Just a few months after handing over the reins at a Mars Hill potato company, some of the key players who helped grow Naturally Potatoes are making a new investment in northern Maine. But this time, instead of potatoes, it’s all about beef.

Pineland Farms Natural Meats Inc., created this year to raise and sell natural beef products, recently secured approval from Fort Fairfield town officials to move forward on a cattle ranching and composting operation there.

Pineland Farms is a for-profit company led and funded by some of the same people who helped get Naturally Potatoes off the ground: Bill Haggett, who was chairman and chief executive officer of Naturally Potatoes and former head of Bath Iron Works, now is serving as Pineland Farms’ chairman and CEO, and the company is being backed financially by the Libra Foundation, which has provided major support for both Naturally Potatoes and the Maine Winter Sports Center.

The company already maintains a cattle ranch in New Gloucester, but with sales in excess of $10 million this year and expectations of increasing demand for natural beef products, officials proposed expanding in northern Maine, Haggett said during a recent interview.

Pineland Farms purchases its beef cattle from feedlots in northern Maine and from western states.

“We would like to acquire a larger amount of beef from northern Maine,” Haggett said. “We believe the company is going to grow rapidly and we want the people who have been supplying us to continue with the specifications we impose.”

For natural beef, that means no growth hormones, no antibiotics and a strictly vegetarian diet.

The plan, Haggett said, is to contract with Maine cattle raisers for calves in the 400- to 600-pound range, put the cattle in grazing programs on Maine farms during the grazing season from April to October, and then move them onto the ranch/feedlot for accelerated feeding for about six months before they are harvested.

Company officials proposed using a mothballed facility in Fort Fairfield – which previously was used for potato composting – for its cattle ranching and composting operations. Haggett estimated that capital improvements to prepare the site for operations will cost the company a few hundred thousand dollars.

The 200-acre plot on Murphy Road, town property assessed at $221,400, has two standing structures, a pole barn and a machine shed/office building. It also has infrastructure important for a composting facility, such as a water source and a drainage system.

Fort Fairfield town officials have approved the company’s proposal for the site, which calls for a 12-year lease agreement, with the town receiving payments equal to the revenue it would receive if the property were privately owned. It also calls for a sales agreement that allows the company to purchase the property in 2017 for the appraised value in 2005, before any enhancements are made. At this time, no prices for the lease/purchase agreement are being disclosed because they are subject to negotiation.

Haggett said his group plans to begin operations in Fort Fairfield starting in April 2006 with 400 to 600 cattle in grazing programs on Maine farms and another 400 to 600 on the feedlot. They intend to grow the ranch over a two- to three-year span, increasing to “the optimum level.”

“In Nebraska, that would mean a feedlot with 5,000 cattle on it,” Haggett said. “We don’t know if that’s the optimum size in northern Maine, but we plan to continue along until we get to the size we think is the most efficient size we can operate at.”

Company and town officials point to several factors that make the company attractive in terms of economic development. The cattle will require large amounts of hay, wood chips and grain, up to 24 pounds of barley per day per head of cattle, all of which Haggett said the company would like to purchase from local farmers. That could spur an increase in the amount of certain crops, such as barley, grown in northern Maine.

There is also hope that the feed lot will encourage local farmers to raise more calves. In return, the natural byproducts of the operation, manure, would serve as an excellent compost for local farmers, Haggett said.

He said the ranch also will create a few jobs when operations begin and that officials will hire more employees as the feedlot grows.

Though some town residents raised questions about foul odors, Fort Fairfield officials pointed out that no one lives within a mile and a half of the site and Haggett said that officials do not anticipate that “odors coming out of the operation will be offensive.”

“There will be smells, but there will be controls in place so the odors will be acceptable,” he said.

Weighing all the factors, town officials believe approving the cattle ranch is a smart move for Fort Fairfield.

“I think it’s a win-win,” Tony Levesque, Fort Fairfield’s community development director, said recently. “We’re not necessarily trying to help a business, we’re trying to grow an industry. The advantages to us are that it will help local farmers and create potential indirect jobs for services provided to the business. They [company officials] will be making a considerable investment into the facility and the area as they purchase cattle and feed for the cattle.”

Fort Fairfield Town Manager Dan Foster agreed.

“It’s significant,” Foster said. “It takes a piece of property that is nonproducing and not only are we going to receive money for the use of the property, but as infrastructure is added there will be [town revenue] as if they owned it. I don’t know how you could get something better for an area like ours.

“Really, we’re very fortunate. It’s what makes town managers smile when they go to sleep at night. This is a good project for Aroostook County and we’re just tickled pink that it’s happening in Fort Fairfield.”