrow sophomore heads into the state meet with the top throw in the Class AA girls’ discus (139-3) and the third-best throw in the shot put.

She took sixth in the shot put last year and broke Watertown’s school record with a toss of 43 feet, 8 inches at an indoor meet earlier this spring.

David VanVeen, Aberdeen Central

The Golden Eagle senior has come on strong this spring and enters the state meet with the second-best time in the Class AA boys’ 1,600-meter run and sixth-best in the 3,200.

Chloe Raw, Arlington

The junior speedster finished second in both the Class B girls’ 100- and 200-meter dashes last spring and has recorded the best times in both the 100 (12.03) and 200 (24.86) heading into the state meet.

Ella Boekelheide, Northwestern

Who knows how many events the sophomore standout could run if she wasn’t limited to four. She’s slated to run the 400, 800, 1,600 and 3,200 runs in Class B girls division this weekend. She has the top time in the 800 (2:05.07), second-best times in both the 1,600 and 3,200 and fourth-best in the 400.

Her track record at state includes wins the 1,600 and 3,200 along with a fifth-place finish in the 800 in 2022 and runner-up finishes in all three races in 2023.

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Ciara Frank, Aberdeen Central

The senior is a two-time state Class AA place winner in the high jump (second in 2023 and sixth in 2022) and also finished third in the long jump last spring.

She enters the state meet No. 3 in the high jump and No. 4 in the long jump.

Owen Spartz, Watertown

The University of South Dakota recruit is looking to become the first Arrow boys’ pole vaulter to win three state titles in the event, but has spent most of the spring behind fellow USD recruit Beau Karst of Harrisburg, the new state record-holder in the event (16-3).

Keep a look out for more on Spartz in a feature story slated to come out Thursday.

Owen Fieber, Deuel & Zac VanMeeteren, Hamlin

Fieber, a junior, took fourth in the Class A boys’ 100-meter dash last spring and enters the state meet with the second-best 100 and eighth-best 200. He has been out with an injury, but is listed among the state entrants.

VanMeeteren, another junior, has stepped up during Fieber’s absence and has the second-best 200 and fourth-best 100 and 400 times among the state entrants. VanMeeteren’s teammate Luke Fraser, a senior, has ran the sixth-best time in the 400.

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Isabelle Bloker, Sioux Valley

Bloker has placed in both the Class A girls’ 1,600- and 3,200-meter run at state each of the past two years, including victories in both races in 2023.

She enters state with the best 3,200 time (10:34.25) and second-best 1,600.

Kaleb Foltz, Tri-State

Like Boekelheide, Foltz is a distance standout who is also becoming more of a sprinter. He placed fourth in the Class A boys’ 800, fifth in the 400 and sixth in the 1,600 in the 2023 state meet. He won the 800 and 1,600 and also placed in both events in Class B in 2022 and 2021, respectively.

He’s currently No. 1 in the 800 (1:52.24), third in the 400 and seventh in the 1,600.

Deubrook Area Relays

The Dolphins are back in Class B where they’ve had success, including three-straight state Class B girls division championships from 2017-19.

Deubrook Area’s girls enter the state meet with the top time in the medley (4:22.25) and third-best time the 3,200. The Dolphin boys have the third-best 800 time and top times in the 1,600 (3:29.9), 3,200 (8;14.39) and medley (3:41.46).

Ipswich Pole Vaulters

The Tigers have the top Class B vaulters in boys (junior Rasmus Loken, 13-0) and girls (freshman Jalyssa Hutson, 10-6). Loken took third and Hutson second in last year’s state meet.

Sophomore Marley Guthmiller has placed third in the girls each of the past two years and enters state at No. 3. Sophomore Brody Davis (fifth) is also a returning state place winner for the boys.

Payton Brown & James Batchelor, Milbank

Here’s two talented senior distance runners for the Bulldogs. Brown has run the third-best times in both the boys’ 800 and 1,600 runs. Teammate James Batchelor has the fourth-best 1,600.

They could also factor in on the Bulldog relay teams that currently are second in the medley and third in the 3,200.

Boaz Raderschadt, Watertown

The senior University of North Dakota recruit is one of limited group of Watertown athletes who could win a state title. He enters state wth the second-best throw in the throw in the Class AA shot put and fourth-best in the discus. He finished seventh in the shot put last spring.

Cristhian Rodriguez, Matthew Mount, Robert Begalka & Dustin Wurtz

Here’s four more boys’ throwers to keep an eye on. Rodriguez, a senior from Hamlin, has the top throw in the Class A javelin (169-2) and third-best in the discus. Mount, a sophomore from Webster Area, is fifth in the shot put and sixth in the discus and Begalka, a senior from Deuel, fourth in the shot and seventh in the discus. Mount placed fifth in the shot put and Begalka sixth in the discus in 2023.

Wurtz, a junior from Leola, finished second in the Class B discus and sixth in the shot put at last spring and has the third-best throw in the shot put and fifth-best in the discus so far this spring.

Shawnteah La Croix, Aberdeen Christian

The sophomore sprinter has placed in the Class B girls’ 100 and 200 dashes at each of the last two state meets and and has used that speed to become successful in another event this spring. She enters the state meet No. 2 in the long jump and No. 3 in both the 100 and 200.

Lincoln Woodring, Northwestern

A runner-up in the Class B 800 and a sixth-place finishers in the 1,600 last spring, the junior has the best time in the field in the 800 (1:57.47) and fifth-best time in the 1,600. He also should anchor Northwestern’s No. 2 medley relay.

Emmett Hanson, Milbank

Acccording to numbers, the junior is the cream of the crop for area hurdlers. He heads to the state meet with the thrid-best Class A time in the 300s and the fourth-best in the 100s.

Ipswich (boys) & Potter County (girls) Relays

Ipswich has the fastest times this spring in both the Class B boys’ 400 (44.11) and 800 relays (1:31.3).

Potter County’s girls have the fastest Class B time in the 1,600 (4:08.64), second-fastest in the 3,200 and fourth-fastest in the medley.

Trevor Heinz, Ipswich & Spencer Melius, Faulkton Area

These two area athletes also head to the state meet the top distances in Class B boys’ field events.

Heinz, a senior, is No. 1 in the long jump (22-6.5) and Melius, a sophomore, No. 1 in the javelin (170-0).

State Track Meet Schedule: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.sdhsaa.com/Athletics/TF-MeetSchedule.pdf

Follow Watertown Public Opinion sports reporter Roger Merriam on X (formerly known as Twitter) @PO_Sports or email: rmerriam@thepublicopinion.com

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South Dakota

Bipartisan border bill likely doomed in approaching U.S. Senate vote • South Dakota Searchlight

Published

8 hours ago

May 21, 2024

Press Room

Bipartisan border bill likely doomed in approaching U.S. Senate vote • South Dakota Searchlight

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats are pushing for a second attempt to pass a bipartisan border security bill that failed in February after Republicans walked away from the very deal they helped craft, and it’s likely to fail again when the Senate votes on the legislation Thursday.

“So why are we bringing this bill up the second time?” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who was one of three negotiators of the measure. “The answer is simple. Democrats care about border security.”

The expected vote comes as immigration has continued to rise as a top concern for voters in the polls and as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, has centered his reelection campaign on the issue, promising to reinstate his previous policies and carry out mass deportations.

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President Joe Biden called Republican leaders in both chambers Monday night to advocate for them to vote for passage of the bill that, among various things, would give Biden the executive authority to close the southern border when it’s overwhelmed.

“Mr. President, you caused this problem,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he told Biden in their phone call.

McConnell said he pushed for Biden to reinstate Trump-era policies such as the completion of the border wall and the so-called Remain in Mexico policy, which required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while waiting for their cases.

“The president needs to step up to it, do everything he can do on his own, because legislation obviously is not going to clear this year,” McConnell said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, already said in a statement that should the bill pass the Senate, it’s dead on arrival in the House.

Thune: Democrats trying ‘political theater’

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said he wanted Senate Republicans on the record for voting on the stand-alone bill. Republicans last year originally said they would only vote for vital aid to Ukraine if a border security bill was attached.

“Do Republicans want to improve the situation on the border, or not?” Schumer said. “Maybe they’re happy with the way things are.”

Schumer said that Republicans were on board with voting for the border security bill, “until President Trump told them to make a U-turn.”

Murphy as well as Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent, and Republican James Lankford of Oklahoma spent months crafting a bipartisan border security bill that would overhaul U.S. immigration law. Senate Republicans walked away from the bill, eventually siding with their House colleagues and Trump.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican, said Democrats are only holding Thursday’s vote to protect vulnerable incumbents up for reelection this November such as Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and Montana’s Jon Tester.

“Where we are right now, this has become a political liability, a political vulnerability for the Democrats,” Thune said, adding “all the charades and political theater the Democrats are trying” are meant to protect incumbents.

The sweeping border security bill would raise the bar for migrants claiming asylum, clarify the White House’s parole authority and end the practice of allowing migrants to live in U.S. communities as they await their asylum hearings, among other things.

The Biden administration expressed frustration after Senate Republicans voted to kill the border security deal, frequently blaming Trump and Republicans for walking away.

“Every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends,” Biden said in February.

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Trump declines witness stand as testimony in his first trial concludes • South Dakota Searchlight

Published

15 hours ago

May 21, 2024

Press Room

Trump declines witness stand as testimony in his first trial concludes • South Dakota Searchlight

WASHINGTON — The end of the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president is in sight as Donald Trump’s defense team rested its case Tuesday in Manhattan, where jurors have heard weeks of testimony from nearly two dozen witnesses about Trump’s alleged reimbursement of hush money meant to silence a porn star before the 2016 presidential election.

Trump did not take the stand after his team called just two witnesses.

The former president is accused of 34 felonies for falsifying business records. New York prosecutors allege that Trump covered up reimbursing his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen for paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels just before Election Day in 2016 to silence her about a tryst with Trump.

Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican candidate for president, denies the affair and maintains that he was paying Cohen for routine legal work.

The case will not resume until after the Memorial Day holiday, when closing arguments are expected.

A back channel to Trump

Trump’s defense team’s second and final witness, former federal prosecutor and longtime New York-based attorney Robert Costello, stepped down from the witness stand Tuesday morning. His brief but tense appearance began Monday afternoon and included an admonishment from Justice Juan Merchan for “contemptuous” conduct.

Costello testified to meeting a panicked and “suicidal” Cohen in April 2018 after the FBI had raided Cohen’s New York City hotel room as part of an investigation of his $130,000 payment to Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.

Prosecution rests in Trump hush money trial, after former fixer Cohen is grilled

After Merchan sustained a series of objections from the prosecution Monday, Costello exclaimed, “jeez” and “ridiculous” on the mic and at one point rolled his eyes at Merchan. Merchan cleared the courtroom, including the press, to address Costello and Trump’s defense team.

Costello’s testimony confirmed that he offered a back channel for Cohen to communicate with then-President Trump through Costello’s close contact and Trump’s former legal counsel Rudy Giuliani as Cohen was under investigation, according to reporters at the courthouse.

New York does not allow recording in the courtroom but provides public transcripts of the proceedings.

During cross examination, prosecutor Susan Hoffinger showed a series of Costello’s emails in an attempt to convince jurors that Costello was actively working to assure Trump that Cohen would not turn against him during the federal investigation.

In one email between Costello and his law partner, he asks, “What should I say to this (expletive)? He is playing with the most powerful man on the planet,” according to reporters at the courthouse.

Hoffinger also established from Costello during her final series of questions that Cohen never officially retained him for legal help — reinforcing that Costello showed up in Cohen’s life only after the FBI raid.

Trump’s multiple indictments

Costello has been publicly critical of the hush money trial against Trump, and of Cohen, as recently as May 15, when he testified before the GOP-led U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

There, Costello told lawmakers that the cases brought against Trump during this election year are “politically motivated.”

Trump, who faces dozens of criminal charges in four separate cases, was indicted in New York in April 2023.

Three other criminal cases were also brought against Trump in 2023. They all remain on hold.

The former president was indicted by a federal grand jury in Florida in June 2023 on charges related to the mishandling of classified information. Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely postponed proceedings, making a trial before the November election unlikely.

Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., in August 2023. A four-count indictment accused him of knowingly spreading falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election results and scheming to overturn them. Trump claimed presidential immunity from the criminal charges in October 2023, which both the federal trial and appeals courts denied. Trump is awaiting a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Weeks after the federal election interference indictment, Trump was indicted on state charges in Fulton County, Georgia, for allegedly interfering in the state’s 2020 presidential election results. The Georgia case has been mired in pretrial disputes over alleged misconduct by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Courtroom conditions

In the dim, tightly secured hallway just feet from the courtroom at the New York County Supreme Court, Trump again criticized the trial Monday and accused prosecutors of wanting to keep him off the campaign trail.

“We’re here an hour early today. I was supposed to be making a speech for political purposes. I’m not allowed to have anything to do with politics because I’m sitting in a very freezing cold courtroom for the last four weeks. It’s very unfair. They have no case, they have no crime,” he said before the news cameras that he’s stopped to speak in front of every day during the trial.

GOP politicians rush to Manhattan to line up behind Trump as hush money trial continues

Trump told the cameras that outside the courtroom was like “Fort Knox.”

He complained that there are “more police than I’ve ever seen anywhere,” and said “there’s not a civilian within three blocks of the courthouse.”

That statement is false. States Newsroom attended the trial Monday and witnessed the scene outside the courthouse during the morning, mid-afternoon and late afternoon.

Just as dawn broke, people standing in the general-public line vying for the few public seats in the courtroom squabbled over who was in front of whom.

About an hour later, a woman with a bullhorn showed up in the adjacent Collect Pond Park to read the Bible and amplify contemporary Christian music played from her phone. A man paced the park holding a sign that read, “Trump 2 Terrified 2 Testify.”

Several people sat outside eating and talking at tables in Collect Pond Park during the 1 p.m. hour, as witnessed by reporters who left the courtroom after Merchan dismissed the jury for lunch.

By late afternoon, a small handful of protesters holding Trump flags and signs shouted that he was innocent.

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