SantaFe.com

There used to be one as close as Mora to Kingsbury’s ranch in Ribera. But that plant closed a few years ago, leaving ranchers in Northern New Mexico with few options. New Mexico only has a handful of USDA meat processing facilities for a state with a large rural area.

“Processing is a huge problem for us. A lot of us take all our animals to Durango. All that money goes out of state,” says Kingsbury, who transports his beef cattle to Colorado Springs, a 600 mile round trip. That’s the closest processor that can handle the slaughter, hanging, processing and packaging of Kingsbury’s volume of...

Monday, June 9, 2008
by Kelly Koepke and Victoria Alexandrova (Photographer) • localflavor magazine