Headwaters Beef Cooperative - Locally Raised, Locally Grazed
- Jenny Hill
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
Do you buy your beef locally, or would you like to? There are many reasons people want to support local farmers. Keeping dollars in their community, knowing how their food is grown and processed, ensuring that our natural resources are protected--these are just a few of the reasons people buy from local farmers and ranchers.
There’s a new business in our region that strives to meet many of these values by focusing on managing the pastures cows graze in. Even better, you can now find these products in stores in the Northern Lakes area, or you can order online.
Headwaters Beef Cooperative is a producer-owned cooperative with a mission to capture the value of well-managed grasslands. They believe grazing ruminants, when well-managed, can provide a host of benefits: improved soil and water quality, increased productivity, fewer chemical inputs, healthier livestock, more pollinators and birds, improved hunting, increased carbon sequestration, and more resilient farming systems.
For example, a recent study conducted by the University of Manchester found that the removal of grazing ruminants reduced long-term carbon storage. Carbon is the basis of life and is vital to healthy soil, facilitating water holding capacity and nutrient cycling. As policymakers argue about how much carbon should be in our atmosphere, science and common sense tells us it should be abundant in our soil.
The Headwaters Beef Cooperative has a six-member board of directors, who in total manage upwards of 6,000 acres of pastureland, and more than 1,000 cow/calf pairs. The current Co-op business model is based on marketing cull animals that spend the grazing season on well-managed pastures. The Co-op’s target customers are those who understand the value of these well-managed grasslands and want to support market-driven conservation that will provide a stable price to producers and fairly compensate them for the stewardship of the land and animals they care for.
Headwaters Beef Co-op Protocols:
No subtherapeutic antibiotics or hormone implants
Cattle must have access to pasture for a minimum of 150 days of the growing season
Adaptive managed grazing must be used to protect and restore soil health
Members are required to meet annual continuing education requirements or mentor new members on pasture management
Genetically modified feed is strongly discouraged
Incorporated in April 2024, the first Co-op beef sales took place in June 2025 through several local business partners. They also did a trial run with the Pine River-Backus School lunch program, where all the students were served Headwaters Beef Cooperative patties, and we’re also able to help support the area food shelves. The Co-op recently hired a marketing firm and upgraded their website to include an on-line store for sales of bulk orders directly to the consumer.
Headwaters Beef Cooperative grew out of Happy Dancing Turtle’s Cows for Clean Water program, and has been supported by grants from the MN Farmers Union and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. The Co-op is currently assessing various markets and working to build a customer base. They welcome your business and promise honesty and fairness in their production protocols and pricing structure. Visit their website to learn more, purchase online, or to find one of our retail partners. If you can’t find it at your local meat counter, ask for it by name: Headwaters Beef, Locally Raised and Locally Grazed.
The Cooperative is currently not accepting new producer members. They are focused on finding a viable business model and solid value proposition for farmers and ranchers before accepting memberships. Whether you are a consumer or beef producer you can sign up on the here to receive the Headwaters Beef Cooperative newsletter and keep up to date on specials and new products, producer field days, and more.
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