A Farmer's Perspective

Building Fertility

When you start a new farm there is always a period of time when you have to cultivate fertility in order to create healthy, productive soil. While taking time to produce fertility (through compost, cover crops, and animal manure) farmers must also abstain from harvesting crops in certain plots of land – often for 5 to 10 years. This is an expensive process and many farmers end up working other jobs to fund it – so in essence they are importing a different type of fertility – money.

The Home Stretch!

Anticipation of Abundance

I was talking to a relatively new member family yesterday who has recently joined our partnership and they shared how our appeal of a few weeks ago transformed their relationship with Farmers To You. He described to me how when in the past we have asked for help in spreading the word about Farmers To You, he and his wife had been willing to share our postcards and $35 gift with others, but they never felt a sense of purpose or understood the collaborative nature of this partnership. Typically they found their enthusiasm and willingness waned. This time, however, he shared that our letter really struck a chord for him and his wife. The food we send each week to them from our partner farmers had really become part of their family life, and they also realized how much they actually talked about it with many of their friends. In short this had become an important part of their lives. He told me when the letter came they thought about what it would be like to have to hunt down similar or comparable food each week and realized that short of heading to Vermont each week, it would be very difficult.

Growing Relationships

This week, I had a board meeting with the Biodynamic Association, the group that promotes and educates on Biodynamic Agriculture. After our regular business we usually have a discussion on a topic of particular importance to the group. This month, we focused on the marketplace for Biodynamic food, and how to create a sustainable, value-based demand for this incredible system of agriculture while also maintaining the integrity of the methodology.

A Gift for Skeptics

Have you noticed how hard it is to convince anyone to do something new these days? You should try to convince a farmer to try something new – phew! Well actually we farmers love to try new things – but only if we are darn sure they will improve our lives, save time, and produce much better food.  Complete skeptics.

No More Mystery Meat!

I was on my beautiful short commute this past Monday morning from Calais Vermont to Berlin – when this phrase popped into my head from the distant past … Mystery Meat! I started laughing because I had just been preoccupied in thought about what I would write about this week, and kept thinking how strange it is now that we do not know where most all of our food really comes from.