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Processed meats like bologna and sausage, as well as other cuts, can be created and sold by a custom meat processor as long as the raw material comes from a USDA-certified slaughterhouse.

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Joyce Bangsund, an employee of Starbuck Locker, trims the fat off of a steer that has finished the dry-aging process and is ready to be cut up and frozen. The locker dry-ages beef for two weeks, which helps its flavor and tenderness.

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Keith Knutson, who owns Starbuck Locker with his wife, Sandy, flips through some of the paperwork necessary to acquire the next level of meat-processing certification from the state. Should he get it, he would be able to sell animals that he slaughters to customers in Minnesota.

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Keith Knutson slaughters cattle and hogs on Mondays. On the average Monday he kills seven steers, but he and his employees have done as many as 12 in a day.

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The Starbuck Locker building began life as a creamery in 1915 and eventually the owners expanded into butchering. It is a custom meat processor, which means it cannot sell beef or hogs that it slaughters over-the-counter, or to restaurants and grocers.

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Steer #713, one of three sold by Prairie Horizons in February, weighed 1,035 pounds and was slightly less than two years old. Beef is typically sold in wholes, halves and quarters from lockers in small towns throughout the Midwest.

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Luverne Forbord, who was born and raised in Pope County, has calculated that he uses only a half-gallon of fossil fuel to bring his steers to market. Some estimates of the fossil fuel needed to bring a feedlot steer to market are as high as 34 gallons.

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In the 19th century, the prairie in Pope County was home to herds of bison. With the use of rotational grazing in a series of 100 paddocks, Luverne and Mary Jo Forbord aim to mimic the movement of the buffalo across their grassland.

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Prairie Horizons Farm is certified organic. No pesticides or herbicides are used in the growing of grass or crops, which include organic wheat. Forty acres of the 480-acre farm are in native prairie and there are nine ponds on the property.

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Mary Jo Forbord and her husband, Luverne, raise Lowline Angus cattle, an Australian breed developed with grazing in mind. The cattle have shorter legs to make it easier to reach the grass.

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Mary Jo Forbord is a registered dietician and 5th-generation Minnesota farmer. She grew up in Swift County as the fourth of five children, and "if any of them were going to be farmers, it's not going to be her" she remembers hearing.

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Lowline Angus on the Forbords' farm are never in a barn, even on the coldest days. As a result, their coats are long and thick after a winter on the prairie. These cows will be calving in the spring.