MAUNALOA- In an effort to promote island sustainability, Molokai Ranch is reviving its ranching operations to produce grass-fed, premium-quality beef using genetic DNA derived from top-of-the-line Wagyu cattle.
Wagyu beef, commonly marketed as Kobe beef, is the meat of a Japanese breed of cattle that has gained popularity in the United States in recent years. Most of what is sold in restaurants as Wagyu, even “purebred Wagyu,” is not 100 percent Wagyu, but a percentage Wagyu that is crossbred with other types of cattle, according to the American Wagyu Association website.
Still, a Wagyu steak served in a high-end restaurant can sell for more than $100, and Kobe beef, which is Wagyu specifically raised in Kobe, Japan, can sell for upwards of $200.
Molokai Ranch is trying to breed its version of this high-quality beef, although purebred Wagyu, marketed as such, will not be available for at least another two or three years, ranch officials said. However, the ranch has already taken the first steps in establishing the breed within its herd of more than 850 cattle on Molokai.
“Wagyu is a breed known for its tenderness and flavor, and it’s also known as a breed that does well in different environments. That’s what makes it ideal,” Molokai Ranch Chief Executive Officer Clay Rumbaoa said.
On Thursday, 50 Molokai Ranch cows were artificially inseminated with Wagyu semen.
While experts will not know how many cows will become pregnant until 60 days from insemination, ranch officials are hoping for success with at least 45 percent of the cows.
The laborious process started around 9:30 a.m. Thursday and took about four hours to inseminate 50 cows. Experienced specialists from the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture & Human Resources in Hilo were on hand to show Molokai ranchers the correct insemination process.
First, the cow must be properly restrained so she doesn’t kick the rancher. Then, the rancher lifts her tail and slides his arm elbow-deep into the rectum of the cow, feeling for the cervix.
With his other hand, he carefully slides a plunger filled with 0.5 milliliters of semen – which contains more than 1.5 million sperm – into the cow’s uterine body and deposits the semen, careful not to puncture through the cervix.
The sperm is kept frozen in liquid nitrogen and then warmed to between 95 and 98 degrees within 15 minutes of insemination.
The entire process can take as little as a few minutes, if done by an expert, though fatter cows take longer to inseminate because the cervix is harder to locate.
The artificial insemination technique is commonly used in the industry to stimulate dairy production, although at least three ranches on Hawaii Island use it to produce Wagyu cows.
According to University of Hawaii livestock expert Mike DuPonte, the only certified livestock production agent in the state, it is much cheaper and easier to ship Wagyu semen than it is to secure all the necessary permits to bring to Hawaii a live Wagyu bull. The semen from a single Wagyu bull can be easily transported, diluted and used to inseminate up to 300 cows.
“The future of the beef industry in Hawaii lies with Molokai Ranch. They’re a smaller island, and an agriculture community,” DuPonte said. “If there’s ever a natural disaster, this island can show the rest of the state how to be sustainable.”
Currently, most of the beef sold in stores and restaurants on Molokai is imported from the Mainland, he added.
Molokai Ranch is trying to reduce the importation of beef by breeding, raising and finishing their beef on-island. Rumbaoa said the ranch has been in talks with the Molokai Livestock Cooperative, the island’s only working slaughterhouse, which has struggled to stay open because of limited livestock on the island.
Once Wagyu beef operations are up and running, the ranch hopes to provide at least 20 animals per week to be processed on Molokai. Most ranchers in Hawaii currently ship their stock to the Mainland to be processed and redistributed, Rumbaoa said.
“We want to increase agriculture, farming, that’s what this community is all about,” he said.
While Molokai Ranch is still working to reopen resorts closed in 2008, Rumbaoa said these ranching operations would tie into the ranch’s new direction by providing a “pasture-to-table concept.”
In November, Molokai Ranch became one of the few if not the only ranch in Hawaii to successfully implant full-bred Wagyu embryos in their cows. With the help of embryo transplant experts flown in from Washington state, the ranch was able to implant 49 of their cows with these embryos, which after the nine-month gestation period will be birthed as full-bred 100 percent Wagyu calves. This month, the ranch confirmed that 27 of the cows, or 54 percent, were pregnant, a success rate experts called “extraordinary” compared to the industry average of 30 percent.
Though Wagyu may not be on Molokai’s menu for a couple more years, Rumbaoa said he hopes to have at least small-scale sales of high-quality, grass-fed Angus beef by this summer. In addition to supplying on-island markets like Misaki’s and Friendly Market, Molokai Ranch has also reached out to a few high-end restaurants and distributors on Oahu.
“The priority is the local market on Molokai and in Hawaii,” Rumbaoa said. “We would consider secondary markets if the supply and demand was reached locally.”
A purebred Wagyu cow, which the American Wagyu Association defines as having more than 93.75 percent Wagyu blood, can sell for as much as $30,000 per cow. Percentage Wagyu – females with more than 50 percent Wagyu and males with more than 87.5 percent Wagyu – can still fetch a hefty sum.
The percentage of Wagyu blood in the cow is not as important as the level of marbling in the meat when it comes to determining pricing, according to Martha Patterson, a registrar with the American Wagyu Association based in Texas.
“The higher the marbling, the higher the price points,” Patterson said. “Full-bloods have a tendency to marble more, but we have seen purebreds marble more than full-bloods.”
The intense marbling characteristic of Wagyu beef produces a healthier and tastier steak, Patterson said. The marbling in Wagyu beef contains a higher percentage of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids than typical beef, and has a “melt-in-your-mouth” quality. How much marbling depends on how the animals are fed, raised and finished, and often requires much more investment than other cattle breeds.
“The flavor difference is in the fat; it just melts in your mouth. The difference is pretty obvious,” Patterson said.
* Eileen Chao can be reached at .
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