Nov 04, 2009 (The Honolulu Advertiser - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX News Network) --

Duane Shimogawa Sr. wants Kaua'i to eat more beef, specifically, more all-natural, free-range, grass-fed Kaua'i raised beef.

So he jumped at the chance to contribute beef from his own herd of Red and Black Angus cattle for the first ever Garden Island Range & Food Festival to be held Nov. 15 at Kilohana (see box for details).

"I'm proud of my beef," the Kipu resident says of the cattle he raises on 1,600 acres southwest of Lihu'e. "And I'm a firm believer in keeping everything local."

Shimogawa calls himself a "first-generation" cattle rancher. He got into the business as a ranch manager for 1,200-acres of the Rice family's Kipu Ranch in 1974 and then 14 years ago started working weekends as boss of his own herd.

The Shimogawa family, which has been on Kaua'i for four generations, has been involved with the processing of meat on this island for some time. His father, Kenichi "Stupe" Shimogawa only recently retired from cutting customers' meat to order at Andrade's in Lawa'i, one of two slaughterhouses on Kaua'i.

Shimogawa's father now helps him with A'akukui Ranch, as do his wife, Anne; daughter Shantelle Manibog and her husband Euge; son Duane Jr., when he's home from O'ahu, where he works as a TV newsman; bunches of cousins and other relatives; and cowboys from around the island who chip in for twice a year roundups.

Shimogawa runs about 450 brood cows (calf-bearing females) and 50 bulls on A'akukui Ranch, named after the former sugar camp on the Grove Farm land he leases.

Each year's "crop" of calves is about half-and-half male and female. Some females each year are raised to maturity as replacements for older brood cows and some new males each year join the ranks of the bulls.

The majority of cattle are bound for slaughter when they're about 2 years old. Older cattle that have done their time as reproducers and are tougher are destined for hamburger, while the younger ones are the source of choice cuts of meat, Shimogawa says.

Shimogawa started his ranch with 900 acres, transforming it with hard work from abandoned, overgrown cane fields to rich pasture.

If you don't raise cattle you might not know: the very same Guinea grass that was a pest for sugar growers and lawns is a terrific cattle feed. The cows love it and fatten well on it.

Plow under the remnant sugar and the weeds, and the Guinea grass becomes dominant, Shimogawa explains.

Give the cows some shade and water and Guinea grass -- and voila, top-rate Kaua'i beef.

When sugar was in full swing, most of Kaua'i's prime agriculture land went to that crop. But as plantations pulled out of sugar, former cane land has been available for other agriculture purposes.

Some people associate grass-feed beef with toughness, because they've had animals raised in steeper, mountainous areas, where they had to work to get at their grass.

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