Strategy — Agriculture
Family farms must be preserved.
Omega's agriculture strategy preserves family farms and the processing and supply around them — vertically integrated, and built to last across generations.
A working cattle ranch, the American West · Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress
Why this matters to us
Our food system is more fragile than most people realize: fewer farms, older farmers, more of our beef coming from overseas, and soil that has been asked to give more than it gets back. I don’t believe the answer is to watch it decline. Regenerative practices that rebuild soil, local processing that keeps value close to home, and owners who intend to stay are how we start to change the course.
Jodi Ashton, Founder
Then & today
The same work, generation after generation.
The barns change, the trucks change, and the families stay. Preservation means the next generation still has a place to do this work.
On the range
Cattle on open range, the way it has been done for generations.
Why preservation
This isn’t a slow drift. It’s approaching crisis.
The U.S. cattle herd just fell to its lowest level in 75 years. To keep beef on the shelf, America now imports roughly 17% of it — an all-time high, and about double the share of just a few years ago. Here is where that beef comes from.
Where America’s imported beef comes from (2025)
And the countries we depend on keep far more cattle than we do, relative to their people:
Every country we lean on for beef keeps roughly one cow for every person. The United States keeps about one for every four. Brazil’s herd is nearly three times the size of ours; Australia, our single largest supplier, runs almost a cow per citizen; and even Argentina — a fraction of our size — keeps a cow for every person.
The farms and ranches we lose don’t come back.
See the fuller picture: the American farm in numbers →
Sources: USDA NASS Cattle Inventory (Jan. 2026) & Foreign Agricultural Service; USDA / WASDE import data; Australian Bureau of Statistics (2025); IBGE Brazil; Argentine Ministry of Agriculture (2025); national census populations. Figures approximate.
The thesis
Vertically integrated agricultural preservation: a processing anchor, an owned and allied supply chain, and a hedging discipline that steadies the whole — so the families who farm the land can keep doing it.
The thesis came from a hard truth: on their own, many of these farms, ranches, and equestrian operations can’t stand. We studied the economics — and found that land value and business operations are constantly at odds. So we analyze standalone properties and integrate them, pairing the land with the processing, supply, and discipline that let it pay its own way. It took institutional rigor to prove out — but integration may be the very thing that preserves the farm.
Preserved, and carried forward.
The playbook
One repeatable structure.
The same shape, applied with discipline across every agricultural sub-area.
Processing anchor
An established, profitable processor sits at the center — the demand that everything else feeds. When the ranches have a dependable buyer down the road, the whole chain stops living season to season.
Owned & allied supply
Owned operations and long-horizon alliances with family farms supply the anchor directly. Families keep farming their own land, with a fair and steady market for what they raise.
Hedging overlay
Commodity discipline steadies the whole, so volatility never forces a short-term decision. A bad price year should be a hard year — not the year the farm is sold.
Where we build
Areas of focus.
Processing & supply
Established processors and the owned supply that feeds them — keeping the value of what is raised close to home.
Family-farm alliances
Long-horizon partnerships that give farms real, lasting value — fair pricing, shared services, and a path for the next generation.
Commodity hedging
A disciplined overlay that steadies income across cycles, so one bad season doesn’t undo three good ones.
Animal health & services
The shared services that keep operations sound and supported — veterinary care, nutrition, genetics, and the people who know the herd.
Explore our agriculture focus
Where the thesis takes shape.
For investors
Invest in Agriculture.
Agricultural investors — family offices, foundations, and mission-aligned individuals — can back working ranches, processing, and the land beneath them, with a defined path to liquidity. Partner with us deal by deal, or as an anchor partner across our platforms.
For the family weighing what comes next.
A farm is a lifetime of work. Whether you want to stay on and keep building or step back, what matters is who carries it forward — and that it stays whole.
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