The Lopez Community Land Trust has developed the mobile processing unit, and is currently leasing the unit to the Island Grown Farmers Cooperative. The first such unit to receive a USDA Grant of Inspection, the MPU allows local farmers to supply their community with healthy and wholesome, locally grown meats.

Without USDA inspected meat, farmers can only sell meat on a custom basis, (for example 1/4 of a cow). Without the MPU, local farmers have had to transport their animals up to 200 miles away to reach the nearest USDA inspected slaughter facility.

With the mobile unit, animals are slaughtered and USDA-inspected on-farm, serving the community in a number of ways:

• USDA-inspected meats can be sold at local stores and restaurants.
• Animals are treated more humanely. They are not subjected to stressful transportation trips to slaughter houses.
• Value added from processing local products stays in the county.
• Local slaughter on-farm saves transport costs.
• Wastes are either sold as are hides, or are composted by careful well-designed methods so the nutrients are recycled on the farm.

Cuts of meat from the MPU are available from many retail outlets in Skagit and San Juan counties, including Blossom Grocery on Lopez, at the Mount Vernon Co-op and at the IGFC retail outlet in Bow.

For more information contact Bruce Dunlop: bruce@lopezislandfarm.com

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