It's Never Happened Unless by Conquest - And Never Peacefully

Earlier this month, I spent two days at a Homesteaders of America conference and it was WONDERFUL.

When you gather people who are passionate about raising quality food and saving family farms, there’s an energy in the room that’s indescribable.

Within our sessions about all things farming and homestead, there was one piece that stuck out.

I could feel the entire room almost stop breathing for a second while we absorbed the reality of what this could look like.

In the next 15 years, 50% of America’s farmland will transfer as farmers retire or pass away.

This kind of massive land transfer has never happened in our civilization.

It has never happened unless seized by conquest.

And it has never happened peacefully.

How this might impact family farms, our communities, and our food security, is honestly pretty scary.

Even in rural areas right now, farmers often can’t afford to buy the land. What can be earned from raising crops or livestock on the farm isn't enough to pay the mortgage and taxes anymore.

Millions of acres of farmland are being bought by developers and investors, including foreign investment companies. What they are willing to pay for the land is much higher than farmers can afford. This is causing the price of farmland to rise rapidly.

Unless we find ways to stop it from happening, when half of America's farmland transfers in the next 15 years, much of it will be purchased by people who are not our farmers, neighbors, or people who care anything about the land, our community, or making sure we have enough to eat.

I'm not going to pretend to have all the answers for solving this, but I do know that supporting our local farmers and getting more young people into farming is part of what’s going to keep land in the hands of family farms like ours instead of developers and investors.

If farms like ours are strong and well supported, we can purchase land when property around us comes up for sale, and hopefully our family will be raising food on it for generations.

Lots of demand for locally raised products also opens up opportunities for more families to get started farming and make their living from the land, which will hopefully stay in their family for generations.

I know that buying from local farms isn't always the most convenient or cheapest option, but please know you are making such a huge difference for the farm families you support and you're shaping the future of family farms with every purchase.

Thank you for being part of keeping farmers like us on the land. Thank you for being part of keeping our food supply secure now and in the future. Thank you for believing in what we do and supporting us on this journey!

~ Dana

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The Bigger Impact of Buying Local

I've shared pretty openly about how shopping from our farm has directly impacted our family, but what you may not see is just how many other local families and businesses your food dollars benefit when you shop with us.

The positive impact our community is huge, and the more our farm has grown we've been able to help many other businesses grow and expand right along with us!

- Our baby chicks and turkey poults are hatched by a family owned hatchery in Cincinnati. Not only do they provide healthy chicks for us, but we don't have to rely on shipping them through the mail - we can go pick them up the day they hatch.

- We purchase our non-GMO feed from a local Amish family. Mark has been mixing the feed for our animals for many years. We've watched him go from operating out of one small pole building by himself to adding his brother full-time to the business, hiring office staff, delivery drivers, and building multiple new buildings to keep up with demand.

- Our feed maker purchases the non-GMO grains for our feeds locally. We know the farmer who raised the corn for our feed this year, and it was raised organically!

- Our hay is raised by and purchased from local farmers.

- We purchase our basic supplies like new heat lamps for the brooder, buckets, shavings, etc. from a locally owned feed store.

- The piglets we raise into finished hogs are purchased from local farmers. We have a few farms we support to get as many pigs as we need.

- Our beef animals are bred, born and raised without ever leaving our county. Our friend Alex cares for the Mama cows, bull and baby calves, then once the calves are weaning age, we purchase them.

- When it comes time for processing, all 4 processors we use for poultry, beef and pork are local family owned operations.

- Our friend Mike purchased a delivery van and has started a new business hauling and delivering products for small farms like ours. It’s brought multiple farms together as we coordinate trips and help each other get what we need picked up and delivered.

- Even the custom labels we have put on our chicken products are designed and sold by a family business in Cincinnati!

- Our fencing and building project materials are purchased from locally owned businesses, and we hired local building and concrete crews to help with our barn.

- When we need tires (seriously, there are so many tires around here) or mechanic work done, we have wonderful local businesses who know us and take great care of us.

- Those amazing photos you see of our family and farm were taken by local photographers - either Hollie from Holden Photography or Anna from Anamedia.

- Our soaps and tallow balms are made with Twisted Violet Homestead in Hillsboro and Butterhide in Jackson, both women owned small businesses.

- The chai tea, canned goods and kombucha you see in our store are made by Red Holler Homestead in Chillicothe and Fair Ridge Farms in Hillsboro, both local crafters who share our vision for a sustainable local food system.

- Our taxes are done by a local accountant, we bank locally, we use local lenders when we've needed financing, and we partner with other local small businesses for our needs whenever possible.

- The dollars we earn by selling our products allow us to purchase food we don’t produce for ourselves from other local farms.

I've probably even missed some of the directions your dollars move out into the community after purchasing from us, but I hope this helps you see just how big of an impact you're making! 

One of these days I'll go even bigger picture into the price of farm land, supply and demand plus pressure from developers and foreign investors, but that's probably a little much for this post. :)

Thank you for being a part of what we're doing. We are so incredibly grateful for your support, and allowing us to support the growth of so many other small businesses in our community too.

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