Serving the other red meat
Clever Ontario farmers are turning to water buffalo as a beef alternative
Drive along just about any country road in Southern Ontario and the sight of sheep, cows, horses, goats, even llamas and alpacas, grazing in green fields is expected. What isn’t, is to happen upon a wet and mucky paddock full of mammoth, black, wallowing water buffalo, some sporting almost prehistoric-looking horns, almost all caked in mud. But that’s slowly changing.
More associated with Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Italy, water buffalo is gaining popularity as a Canadian dairy and meat animal for its many wonderful qualities, from its curious and agreeable temperament to its ultra-rich milk and healthy meat. And while chicken is still the most consumed animal protein in North America, a growing number of the culinarily curious are giving water buffalo a try.
The majority of water buffalo is farmed for its milk, but buffalo meat is the inevitable product of the business of milk and cheese, and some farmers are getting into water buffalo primarily as a beef alternative.
In Sebringville, near Stratford, Henry and Inge Koskamp of Koskamp Family Farms produce a wide variety of water buffalo meat and milk products sold under the Tenderbuff brand. They added water buffalo to their Holstein operation in 2007 and still produce both types of milk, with the Holsteins giving 35 litres per day and the water buffalo giving just eight to 10. Clearly, the Holsteins give more volume, but compare the butter fat content and water buffalo rise to the top at eight per cent compared to four per cent for Holsteins. Water buffalo milk is similar to cow’s milk in flavour, but creamier.
It’s difficult to know just how many water buffalo farms exist, but best estimates suggest there are at least three significant producers in Ontario, two in Quebec and several more in B.C., totalling approximately 10 in all of Canada. Again, that is slowly changing as more folks fall for these gentle giants.
Don’t confuse buffalo with bison, which is also raised in Canada for its meat. They are not the same species; among other things, bison are not kept for dairy.
Hope Eco-Farms in Aylmer produces water buffalo meat and a water buffalo brie, while in Orton in Erin Township, Karen Mansfield and Andy Fraser have been raising water buffalo for meat on their 97-acre farm since 2015, when the Angus beef farmers added
water buffalo to their operation for something new and interesting to try. And because sustainability, animal welfare and closed-circle farming are important to them, these low-impact beasts are a great fit, with the animals naturally raised on feed grown on the farm or sourced locally.
Water buffalo is a perfect alternative to beef — interchangeable, but better — and no more expensive than good grass-fed beef. Deep burgundy and delicious, it’s leaner, lower in calories, fat and cholesterol, and is thought to be higher in omega-3s — the good fat — since water buffalo are always grass-fed.
Water buffalo meat and dairy is still to be discovered by the average consumer and while much of the pizza eating world contents itself with dairy cow mozzarella — most commonly, Holstein — foodies and pizza connoisseurs covet stretchy, fatty, water buffalo mozzarella, which was once next to impossible to find outside of Italy.
In Toronto, a very small handful of cheesemongers would fly in the real stuff every couple of weeks to sell at exorbitant prices, but now, thanks to a few agricultural pioneers, buffalo mozzarella is a local, Ontario specialty. Because water buffalo produce about a third of the milk a Holstein does, it’s likely to remain something of a niche product.
At the Ontario Water Buffalo Co. in Stirling, Lori Smith and Martin Littkemann keep over 700 head of water buffalo on 800 acres of Hastings County farm land. The couple, both retired dairy farmers, decided to get back into farming but with water buffalo instead. The goal was to create the real deal buffalo mozzarella: mozzarella di Bufala Campana, as it’s called in Italy, where the prized product is protected with a DOC designation or Denominazione di origine controllata.
Following a few fact-finding trips to Italy and to water buffalo farms in the U.S., the pair took delivery of 39 heifers (females) and one bull in 2008 and as consumer interest in authentic flavours, exotic ingredients and sustainable farming practices grew, so did their herd. At just over 700 now, all the females still get named — Yvette is a local celebrity, offering rides to farm visitors — as do the few males who will get to stay on. Smith tries to keep as emotionally detached from the males that will be processed into
meat as she can, so no names.
Smith is smitten by the homely but lovable critters that make better ecological sense than beef cattle. It’s more sustainable for both economies and the planet, and not just for Southeast Asia but for the rest of the world as well, because they can digest a wider variety of coarse vegetation than cows, making them better converters of forage to meat.
Smith also finds them to be hardier, less susceptible to illness and, despite their impressive size — adults weigh 880 to 2,000 pounds — gentle, if sometimes stubborn. On Smith’s farm, her herd will consume about 10 tons of hay per day, most of which they grow, some they buy. That’s a lot of hay and a lot of poop, all of which ends up on the fields where they grow the hay: closing the circle of a closed-loop farm. Part of their approach includes a farm
gate shop — the Buff Stuff Store — stocked with everything these animals produce, from fresh milk, to gelato, meats and cheeses, soaps and toiletries, even art and jewelry crafted from water buffalo horn.