ST. CATHARINE, Ky. (CNS) — The land surrounding the Dominican Sisters of Peace motherhouse has been farmed since 1822.
In the beginning, the sisters farmed the verdant hills to feed the community and the students they taught.
Today, the farm is tended by a farm manager and a part-time farmhand who primarily raise beef cattle.
The heart of the farm’s mission is to promote sustainable farming practices and provide quality beef for the sisters and consumers alike, said Danny Spalding, farm manager.
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“We’ve done a whole lot to humanely raise cattle, in how we feed them, how they are handled and the general welfare of the cattle,” he said. “People want to know where their food comes from.”
The farm is situated on 650 acres of picturesque countryside of gently rolling hills a short walk downhill from the Dominican motherhouse.
Hay and corn raised on the farm feed the cattle. Two lakes, wetlands and a forest with a creek running through it also are on the property.
Spalding said beef sales are “running very strong.” Last year, the farm sold about 90 steer. At about 1,250 pounds per animal, the yield was more than 100,000 pounds of beef, he said.
The biggest market is for the grain-fed beef. Grass-fed beef, he said, is a growing market. All of the beef is free of antibiotics, steroids and hormones.
About half of the sales are in the area around nearby Springfield, Kentucky, while the remaining sales come from the wider region, including Louisville, Lexington, Elizabethtown, Fort Knox and Danville. Sales of grass-fed beef in particular have expanded into Tennessee, Spalding said.
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The farm also sells pork, which is raised by Amish farmers in Casey County, Kentucky. Spalding estimated the farm sold about 50 to 60 hogs last year.
Beyond the regional sales, the farm provides beef to the order’s motherhouse, its Sansbury Care Center and other Dominican motherhouses. The Dominican community at St. Catharine merged with six other Dominican communities in 2009 to form the Dominican Sisters of Peace with headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.
Though the farm’s main focus is beef, it has undertaken other initiatives. In 2009, farmworkers installed four beehives. And in 2013, workers planted an orchard of peach, apple and pear trees. The fruits of that effort should be ready for use next year, Spalding said.
A note of pride is evident in Spalding’s voice when he discusses the farm and its sustainable practices. Spalding, who has worked the farm since 1983, said crops and grazing areas are rotated in an attempt to prevent soil depletion.
“We want to make sure people know the cattle are not locked up in a barn; they are able to roam the hillside,” said Spalding, a parishioner of St. Rose Church in Springfield.
Dominican Sister of Peace Charlene Moser, who serves as a liaison between the sisters and the farm, said the community embraces sustainable practices not only to provide a desirable product but also to preserve and care for the land.
“The idea is not to extract as much as possible but to care for it. Pope Francis talks about this in “Laudato Si'” — that humans should have respect for the land and to use the gifts we’ve be given to care for it,” she said, citing the pope’s 2015 encyclical on the environment.
Sister Moser said the farm also taps the roots of the sisters’ mission.
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“The congregation began as a teaching community and we see the farm as a means of fulfilling the teaching mission,” she said.
The farm collaborates with a number of local and state organizations to promote sustainable practices and to educate the public about proper soil and water management. The farm usually hosts a field day in the summer, where the public is invited to tour and learn about its operation.
Susan McCain, who chairs the St. Catharine Farm Advisory Council, said the farm and its practices align with the overall ministry of the congregation.
“We are not like other farms,” she said. “The farm’s profitability is important for viability and continuity, but its mission, vision and commitment to the sustainability of God’s creation is its driving force.”
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Able is a staff writer at The Record, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville.
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Hello Dave,
Sorry I did not get back to you sooner but I was away. I do consider myself a Roman Catholic, albeit, not a very good one, and I consider it the one true Church. I am a child of the sixties and very much into the environment and health foods, and of course a anti-Catholic liberal. As an environmentalist I looked at people as the problem and if we would reduce people by contraception and abortion that would be good especially of mother earth.
I was a liberal because I was you and ignorant and relies on the mainstream media for my information. If the world would follow the Sisters’ example many would starve to death and it would take a lot more land to produce the crops and cattle. The Sisters are really raising food and a cause for the wealth and the elite. It’s a fairytale farm.
Anyway some of the books that I read to help formulate my ideas are:
Merchants of Despair by Robert Zubrin
Eco-Imperialism by Paul Driessen
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
The End of Doom by Ronald Bailey
The moral Case for Fossil Fuels
The Ultimate Resource 2 by Julian Simon
Population Research Institute
And I read a few books on global warming/climate change.
Patrick
The Dominican Sisters are wittingly or unwittingly supporting the Malthusian concept of the world. Malthus back in the early eighteen hundreds postulated that the world would not be able to feed an ever increasing population because, according to his calculations, people reproduce geometrically while food is produced arithmetically. He believed that the world at that time was overpopulated at one billion people. His solution was to have people build homes in low lying swamp areas so as to get diseases, to make the house close, and not give medical assistance because this will only increase population and make the earth more suitable to famine.
No today thanks to the miracle of contraception and abortion along with sustainability are the new tools to help decrease the wretched population and keep the earth healthy. The Sisters are on the same wavelength as Paul Ehrlic, Mr. Population Bomb who thought bak in the sixties that if the population continued to increase that it would be ok to use forced abortion and contraception to save the beloved earth from the cancer of mankind.
Now the fantasy farm that the sisters have is anything but sustainable or environmentally friendly for a growing population, because it would be too expensive to run such a farm. This is a great setup for environmentalists who are the elite and can financially afford it but the rest of us would end up starving to death. And that is the whole reason for so-called sustainability, for if it is run properly with all the emphasis on mother earth and her animals someone is going to starve.
Hi Patrick-
I read your response above with interest, and would like to know where your dismissal of small farms is coming from.
Is it your opinion that the human species is a plague on the Earth? Have you any experience in growing crops or raising livestock?
Moreover, are you a Roman Catholic or former one?
Glad to dialogue offline if you prefer.
To me, the Sisters seem like they’re trying to put the land they live on to good use. Not sure how you can equate it with Malthus!
Why do you resent their efforts?
Thanks
Dave
This is a great article but for some reason Able ignores recent news about the property. As recently as last year there was a College operating there, mainly famous for a farm research and training program sponsored by the very popular Kentucky Agrarian author and poet, Wendell Berry.
http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article81098527.html
It seems the institution lost its accreditation due to poor administration, which is a shame.The possibilities of preparing young people for spiritually rewarding work where families can exist in Christian community here and abroad now lost…