What does a couple of serial company starters do after their last act? How about doing something that helps feed the hungry? Something that creates profits that we can send to those in the most dire food security circumstances on the planet. And from that idea Far West Texas Cattle Co. was born.

We want to provide the highest quality ranch to table beef in the country once a month as a subscription and give the profit you provide to those who have nothing to eat. Simple.

Heart for Lebanon is an organization that my husband and I have worked with for a hand full of years. It started over a decade ago handing out food to the Syrian refugees who were flooding into Lebanon as the violence started in their country. These men thought everything would go back to normal by the end of the summer – they had no idea of the journey that was ahead of them.

Today they feed not only the Syrian refugees but they have been asked to help feed the Lebanese people themselves as so many face desperate situations. So we started Far West Texas Cattle Co. to create profits to send to feed those around the world in dire food security situations and we started with Lebanon (and Congo but we will talk about that later).

We came face to face with the reality of the need and the importance of our mission the day we pulled out into the pasture to buy our first steers in fall of 2020. On that day I received the text that there had been an explosion in Lebanon. It sacked large silos storing much needed food. A place that was already in great need just got a whole lot worse. In the saddest possible way, we were confirmed that we were on the right track.

Lebanon is a land ravaged by political strife, devastated by wars and invasions and now at its heart a massive explosion has destroyed life for thousands of families.

Carl, our friend who helps write these blogs, was there in ’83 assisting with the distribution of aid from the US so that families in bombed out villages could have some sort of Christmas. I am hoping to visit the country this March and see those we are helping with my own eyes.

Have you tasted the citrus from Lebanon? bitter/sweet like none other. This beautiful country was once the Jewel of the Mediterranean. Now it is a land in mourning.

This enormous explosion has killed 204, injured 6,500 and made 300,000 homeless. Dozens are still missing. Of all things it also destroyed the country’s food reserves in a silo near the blast. Homes were damaged or destroyed up to 10 kM away.

They have the third highest debt of any country in the world. 25% are unemployed and the poverty rate is more than 50%.

What better cause could there be?

In buying your meat from Far West Texas Cattle Co., you are supporting this cause – folks with families – now with no home, no food, no work.

Remember? – Texas was devastated by a similar ammonium nitrate fertilizer explosion in 1947 which killed 581 of our own folk and injured around 4000.

By allowing us the honor of providing you with beef every month you will be feeding those in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon who have a long winter ahead with very little food and little hope of the work they need to buy the food that there is.

By: Carl Emerson, Debbie Willbanks