Logan Karcher and his wife, Jessa, sell the pork, beef, chicken, and lamb products they produce on Burnt Hill Cattle farm to a local farm store in Hamilton County and through their Facebook page.
Burnt Hill Cattle Co.
The cattle herd grazing on the pastures of Burnt Hill Farm.
Logan Karcher returned from Murray State University with a master’s degree and passion for regenerative agriculture.
Born and raised on a fourth-generation grain and livestock farm in Hamilton County, Karcher focuses on growing nutritious forage for his livestock to eat by restoring biological life to the soil and ecosystems surrounding it.
It’s this regenerative strategy that helps drive demand for Burnt Hill Cattle Co. LLC.’s meat products, which include beef, pork, chicken and lamb.
“This is what we need to be doing to save money and help our soils and help our earth,” he said.
To accomplish this, Karcher starts with the soil.
“Regenerative ag is the idea of using various types of livestock and forages,” he said. “Whether it’s farming corn, soybeans, wheat or grazable crops – like clover, Timothy Grass or Orchard Grass – using these all in a system benefits the ecosystem and biology in the soil creating better soil, which produces a better forage for the livestock to eat.”
Rotating his animals throughout various pastures multiple times a day helps ensure a consistent application of manure which is vital to help the soil microbes thrive, he said.
“By not overgrazing in one area, you keep insects alive in the soil and they pull the manure down into the soil which keeps it from flowing into area rivers and creeks,” Karcher said.
This method also restores prairie plants that haven’t appeared in fields and pastures for 50 or 60 years, he said.
“There’s a natural seed bank in the soil and when you start healing that with proper management through animals or row cropping, then seeds will start to grow again. You’ll see more birds, insects, and forages that haven’t grown in 50 or 60 years start growing again.”
Karcher and his wife Jessa sell the pork, beef, chicken, and lamb products they produce on Burnt Hill Cattle farm to a local farm store in Hamilton County and through their Facebook page.
This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.
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Logan Karcher and his wife, Jessa, sell the pork, beef, chicken, and lamb products they produce on Burnt Hill Cattle farm to a local farm store in Hamilton County and through their Facebook page.
