Committed to The Planet
Estancia's owners and management are nature lovers. Some of our founders and executives have degrees in environmental sciences, others were raised on farms. One served in the Peace Corps helping farmers integrate nitrogen-fixing trees into their traditional food crops.
We own ranches and farms because we love the outdoors. We ride horses, raise vegetables, chickens, goats, sheep, and honeybees. Our happiest moments are interacting with nature and sharing our animals, produce, and land with our friends and family. At Estancia, long-term stewardship of the land and the planet is much more important than short-term profit.
Sustainability isn't a strategy or a sound bite to us; it's our passion.
We Depend on a Healthy Planet
Our beef production process is solar-based. We depend on adequate rain-fall and sunshine to produce the high-protein grass that our animals eat. We have few external inputs--no pesticides, fertilizers, growth-promoting antibiotics or hormones. Our business depends on a healthy environment. More importantly, we love being out in nature and there's no way we're going to damage the ecosystems on our ranches just to make more money.
US Cattle
Currently Estancia beef comes from cattle raised in Uruguay, but we are committed to integrating our US-based herds into the Estancia production line, as soon as we can ensure animal welfare and food safety protocols that are as high as those we use in Uruguay. With ranches in Virginia, California, Argentina, and Uruguay, we are uniquely positioned to introduce pasture-raised, grass-fed beef to the US market.
Grass Not Gas
Because we don't use corn or other grains to feed our animals, Estancia beef has a much smaller carbon footprint than the feedlot beef that comprises the vast majority of beef consumed in the US. An enormous amount of fossil fuel, in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, and diesel, is required to plant, harvest, process, and transport the grains used in feedlots to fatten the animals.
Because our cattle never see a feedlot, the carbon footprint of Estancia beef is small relative to most US beef producers. This is true even after taking into account the fossil fuel used to ship our beef from Uruguay to the US.