Farm Philosophy

Our Farm Philosophy; or why we want to farm and our guiding principles.

We have chosen to farm because we have a passion for growing and harvesting food. We also feel that farming allows us our best opportunity to be a part of the land and community stewardship process that is so vital to sustaining the health of our environment and quality of our lives.
Our farm philosophy is simple. We want to farm in a way that is good for people and good for the land, or in short: What is good for the community. This is in Aldo Leopold's sense of the word community in which he "...enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, animals..." Wendell Berry suggests that one should measure every decision by the question, "What will this do to our community?" That is the question we wish to measure our decisions by.
Similarly, Leopold states (and we agree) that "a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
All of this could be more simply stated by saying we wish to farm sustainable. Agricultural practices are said to be sustainable if they are socially just, environmentally sound, and economically viable. Yet, in asking of any practice whether it is sustainable or not is more art than science. For it all boils down to what kind of world we envision, the path we choose to get there and the information available by which we base our decisions.
So the world we envision is one in which food is full of nutrition, taste and character. We envision a world where food is supplied regionally and regions can boast of their differences and uniqueness. We envision a world in which farms filter our air and clean our water. We envision a world where people visit farms for fun. We envision a world in which farms have intact natural areas and function as refuges for natural things, whether it is a back forty or a native flower bed. We envision a world where farmers pride themselves on ecological restoration and where people visit farms to see wildlife. We envision a world in which small diversified farms dot the landscape so that one could ride a bicycle from coast to coast never having to travel for more than a days ride before coming to some farm by which room and board could be exchanged for doing some pleasant work. We envision a world where people not only know the farm that produces the food they eat but where people can actively participate in growing and harvesting the food they eat.