Strong Local Food Systems Create Food Security

Rapidly rising food prices, fuel prices, interest rates, inflation, talk of food shortages.

Friends, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you things are kind of a mess out there right now.

I don’t have the ability to see what’s ahead for sure, but here’s my opinion on what we’re likely to see coming when it comes to food.

First things first though, I’m not panicking, yet. If I feel like we need to panic, I’ll let you know!

But I do feel like our current food system is absolutely unstable and like we saw during COVID, is easily broken with any little interruption.

I think the price of food will continue to rise, especially as the price of fuel and fertilizer continues to increase.

I don’t think we will see widespread extreme food shortages where there’s no food at all, but I do believe we will see more supply chain interruptions with items out of stock more than we’re used to and for longer periods of time.

All the usual advice like stocking up on food if you’re able is useful, but I believe the absolute best ways to protect ourselves against food shortages in the long term is to build a strong local food system and learn to cook with real food.

Our local farmers are already raising all the basics we need from meats, eggs, fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy products. We may not have the wide variety of food we’re used to, and we’ll have to cook more from scratch, but the essentials are here.

When our food is being raised, processed, sold, and eaten all within our communities, we are much better protected against outside supply chain interruptions or extra costs for transportation.

When the initial COVID lockdowns caused empty grocery store shelves, most local farms saw a huge demand for their products. That is AMAZING and we were all thrilled to be serving our communities, but we quickly sold through months worth of inventory in weeks.

It’s important to remember that farms like ours can’t flip a switch and quickly have more beef steers, hogs or chickens ready to process, more acres of produce ready to eat, or more milk to bottle.

As demand for local products increases, more local food will be grown, but it realistically takes months or years for all the infrastructure and systems to catch up to a giant increase in local food demand.

If you’ve ever read my post on The Bigger Impacts of Buying Local, there are so many other businesses that need to grow right along with us as our farm and others start raising more food and selling it to our community.

That takes time, which means now is the time to start supporting local farms and businesses to give all of us a chance to grow and be ready to feed more people.

Please don’t wait until we’re in another empty grocery store shelves scenario. Small farms need your support now so we’re ready for whatever comes next.

Every time we shop from local farms we support a stronger and more abundant local food system. When we shop the grocery store, we tell the dangerously fragile global food system that’s how we want our food produced and sold.

I know it’s cliche, but we truly do vote for the type of food system and world we want every single time we shop for food.

I’ll be real that in times of emergency or shortages - farms like ours will prioritize making sure the families we’ve built relationships with have what they need before we open up sales to the public.

It’s not because I don’t want to feed our entire community, I would love to be able to do that, but we raise meat and eggs based on demand. I feel strongly that my first responsibility is to feed the families who have supported and believed in us in all times, not just when grocery store shelves are empty.

I obviously can't forsee the future, who knows what curveball could be thrown at us next, but whatever happens my solution is the same - food security comes from strong local food systems and communities.

Whether you live in a rural area and shop directly from farmer neighbors or you live in the city and have local foods shipped to your door, building relationships and supporting small farms makes our food more secure.

If you’re local to Southern, Ohio you can check here to see when we’ll be at the Chillicothe Farmers Market or be open at the farm.

We also ship meats across Ohio and most of the Midwest every Tuesday and will be adding farm store hours to the calendar soon!

If you’re not already part of our farm community, our email list is the best place to start to connect with your farmers and the source of your food! Watch your inbox for, recipes, first dibs on restocks, and to follow along with our farming journey.

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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 the past 6 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, a delivery driver, and having to build multiple new buildings to keep up with demand.

- Our feed maker purchases the non-GMO grains for our feeds locally. By purchasing feed from him, we are also supporting other area farmers.

- 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. We have a farmer friend who owns a herd of grass-fed Angus cattle. He 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.

- 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.

If you’re not part of our community yet, we would love to have you! Add your name and email address below and you’ll be in. And don’t worry - you can expect emails like this about every week or two, we’re too busy to spam your inbox with nonsense!

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Our Food System Is Broken

As I write this we are a couple months into the COVID-19 pandemic in this country.

Along with fears about the actual virus itself, this entire situation has brought to light many of the weaknesses in our centralized industrial food system and has many people concerned about food shortages - especially meat, eggs, and dairy.

Over time, our food system has been structured to produce cheap, efficient food. To do this, the supply chains have ended up being essentially monopolies that control the entire process. 85% of the beef in our country is processed, distributed, owned by 4 major companies. 85%!

This means when any part of their huge system goes down, it disrupts the entire supply chain from the farm to the grocery store and everywhere in between. Right now the beef packers are paying farmers below the break even cost for their animals, while still importing cheap beef raised overseas, and significantly raising prices for consumers at the grocery store.

We are seeing shortages on grocery store shelves because of COVID-19 outbreaks in these huge processing plants. It’s not from people hoarding meat, it’s not because there isn’t enough meat.

This backlog is causing empty grocery store shelves, and farmers having to destroy fully grown animals that could be feeding people. Those pictures of piles of dead hogs and the stories about how they are “humanely” euthanizing entire barns of hogs and chickens by shutting off the ventilation system and letting them suffocate and overheat to death? Sorry to be gruesome, but that’s not fake news. That’s really happening.

USDA is now working on creating protocols for farmers to destroy ready to process beef steers “humanely”, while the packers are still importing cheap beef from overseas.

There’s been an outcry to just donate the meat or wait until there’s processing space instead of destroying animals. Because our food system has consolidated so much in the name of cheap meat and efficiency, it’s put a lot of our local butchers out of business. They just don’t exist anymore to process these animals. It’s also not an option to for farms to hold the animals longer until the backlog gets caught up. They’ll be too large for the facilities to handle, plus there will be a backlog of baby pigs being euthanized because there’s nowhere for them to go.

Our food system is a mess. While I don’t pretend to have all the answers to this complicated issue, I do know without a doubt that fixing this needs to involve decentralizing meat production, bringing back local and regional systems, creating opportunities for more small to mid-scale processors, and if not stopping the import of meat from overseas completely at least labeling it so as consumers we can make the decision for ourselves what we want to eat.

One positive in all of this is there’s been a huge surge in buying locally raised meat, eggs and dairy lately, which is amazing! Our farm sold through inventory that would have lasted us months in just weeks. We are getting nearly constant messages from families and local businesses who are struggling to source their meat from their usual channels. We love that we get to serve our community this way. We are truly living our purpose! Small farms all over the country are stepping up to the challenge of keeping our communities fed and I’ve never been more proud to be part of this group.

One conversation we along with many of our other farming friends are having right now is - how much do we invest in scaling up moving forward? Will customers stick with us even when things go back to “normal” and there’s convenient cheap meat on the grocery store shelves? Will this system ever go back to “normal”? There are so many unknowns.

Thankfully we are in a position to scale up chicken and turkey production fairly quickly, but beef and pork take longer. Finished grass-fed beef steers take 2+ years to finish, pastured hogs take 6+ months, turkeys a little over 3 months, but thankfully chickens only take 6 weeks!

Even though I know it’s alarming to see shelves bare, we and other local farms are doing our best to step up and feed our communities. We have the capacity, it just takes time to create the needed infrastructure and raise the animals.

The one thing we want to ask of you is that even if you can’t source 100% of your families meat, eggs or milk from local farms, please support them as much as possible. I know it’s cliche, but where we spend our dollars now shapes the food system of our future.

When dollars flow through local farms, they support local processors and businesses. This leads to expansion and more local processors being created to keep up with demand, which opens up more opportunities for farmers like us to raise and process more animals.

By diverting dollars away from the industrial food system we keep dollars local and reinvested in our communities.

Part of our struggle in this moment to scale beef or pork production quickly is that we can’t get processing slots. Our usual processor who can typically get as many animals as we need in with a month or two notice is booked out 6+ months. I had to make processing appointments for pigs that aren’t even born yet to make sure the spots were there when we needed them.

We aren’t sure what to expect in the next year and beyond, but we are here to serve you as best we can.

Thank you for supporting our farm and other local farms like us! I can see change happening and I’m looking forward to the positive things that will come out of the pandemic tragedy. I hope one of them is more food security, a stronger local food system, and stronger communities.

~ Dana

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The Gift of Sloppy Joes, Soup and Cookie Dough Balls is Always Appreciated

Quick story. 

Picture it... I've been home for maybe 2 days with tiny little newborn E baby. I had spent 30 hours in labor, another 2+ days in the hospital, Jesse and I had minimal amounts of sleep and I don't even remember eating anything besides the breakfast sandwich I demanded basically minutes after giving birth because I was so hangry. 

My friend Andrea texts and says she is bringing over dinner. She walks in a little while later and I threw the baby at her (kidding, it was only a gentle toss), so I could check out the food situation. 

I will never forget how delicious that sloppy joe sandwich and cucumber pasta salad tasted. She even made a big batch of both so I had leftovers for days. Seriously, it is top 10 on the list of best meals I have ever eaten in my life. 

It completely recharged me when I needed it most and made me realize just how much a homemade, hot meal can change someones day. 

Since then my gift giving strategy for friends or family having babies, dealing with illness, grandparents or single friends that may not have the time or motivation to cook real meals for themselves has been to feed them.

Soup is a super easy thing to cook a big pot of, then dish out into smaller containers to either deliver fresh or freeze for later.

If I'm taking soup to a family, I package in a container big enough to feed everyone.

If I'm taking soup to a grandparent, new Mom for lunches, or single friend, I use smaller single serve containers so they aren't forced to thaw out a huge batch of soup.

Vegetable Beef Soup and Chicken and Noodles or Chicken and Rice are my absolute favorites!

I've included the recipe for Vegetable Beef Soup below to get you started!

Vegetable Beef Soup

• 2+ cups Cooked and Shredded Grass-Fed Beef Roast (great way to use up leftovers!!!)

• 4ish Cups of Beef Broth (1 box if you're using store bought)

• 1 can diced tomatoes

• 1 Bag Frozen Mixed Vegetables (the peas, green beans, corn and carrots kind)

• 2 medium potatoes, diced

• Around 2 cups of Egg Noodles - the homemade kind, the frozen kind, or the bagged kind you find in the pasta aisle. Add more, less, or none depending on your feelings about noodles!

• Salt and Pepper

Add your broth to a giant pot. Add your shredded beef, any of the goopy broth stuff leftover from cooking the roast, tomatoes and bag of veggies. Let it come to a gentle boil, then add your potatoes and noodles. Let boil gently until your potatoes and noodles are cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste. Boom - Delicious Soup. 

Do you notice a theme that none of my recipes have exact measurements? Just trust the process, you can't mess this up.

If you're panicking, use the power of Pinterest for a more exact recipe.

Fill a bowl for yourself since you worked super hard at putting things into the pot and stirring. Enjoy your soup while you wait for the rest to cool a bit.

Next step is to ladle into containers then freeze! 

I don't know about you, but I would so much rather create Christmas gifts in my own kitchen than be forced to shop. There are people, I have to wait in lines, I'm starting to sound like a curmudgeon so I better stop there....

But really, sometimes the best gift we can give is something as simple as a great meal.

We can hook you up with a tasty beef roast, bones to make broth, and eggs to make homemade noodles, then head to the grocery store for veggies at a weird hour of the day to avoid a bunch of people, then spend some time cooking Christmas gifts in your own kitchen!

You can also just buy the broth and noodles at the store, but don't skimp on the roast! :)

Also, if you show up with soup AND a bag of frozen homemade cookie dough balls that they can pop into the oven for fresh warm cookies anytime they want, you will be their new hero. Just throwing that out there. 

Happy Cooking and Soup Delivering!

Dana

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Land of the Free Because of the Brave

I recently met a farm family who immigrated to the United States from Belgium. Even though they haven't lived here long, their farm operation is quite large and includes multiple family members and employees. It’s impressive!

The Dad asked if I farmed and when I told him about my small grass-based livestock operation, I thought "he must think I am so silly." What he actually said was incredibly supportive. It also came with a lesson in how lucky I am to be able to do what I love.

"That is great. You live in America so you can do so if you wish." I didn't fully understand his response until later after he told the story of why he and his family left Belgium for the United States.

Until 2015, the Belgian government only allowed farmers to produce a certain quantity of product. They could not grow their farm operation unless the government increased their quota. This farm family was barely able to produce enough to be profitable and support their family, let alone allow opportunities for the next generation to join the operation. 

So they sold out, took a huge risk, and moved the entire family to the United States. Now multiple generations work side by side on the same farm with hopes the operation will continue to be passed on to future generations.

When we started our farm, I never gave a second thought that I needed government approval (other than the crazy number of inspections, permits, etc.) or that anything other than my own lack of knowledge, work ethic or ingenuity would limit how far I could expand. I took for granted the freedom we have.

We truly live in the greatest country in the world, and it's because so many brave men and women have fought for us. Many lost their lives to allow us these freedoms.

Each Memorial Day I am particularly mindful of this sacrifice and how lucky I am to live and be raising my family in a country where we have the freedom to chase our dreams and be as successful in life as we choose to be.

As we observe Memorial Day weekend, I encourage you to take a moment to remember those who lost their lives to provide the freedoms we enjoy. Our lives would be much different without their sacrifice.

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