Have We Changed?

A customer wrote me recently with a concern that caught my attention.

She said she was worried Tyner Pond Farm was becoming too corporate.

I appreciated her honesty.

It gave me an opportunity to stop and think about something Amy and I talk about often.

After sixteen years, have we changed?

The honest answer is yes.

We've grown. We have more cattle. We raise more chickens. We deliver to more families than we did when we started. We use software we didn't have years ago. We automate a few routine tasks that used to be done by hand.

But I don't think those are the right questions.

The better question is whether our mission has changed.

It hasn't.

Tyner Pond Farm is still owned by the same family that started it. Amy and I are still here every day. Our son Jim now manages our grazing program. Kristen Cox started working here when she was in high school and is now a mother of three, and her brother who;'s in high school now helps out on the farm. Heather still delivers most of our orders.

Some of our faces have become older, but they are mostly the same faces.

One thing we've learned over the past year reinforced why that matters.

In the last twelve months, our community faced two major proposals that would have converted productive farmland into industrial development. One was a proposed data center near Tuttle Orchards. The other was a proposed power plant next to Tyner Pond Farm.

Both proposals were rejected at the county commissioner level.

That experience taught me something I hadn't fully appreciated before.

The best way to preserve farmland isn't simply to oppose development.

It's to farm in a way that the community values enough to defend.

People don't rally around anonymous farmland.

They rally around places that matter to them.

Places that feed their families.

Places that restore the land.

Places where they know the people doing the work.

Unfortunately, many commodity farmers are caught in an economic system where they have very little control. Global corporations largely determine the prices they receive while costs continue to rise. Government programs have helped many farms survive, but they've also left many families feeling uncertain about the future.

When a developer offers a large check for the land, selling can become the most secure option.

I don't blame those farmers, I think the system has failed them.

Our hope has always been to demonstrate another path.

One where a farm serves both the land and the community.

One where restoring pasture, improving soil and producing food are connected to the people who eat it.

One where young people actually want to stay in agriculture instead of feeling they have to leave.

That includes our own son.

It also includes the young families we work alongside and the neighboring farms we partner with.

People have also asked why we no longer raise our own pigs.

The answer is actually connected to the same mission.

Rather than trying to do everything ourselves, we chose to focus our attention on the cattle, poultry and land that we manage directly while partnering with other local farm families who specialize in raising pigs.

Our primary partner, Walker Titus of Titus Farm, works with several neighboring families, many of whom raise show pigs with their children. Those families often have a few additional pigs each year beyond their own needs. Creating another market for those animals helps support more local farm families instead of fewer.

We also partner with Gunthorp Farms, one of the country's best-known woodlot/pasture-based hog farms. We've even produced a video introducing Greg Gunthorp because we believe people should know the farmers raising their food.

To us, that isn't becoming more corporate.

It's creating more opportunities for independent farms.

The same is true with technology.

There are parts of our business where simple automation helps. Organizing delivery routes saves fuel and gives Heather more time in her day. Software helps us manage inventory. Accounting is easier than it was sixteen years ago.

None of those things decide when a pasture is ready to graze.

None of them tell us whether a cow is thriving.

None of them restore a field after years of row cropping.

Farming is still, and probably always will be, more art than science.

The land still expects us to pay attention.

If there is one thing I hope never changes at Tyner Pond Farm, it is this:

We don't want to become a bigger company simply for the sake of becoming bigger.

We want to become a farm that our community believes is worth protecting.

If we can accomplish that, I think we've stayed true to the reason we started sixteen years ago.