We are both native Michiganders – growing up just a few minutes away from Michigan State University gave us an awareness of agriculture, though neither of us are from farming families. We’re also 2010 graduates of Grand Valley State University, and called West Michigan home for over a decade before MOOving to our forever farm in Eaton Rapids.
Dan is a life-long outdoor enthusiast, and dreamed of farming as a child. In college, he discovered the writings of Michael Pollen and Joel Salatin, which led to working on several farms – from an apple orchard, an organic vegetable farm to a conventional dairy farm. Experience is, of course, the best teacher and we’ve both learned a lot just by doing. And reading. And lots of YouTube videos.
Dan and Whitney are both on the farm full-time, along with our kids, Cecilia, Beau & Baylor.
The current food paradigm isn’t working – farmers are enslaved to corporate agriculture through debt and government subsidies while they continue to degrade the environment and pollute our bodies and land; each generation of consumers is becoming more unhealthy, largely because of the cheap food we eat and our sedentary lifestyles. No one is winning except the few large companies that control our food system “from seed to plate.”
We envision a system in which food is wholesome, fresh, healthy, and nutrient-dense while actually enhancing the health of the body and earth. We believe that both farmers and consumers have a part to play in practicing proper stewardship for creation and in building an equitable society.
As farmers, we believe in treating our animals humanely and showing proper respect for the life-giving land we raise them on. We do not apply any chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, hormones or prophylactic antibiotics to any of our land or animals.
We are a 100% non-GMO farm. We feed only locally-grown non-GMO feed custom mixed for us by a farmer in the local community.