Does it have to be all-to-nothing?

Cow Feeder Program: There’s a middle ground worth finding

11:44 p.m. Sept. 29, 2025

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Jack Daniel’s. I love that it has sustained Moore County for generations. I hate that when something goes sideways, “Jack” takes the heat – deserved or not.

Up front, I owe Brown-Forman nothing. Likewise, Brown-Forman has spent zero dollars with the Observer since its launch on Nov. 6, 2024. Everything Jack Daniel-centric that you read in this newspaper or on this website is published because it affects Moore County. (I don’t promote their music events in Nashville or anywhere else; it’s not Moore County, which is what this newspaper is committed to.)

So, what you’ll read from here down, know that it’s not tainted by “Jack’s money.” I don’t get paid by Jack to promote Jack or to tote its “single-source Cave Spring water.” I’ve lived here long enough to know what’s what. This paper is not a PR outlet for a corporation that chalked up $4.2 billion in sales last year.

Still, I have family who put food on tables and roofs over their heads because of Jack Daniel's. My great-grandfather, Andrew Jackson Cunningham, had his eyeballs blown out of his head from a dynamite blast while working for Jack. My two maternal uncles worked for Jack. Likewise, too many to count kinfolks.

Jack is an integral part of this community. And despite what is being said, the people who work at the distillery are not turning their backs on Lynchburg. The decision to end the Cow Feeder Program was made by folks who can push a pencil while tapping on a calculator, while furthermore inputting data into a spreadsheet. They are the business side of Brown-Forman, responsible for shareholder dividends, paying salaries, and ensuring donations are made in Lynchburg (whether we hear about them or not).

Three years ago, in May 2022, farmers were told the slop pipeline would run dry. In September 2024, a tank rupture at the 3 Rivers Energy facility delayed the timeline. Now, Brown-Forman says slop will not be available after March 31, 2026. Cutbacks start this October. Then, for some, shrink again in January. For accountants in Louisville, that’s a clean line item. For families in Moore County, it’s a gut punch.

Slop isn’t just feed. It’s the difference between black ink and red ink. It is insurance against drought, against rising hay prices, against the razor-thin margins of running cattle.

“That distillery feed gave us a cushion,” one farmer told me. His wife added, “It ain’t just numbers on paper. It’s whether we can keep farming at all.”

And she’s right. Behind every spreadsheet is a family trying to hold on to the land their great-grandparents cleared, barns they built by hand, and cattle they raised in snow and heat.

I don’t begrudge 3 Rivers Energy Partners their vision. And I get it: The stillage supplies the natural gas needed to turn on the lights at the JD2 expansion. The digester is impressive, the fertilizer promising. Maybe in time, it will prove even more valuable than slop. But fertilizer doesn’t fill feed troughs. Fertilizer doesn’t keep cows fed through winter. And winter is coming.

The problem isn’t innovation – it’s timing. It’s cruel to end the slop program before farmers can legitimately transition when their cattle need feed today. And yes, I realize many woulda, coulda, shoulda made plans during the past 40 months. But Jack ... is family to many of these families.

Does it have to be all-to-nothing?

Brown-Forman’s decision may balance the books and please shareholders, but it tears apart the safety net that local farmers have relied on for generations. Surely there’s a compromise. Even a reduced-volume program, even a limited window of transition, would give Moore County’s cattlemen and women the chance to adapt.

Why slam the door shut when you could ease it closed?

So here’s my stand: I’m asking Brown-Forman to reconsider. Sharpen the pencils. Do some more figuring. Just don’t abandon the farmers who helped carry this county – and your distillery – through thick and thin.

Take the time to rethink. Find a middle ground that allows innovation to move forward without crushing the people who raised cattle on your byproducts for decades. Look around – some of these farms are not suited for grazing; they are bona fide slop farms.

Jack Daniel’s has always been a single source of pride for Moore County. It’s a partnership between a distillery and a community. This decision risks breaking the bond that Joe Clark captured for the world.

And for what? A cleaner spreadsheet? To epitomize “greed is good?”

I hope not. Because the smell of sour mash still drifts across our pastures, and it deserves to mean more than another corporate cut. Brown-Forman, I’m asking for our neighbors – Jack’s neighbors.