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Restorative Agriculture and the Clean Food Movement What are the trends and the truths of 'New Agriculture'?  Which will we follow?  The science of defining clean food, how to grow it, where to get it and why we need it is explored in depth with examples from throughout history culminating in the most recent discoveries of the value of restored relationships of land, animals, people and communities.   Restorative Agriculture requires putting back twice as much as we  take out in our clean food production practices which rebuilds the land  to its fullest capacity while allowing the farmer to make a good living.  This restoration can also preserve the agricultural integrity and antiquity of our small farm heritage.  The Clean Food Movement  is based on the foundational principles of restorative,  sustainable and organic farming practices which result in healthy, balanced soil. The end result is the highest quality nutrition for consumers. 
 

The 5 'P's of a Sustainable Small Family Farm  We have broken down the essential elements of a successful farming operation into 5 basic principles.  Production, Processing, Packaging, Promoting and Profits.  After much research, application, trial and error, we realized that all of these principles had to be identified, developed and applied for our farming venture to approach its potential to provide a good living for today and tomorrow.   This presentation shows how we are doing this as we search out what the next wave of successful small family farming looks like.    If we can understand and then seek ways to apply these 5 P's to our farming enterprises, we can paint our farming picture with a broader brush of understanding and make more focused decisions for success  economically. ecologically and generationally.

How to Sell Your Farm Products to Stores, Restaurants and the Public. You can hardly escape the promotional hype for local farm products,  but try to find a concise, step by step method about selling your farm products wholesale and you'll be disappointed.  Well, not anymore.  This presentation is based on years of experience on both sides of this very accessible venue.  We cover everything you need to know from how to search out a likely prospective outlet, to what to say to the store manager when he catches you taking pictures and notes of his product display.  From the best time to deliver to a restaurant (4:00pm seems to be the magic hour) to how to package your products for both shelf appeal and bulk buying.  We address deliveries, distribution, billing, regulations, cross promotion, onsite demonstrations, and long term planning.  These wholesale opportunities are the next venue for those who would like to move a sizeable amount of product with a minimum of people contact.  Hey, not everyone likes to sell direct to the public, but that shouldn't hold you back from prospering with your products.  You'll be amazed at how simple, but systematic this process can be, and there is no substitute to pulling up at the delivery door and dropping off hundreds, and even thousands of dollars worth of your product, week after week.

How to Sell From Your Farm and How to Buy From A Farmer  is intended to help bridge the divide between producers and consumers.  The direct connection between a grower and an eater is an essential link that has been in place for centuries.  It is only in the last few generations that this significant link has been broken by the decentralization and worldwide distribution of our food production.  Even the language of speaking with producers, the very foundation of both an interest and knowledge of 'where our food comes from' has been all but lost.  This program attempts to re-open the farmer/consumer dialog and uncover the wealth of opportunity and to  remove the obstacles from local production and local consumption of clean, fresh foods. 

Take a Giant Leap....Back to Grass Based Farming  "There is nothing new under the sun" wrote Solomon, considered the 'wisest man who ever lived' in the Old Testament of the Bible.  If we can see truth in this, then we can see that the future of farming may not be rooted in the plethora of modern advances so many agronomists would like us to believe, but more realistically in studying where we've been to chart where we are going.  Taking that giant leap back to when pasture based farming practices were the norm and not the exception is the best place to start.   The future is based on multi-species relationships of plants and animals on the small family farm.   Look around.  Do monocultures exist in nature or is there a splendid diversity of both animal and plant species thriving in close relationship?    Diversity flourishes where monocultures shrivel and die.  Genetic modification, cloning, bio-engineering, and the chemical arsenal used on both animals and land are just a few of the myriad practices modern agriculture uses to diminish, separate and control life.   "New Age" farmers around the globe have stopped with the new, and returned to the old way of working with nature, not against it.  The fruits of this effort increasingly fill the dinner plates of an ever increasing cadre of clean food eaters.  If you are sitting on the farm fence wondering which way to leap...take a look over your shoulder and remember that most of these modern improvements are more concerned with increasing quantity over quality and volume over value.  We may have the safest food supply in the world, but do we have the most nutritious, healthful, ecologically sound and demonstrably clean food supply in the world?  The giant leap back starts with understanding, and then simply following the simple steps to get there.