Five generations of the Harris family have raised cattle on the family farm in Bluffton, Ga., a town of about 100 people in southwest Georgia. Starting with James Harris in the 1860s, White Oak Pastures would raise grass-fed cattle, butcher it and sell it locally. After World War II, the Harrises began utilizing large Midwest feedlots and selling their cattle west to be a part of the grain-fed beef industry. White Oak Pastures has, since the 1990s, gone back to raising its cattle in the traditional organic, grass-fed manner, and it has tapped into a growing movement in the process.
The company raises about 650 breeding cows, along with their calves, on more than 1,000 acres of land. Will Harris III, the company’s current president and fourth generation farmer, said that the switch back to grass-fed cattle began in the mid-1990s.