Our Mission

We are beginning farmers and ranchers -- not quite "Green Acres", but close. Bev grew up here, on land that included this farm, but her Dad made sure all three of his daughters went to college and got non-farm jobs in cities. For our part, we stayed as far as possible from farming and ranching well into our middle age.

We are here, out of both expediency and a desire to enrich our lives. Expediency, because we feel an obligation to be good stewards of the land given us. The lifestyle part of the equation is probably not unique to us at all; many people probably share our desire to get more connected to the land, do something tangible with our hands, and generally move back to the land.

So what do we hope to accomplish? First, we hope to become more self-sufficient. We want to sell more food than we buy. We want to raise our own vegetables, fruits, sheep, cattle, and ultimately chickens and goats.

But, beyond self-sufficiency, what is it that we aspire to? A very good farming writer, Gene Logsdon, who is a hero of ours, calls himself a "contrary farmer." He calls himself that because he does not buy into the industrial model as it applies to farming. He sees defects in the application of the model to agriculture (and indeed to life and business in general), some of which we have set forth above -- although not nearly as well as does Gene.

We, as contrary farmers, believe is that family farming should not be a monoculture. That commodity crops should generally not be grown by the family farmer. He or she should also not raise the sheep, cattle, or goats that the corporate farmers, or their inadvertent family farmer followers, raise. A contrary farmer should address the micro-market of folks who are hungry and thirsty for what he really has to offer that the corporate farmers and their family farm followers do not -- something unique. In our opinion, family farmers should be growing what is not readily available at a low price -- heirloom vegetables, specialty fruits and nuts, antique breeds of livestock not bred up during the past century to be cartoon versions of what livestock used to look like.

We further believe that this farmer should know and sell directly to his customers -- through farm stands, farmer's markets, or community sponsored agriculture ("CSA"). We believe the US government has made the word "organic" meaningless, and organic certification should not be the goal for the family farmer, but that the farmer should, nonetheless, refrain from the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers on anything that he expects a human being to eat.

We believe that the self-sufficient, diverse, family farmer of a century ago should be the model that we all strive for. Neither forsaking technology or what we learned in the past century of farming, but forsaking the mechanistic model of farming that family farmers bought into, until it became too late for many of them to buy into anything else.

We believe the family farm of today and tomorrow should minimize inputs other than labor, which will probably be increased. We believe that one should minimize and deter purchases or equipment. We believe most equipment would be more logically shared by several family farms. How many rusty combines sit in shes on farms all over this land?

We believe in treating customers and animals alike with dignity. We believe the most important role of the family farmer is probably reeducation -- of himself, of other family farmers, and of consumers. Everyone has gotten to where they don't expect much, and that's what they get -- not much.

These are trying times. Farmers and farm operations will fail, probably on a large scale. Most small farmers will probably have to keep, or get, day jobs -- providing additional money and subsidizing their farm "lifestyle." We have no illusions of quitting our day jobs to focus exclusively on this labor of love. We may be crazy.

This mission statement, like any, is a work in progress. But this is where we stand today. We invite input -- like-minded or contrary. It takes all kinds and all minds.

Tom Carnes | Mission Statement posted February, 2009