Michael Pollan points out all the problems with our industrialized food system in this interview, "The End of the World as We Know It", with special emphasis on its dependence on petroleum-based fuels. He notes how the grass fed model is clearly superior, but then he makes the leap to the idea that creating fake food could be a solution to the problems caused by factory farming. Despite this, there is lots of good information to consider.
To every meat there is a season. Here is one idea for developing local sources for food. Modern Farmer re-introduces the idea of the Meat Club, a seasonal and community-based model for having locally-produced meat year round. So you just need some good Catholic friends who are into raising livestock and love butchering.
If you want an idea of how drastically one of the mainstays of our food supply has changed in the last 50 years, in this Vox piece you can take a look at how the size of domestic broiler chickens has increased since the 1950s. The modern chicken is bred to grow an enormous amount of breast meat on the same amount of feed as the much-smaller 1950s chicken. The emphasis is on growth efficiency and white meat production, not on being able to graze/catch any of their own food or reproduce or develop good flavor. Heritage chickens are a different story. Here is a wonderful video on how to evaluate a heritage chicken for breeding qualities. And this marketing piece for a pasture-based meat bird makes clear the advantages of heritage breed meat birds.
For more information on food topics like this from a Catholic perspective, listen to Episode 34 of Restoration Radio's Flagship show on Health and Fitness.