When you spend enough time thinking about food, farming, and health, you eventually find yourself thinking about freedom too. Not in a loud or political way, but in a practical, everyday sense:

Do people have control over the food they rely on, or don’t they?

For most of American history, families fed themselves from nearby farms, gardens, and small processors. They knew the people who raised their food, and they knew how that food was grown. It wasn’t perfect, but it was personal. It was local. And it kept communities resilient.

Somewhere along the line, that shifted. The modern food system became a national—sometimes global—network of large processors, centralized distribution, and complicated regulations. And ordinary people lost visibility into the most basic thing in their lives: where their food comes from.

I think about this a lot. Not in a nostalgic way, but because it affects us here and now.

When Systems Get Too Big, Communities Get Too Small

One of the challenges of an industrial food system is that decisions affecting local farmers and consumers are often made far away—by people who don’t know the land, the farms, or the community.

Regulations designed for huge corporations get applied to small farms without any distinction. Policies that make sense for a 5,000-cow feedlot often make no sense for a 50-cow pasture-based farm. And the unintended result is that small, local operations get squeezed.

You see it in processing regulations.
You see it in labeling rules.
You see it in raw milk laws.
You see it in zoning decisions affecting rural communities.

None of this was designed to hurt small farms. But once a system becomes big enough, it doesn’t really notice the small ones.

The Importance of Knowing Your Farmer

Food freedom doesn’t mean ignoring rules. It means giving people the option to support local farms that raise food in a way they understand and trust.

When someone buys from a farm like ours, they’re not buying an idea or a label. They’re buying from real people, on real land, making decisions every day based on soil health, animal wellbeing, and nutrition.

There’s no substitute for that level of transparency.

And it’s why communities get stronger—not weaker—when they support their local farms.

Reflection: What We’re Learning at Tyner Pond

Over the years, I’ve learned a simple truth:
Good food and good policy both work best close to home.

The more we decentralize food production, the more resilient we become. Families get better access to real nutrition. Farmers stay independent. Local processors stay in business. Dollars stay in the community. And people aren’t forced to rely on distant systems that don’t know them.

This isn’t about ideology. It’s about practicality. It’s about making sure people have the ability to feed themselves well, outside of giant systems that often lose sight of the individual.

Where We Go From Here

My hope is that Indiana continues to move toward policies that give small farms room to operate, innovate, and serve their communities. And that more people feel empowered to choose food grown on soil they can stand on, by farmers they can talk to.

Food shouldn’t be mysterious. It shouldn’t be distant. And it shouldn’t require navigating a maze of regulations meant for corporations instead of communities.

Food freedom is simply the ability to choose real food from people you know.

And that still matters today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What do you mean by “food freedom”?

Food freedom means people have real choices about where their food comes from and are able to buy directly from local farms they know and trust, instead of relying only on large industrial systems.

Q: Why do large-scale policies hurt small farms?

Regulations are often written with big corporations in mind. When the same rules get applied to small farms and small processors, the costs and requirements can be heavy enough to push them out of the system.

Q: Are you against food safety regulations?

No. Basic standards are important. The issue is when one-size-fits-all rules designed for huge operations are forced onto small, local farms without any flexibility or common sense.

Q: How does buying from local farms support food freedom?

Buying from local farms keeps more control, more knowledge, and more responsibility in the hands of people who actually raise the food. It also keeps dollars in the local community and supports local processors and workers.

Q: What can I do to support this kind of food system?

You can buy from local farms when you’re able, pay attention to local policy decisions, and speak up when rules or zoning choices make it harder for small farms and processors to survive.