FROM LEFT: Cows graze at JW Beef, a
family-owned farm in Stonington, Connecticut.
A crispy chicken sandwich and fries at Graze.
A
n American Aberdeen cow bellows on an early spring day at grass-fed cattle farm JW Beef
in Stonington, Connecticut. Three day-old calves frolic and nurse off their mothers, while a group
of cows munches a combination of last-of-the-winter hay and fresh grass sprouting through the mud
in an open ten-acre pasture. There’s a backdrop of trees and woods that the animals can freely explore,
plus a barn for shelter. The grass is just starting to emerge from the muck on this brisk April day. As soon as a bit
of green appears, it just as quickly disappears. Abundant spring days are ahead, and these animals are chomping
at the bit. The same cow grunts loudly again, marching with purpose. A tiny calf stops in its tracks and turns toward
its mother, recognizing her unyielding voice, and the pair draws closer toward each other.
“When they calf, the first twenty-four
hours, there’s a lot of noise, and the calf
learns the voice on the dam, the mother.
When the mother calls, the calf knows spe-
cifically, that’s my mother,” says JW Beef
farm owner Josh Welch. “They are teaching
the baby their voice. It’s like that children’s
book Are You My Mother?”
Not only does Welch run this 150-acre
farm with help from Noah Lewis, plus more
grounds on a historic seventeen-acre prop-
erty next door, but he is also co-owner
of Bridge and Graze Burgers, restaurants
in downtown Westerly. The fast-casual,
counter-service restaurant, Graze Burgers,
is his latest operation, with co-owners chef
Dave Parr and Kevin Bowdler, and he uses
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APRIL 2020
beef sourced directly from his farm. The
burgers are 100 percent grass-fed, hormone-
free beef, and nearly all the menu items at
the restaurant are scratch-made.
“As you go to places where people have
more education and affluence, people want
to have a better understanding of what they
are eating. They prefer 100 percent grass-
fed beef because they want to know what
the animal ate, not antibiotic-filled grain,”
Welch says. “We’re giving people beef that
eats grass that grows here.”
There are only a few grass-fed beef farms
in Rhode Island, and Welch’s Angus cows are
full-blooded American Aberdeen. He chose
American Aberdeen for its smaller build. “If
you want 100 percent grass-fed beef, you need
a smaller framed animal because they ma-
ture more quickly on grass alone,” he says.
His farm defers from what he calls feed
lots out West that try to bulk up their cows
as much as possible on grain to produce
more beef. When grass is in season, Welch
rotates his cattle in three-acre sections
every week, to be sure they’re eating a vari-
ety of grasses. He even uses a no-till seed
blend from New Zealand that preserves all
existing plant life and just adds more grass
to what’s already there, which is great for
honeybees.
“The incentive of a beef producer [on a
feed lot] is to have as big an animal as you
can before you slaughter it, because you get
many more pounds. They want as many