RFC Visits Brookview Farm

You probably noticed follow up posts by Shannon and Erin for our visit to Brookview Farm, an organic beef cattle farm in Manakin-Sabot, VA. Brookview specializes in grass-fed beef, but you can also buy pork, chicken, eggs, honey and natural cosmetics at their weekly farm market, open from 9AM-1PM every Saturday. Though a couple weeks late in coming, here are my summary and pictures from the trip.

Brookview Farm is easy to find. Take Patterson Avenue west out of the city and keep going. City quickly fades into rolling fields and rows of trees, punctuated by wooden fences and the occasional home. Brookview is on Dover road, a long uphill drive leading to wide cow pastures (occupants grazing in the distance) and a line of cozy white houses. We had chosen a cold day for our visit, and the fields looked winter brown, imbued with an invitingly pastoral sense of calm. We pulled into a small parking lot next to an old-fashioned compost truck and followed a small stone path to the one-story white building that was the Brookview farm market.

The Brookview Farm Market.

Inside, we found exactly what we had been looking for. Two young women assisted a steady flow of customers, ringing them up or pulling dark red, packaged portions of meat out of various refrigerators. On one side was a big chest freezer labeled “hamburgers and roasts.” A look inside revealed a wide selection of pre-made hamburger patties, cuts of meat for roasting, and ground beef. Another upright refrigerator held everything else, including whole chickens, eggs and pork. Everything was cleanly packaged and had an air of professionalism, and despite the farm market’s small size, there was an amazing amount of meat available to buy. Eggs, however, were a different story. We had been told over the phone to “show up early” if we wanted any, and every egg had been sold by the time we left the market that Saturday. One customer kindly said he’d “go without” instead of taking the last dozen from a woman who sadly mentioned she had come just for the eggs.

The market 'menu.'

While I shopped, Sandy Fisher, the owner of Brookview Farm, appeared inside the building and began slipping recipes to my RFC companions. By the time I noticed them chatting, he had already bestowed upon us a veritable stack of instructions for how to cook meat. We ended up speaking with Fisher for a long time, talking about grass and compost as well as meat. He encouraged us to improve the composting practices in our own gardens, and was even happy to provide us with a copy of BioCycle, a monthly composting journal. “A lot of my customers are foreign, or originally from the north,” Fisher told us, and we wondered along with him where the neighbors were.

A wealth of meat in the 'Hamburger and Roasts' freezer.

Fisher’s wife, Rossie, entered the market building after a few minutes and joined in on the conversation, which turned to the finicky habits of chickens. The dearth of eggs was explained: “If things aren’t just right, they won’t lay,” Rossie told us. This Saturday was a bit cold. We could expect a greater yield when the weather warms up.

Fisher seemed both excited and frustrated in his position as a certified organic farmer. He overwhelmed us with information about the health benefits of grass-fed beef and the pros of supporting local agriculture. Beside the door to the market, we had noticed a table with piles of fliers for things like a sustainable agriculture course at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, a bumper sticker from the American Farmland Trust declaring “No Farms, No Food,” and a booklet entitled “Great News About Grass.” Fisher gave us all these things and more, and he seemed bursting with a desire to educate. I was interested to learn he had spent time on a cattle ranch in Columbia, after doing service in the Peace Corps.

A shelf of honey, skin care products and Brookview logo items.

As we left the farm market, carrying piles of meat, eggs and honey, we waved at Bunny, an Indian Red Brahma with surprisingly long ears. “We’ll come back,” we said. It was worth visiting Brookview just for the drive – a calming rural route beside pastures and quiet houses. But the true value in our trip to Brookview was in reminding ourselves of the connection between our food and the farms it comes from. Brookview is a place where you can meet the farmers and see where the animals you plan to eat have lived, allowing you to draw your own conclusions about the quality of the meat and the morality of the farming practices. As a tentative meat eater, I felt confident I could trust in the quality of the ground beef and pork sausage I bought at the market. We hope you will head out to Brookview next Saturday and take the time to judge for yourself.

Bunny takes a break from eating.