‘The quality is easily on par with U.S.D.A. Prime, or better. It’s consistent quality. It’s super flavorful. It’s quality you can count on.’

• LAN Farms, a Copiah County-based cattle operation, offers local delivery of its beef to customers in the Jackson, Mississippi, area and surrounding counties.
• The farm focuses on raising healthy cattle, providing them with year-round green forage and finishing them with all-natural grain.
• Customers can purchase beef in bulk boxes, with cuts ranging from ground beef to Prime and Choice-plus grade steaks.

Are you looking for steakhouse-quality beef from healthy cattle that are raised locally? If the answer is yes and you live in Jackson or a surrounding area, not only can you get it, it’s delivered right to your door.

“It is fantastic,” said Matt Courtney of Clinton. “We’ve gotten some stuff from them about three times.

“We’ve gotten ribeyes, t-bones, filets, flank steaks, Denver steaks, skirt steaks and ground hamburger meat. We’ve done some roasts. It’s very clean tasting and fresh. It’s the best hamburger meat I’ve gotten anywhere. The flavor of the steaks is great, and everything has been tender. I haven’t had anything from him that wasn’t really good.”

The meat was produced by LAN Farms, which is based in Copiah County. It’s an operation that recently began selling beef raised on the farm. Customers can choose from boxes of beef ranging from 30-pound boxes of ground beef sealed in 1-pound packs to larger boxes of 50-55 pounds of individually-packaged steaks, roasts and ground beef.

Not only is the meat locally grown, it’s locally processed and delivered to your door if you live in or near Copiah, Hinds, Madison or Rankin counties.

“That’s kind of a big deal for us,” Courtney said. “We try to support local businesses.”

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A cattle farm born from a love of deer hunting

LAN Farms is owned by Lee Nicols and his wife, Amanda, of Jackson. Nicols said he didn’t grow up around cattle, but he did grow up hunting deer with his father. Nicols’ father purchased land in Copiah County for them to hunt. Nicols said his days of disking and planting food plots to provide deer with quality food grew on him.

“I’m a huge hunter, but I enjoy the planting aspect and the (agricultural) aspect even more than hunting,” Nicols said.

Nicols said he purchased the land from his father along with other pieces of land and decided to raise cattle. Like the food plots he prepared for deer, raising cattle also requires time on a tractor. He initially wanted to raise and sell registered cattle to other cattle operations, but became more interested in producing healthy, high-quality beef. Providing great-tasting, healthy meat for customers would naturally be the goal as both he and his wife are medical doctors.

It turned out to be a perfect fit for Nicols.

“I love it,” Nicols said. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.

“I’m kind of a foodie and I’ve gotten into farm-to-table and specialty cuts. You’re getting a cow that never leaves my farm and is fed grass and then grain. It’s just healthier stuff. You look at the cows and they look healthy. You look at the meat and it looks healthy. That’s one of my things. I want a good protein source that’s good for you.”

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MS cattle farm focuses on healthy, well-fed cows

Raising top-notch beef doesn’t happen by itself, though. A big part of producing quality beef is providing the cattle with quality food.

“We mainly have bahiagrass,” said Hunter McKinley, director of farm operations. “That’s our main crop.

“We plant ryegrass in the winter. We strive to keep something green year-round for our cattle. The general idea is to keep something nutritious for them year-round. Having something green around is the key to keeping a healthy herd.”

GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) — The Mississippi Aquarium is displaying an exhibit made entirely from plastic trash collected on Gulf Coast beaches, including Mardi Gras beads transformed into sculptures of sea turtles.

The exhibit, titled Toxic Beauty, Plastic’s Hidden Cost, was organized in part by Dr. Kristina Mojica of the University of Southern Mississippi. It runs through September 9, 2026.

Mojica collaborated with the Mississippi State Beach Cleanup Crew on the project. Over the past year and a half, the group collected more than 3,000 pounds of trash across seven beach cleanups along the Gulf Coast.

The collected plastic was washed, disinfected and redistributed to local artists and schools, who volunteered to transform the materials into works of art. The Mississippi Aquarium agreed to display the pieces throughout the summer of 2026.

Rachel Lancaster, a PhD student at the University of Southern Mississippi, helped organize and assemble the exhibit.

Lancaster said one of her own contributions to the exhibit drew on her interest in video games. She recreated the Pac-Man maze and characters using beach-collected materials, renaming the main character “Pac-Fish” and depicting it chasing Mardi Gras beads.

Each ghost character in the piece represents a specific type of plastic commonly found in the ocean, including plastic bags, straws and pans.

“I wanted to create something that could relate to multiple generations of people out in the Gulf Coast,” Lancaster said.

The exhibit also serves as a research platform. Mojica said the team is studying whether art-based displays can shift visitors’ perceptions of environmental problems and their willingness to be part of the solution.

Mojica said most plastic pollution in the environment is invisible to the naked eye because plastics continuously break down into smaller pieces. She said that microscopic plastic may pose the greatest risk to both human health and the broader ecosystem.

The Mississippi Aquarium is hosting a community beach cleanup on August 29 from 8 to 10 a.m. at Jones Park Beach. The event is open to the public.

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