Abbey’s Pastoral Adventure

Yes, she may be borrowing a few plots of land from Taylor Farms Belmont, her family’s Ontario farm, to raise her cattle, but for the rest, Dawn Farm’s Abbey Taylor is counting on her strength of character and innovative ideas to produce grass-fed beef that stands out in the marketplace and on the plate.

As the farm’s seventh generation, she studied agriculture at Ridgetown College, affiliated with the University of Guelph, and agribusiness at Olds College. In 2020, she spent five months working on multiple farm businesses. Her “agventure” took her to an Outaouais farm active in intensive pasture management, to a ranch and slaughterhouse in Alberta, and behind the wheel of a combine on some very large grain farms in Saskatchewan. These agricultural experiences led her to fine-tune her business plan, which relied on two certainties: she was going to farm outdoors, and her products would be sold directly to consumers.

And it’s working! While she has given up egg and pastured chicken production, the Belmont native is now focusing on beef and the Shorthorn breed, multiplying her herd every year. Pasture rotation is approximately 30 days, moving her electrified wires every day. Future plans include grazing the family farm’s cover crops and producing 40 steers annually.

The company’s online presence (dawnfarmpasturedmeats.com) and monthly newsletter (with over 200 subscribers), as well as attendance at events and farmers’ markets, enables it to connect with curious epicureans, recruiting new consumers who quickly become fans and buy her meat by the quarter or half beef.

The 24-year-old remains loyal to the values and ideals that drive her: soil health, the drought resilience of her fields and those of the family farm, biodiversity and pastoral wildlife, and low-mileage local food. And of course, the well-being of her cows. Ingeniously, she jerry-rigged a low-cost shade house from a grain cart.

Photo by Étienne Gosselin