At Cold Spring Ranch, Gabe Clark produces grass-fed beef with a minimum of stress on the animals and maximum attention to their innate nutritional and environmental needs.

For discerning Maine customers — including Bates and such nationally known restaurants as Portland’s Fore Street — Clark’s beef defines “good food”: healthier than industrial beef, locally sourced, sustainably produced, and delicious. Clark buy local yearlings and grazes them for up to 12 months on 100 acres of meticulously tended pastureland.

These are methods not just sustainable but restorative, bringing critters like geese and turkeys back to the farm, Gabe notes. “As the fields are more productive for the livestock, they’ve been more productive for the wildlife” as well.

Multimedia

• Cattle drive in North New Portland (audio)
  
• Gabe on the health benefits of grass-fed beef (audio)