About Our Farm
Good food begins with a place.
Tyner Pond Farm is our family farm in east-central Indiana. We raise 100% grassfed beef and pasture-raised chicken using managed rotational grazing, and we work with trusted partners to offer pasture-raised pork and organic raw dairy.
When our family decided to begin farming, we were grateful to do it here. East-central Indiana has the rainfall, the seasons, and the pasture conditions that make this kind of farm possible. For grassfed beef, place matters. We believe this is one of the very best places in the world to grow good forage and raise cattle on grass.
That matters because grassfed beef begins with grass. Good forage depends on rain, temperature, soil, sunlight, and time to recover. Here, we get the kind of conditions that give pasture a real chance to grow well. Our job is to manage that ground carefully, move animals well, and work with the natural pattern of the seasons.
This is not abstract to us. It is our daily work and our family’s way of life. We are out on this land in the heat, the rain, the mud, and the cold. We know this farm, and we know this part of Indiana. We are not producing anonymous food from an anonymous system. We are raising food from a real place, on land we care for, in a community we are part of.
We believe people should be able to know where their food comes from and why that place matters. At Tyner Pond Farm, the pasture, the weather, the soil, and the daily work all shape the food we raise. That is what we are doing here, and we are glad to do it in a place so well suited to it.
Farm History
Early pioneer Elijah Tyner lends his name to Tyner Pond Farm as a forebear and farmer of the area. We strive to follow in his footsteps as stalwart, hard-working and conscientious residents and farmers.
Elijah Tyner was born March 21, 1799 (or 1797, depending on the records you’re referring to) in South Carolina. Tyner took a claim in Hancock County, Indiana in 1820, at a time when the only roads were Indian trails.
Before the first settlers, there were a few sparse and transient Indian settlements and animals such as woodland buffalo, mountain lions and deer. The flora was nothing like you see today either. Hancock County was not a prairie–let alone farmland. It was all trees: beech, sugar maple, oak, ash, walnut, elm, buckeye and hickory. Then along came the year 1818 and settlers.
Tyner was one of the hardy pioneers, settling in the county only two years after the first settlers arrived. Records say he was “…the first in the county to give any attention to horticulture, having set out an orchard in the year 1822.”In 1833, Elijah Tyner built the first store. That store became one of the best-known of the time. People traded there from all over the southeastern part of the county, as well as from Shelby and Rush counties. Tyner was well-respected as a businessman, father, neighbor and citizen.
Of the first settlers to Hancock County, historians say it’s “…where industrious and eager families congregated every since.” At Tyner Pond Farm, we are pleased to follow in the footsteps of those industrious and eager folks.
Find out more about our namesake Elijah Tyner.