Farm Blog

July 9, 2019 By Whitney Belprez 6 Comments

Dear Joel

I might never have found my way to Polyface Farm if Joel Salatin hadn’t refused to FedEx me one of his chickens. “No, I don’t think you understand. I don’t believe it’s sustainable–‘organic,’ if you will–to FedEx meat all around the country,” Joel told me.
Michael Pollen, Mother Jones (2006)

As some of you may (or may not) have heard, Polyface Farms has recently abandoned their farm’s core tenet of Local Community and decided to start shipping some of their products nationally. For the past 30 + years, they have served a 4 hour radius of their farm in the Shenandoah Valley with online ordering to drop points, buying clubs, and (of course) on-farm sales. Polyface Farms is the most visible and famous example of restorative + sustainable agriculture today. They have been featured in numerous books, films, workshops, and seminars and have inspired an entire generation of farmers. After reading, listening and reflecting on their decision, this is our response.

Dear Joel,

My husband and I first read the Omnivore’s Dilemma in college, and 7 seasons later, we are first-generation farmers, with 3 kids and 80 acres.

We work full-time on the farm to supply our local community with fresh milk, grassfed beef and pastured pork.

As a young, bootstrapping family with a non-existent budget, we scrimped, saved and used every birthday, anniversary and Christmas for years as an excuse to add to our library one more of your precious books or films. Every opportunity we had, we traveled in our state to experience your passion in person.

I witnessed the exhaustion on your face one evening in Grand Rapids, after giving a rousing talk that brought folks of both business and faith to their feet, clapping and cheering.

I saw the sacrifice that you (and your family) made in order for you to travel, speak and write extensively – for all for us.

Sacrifices that were made so that anyone could be inspired, learn and rest in the refreshing honesty of your perfectly crafted, and inspiring words that reverberated with integrity

We owe your farm’s visibility so much – you are so many people’s first exposure to farming in a sustainable, regenerative, value-driven way. It resonates with them as it resonated with us.

So many of our customers see what you’re modeling through movies, books and interviews, and they want to find it locally.

All that is to say, we have lived our lives and grown our business inspired by the values you have espoused for so long.

It is because we hold you in such high esteem that we were truly conflicted by Polyface Farms’ decision to start shipping its products across the country.

I will never criticize a business for thoughtful growth. It is, of course, completely your decision to do what is best for your business.

However, I have to say I felt a twinge of disappointment and, dare I say, betrayal.

And, I understand that it wasn’t entirely your decision.

Polyface has grown into a huge enterprise with many faces and voices at the table.

But so many of us have staked our lives on the values you profess – local, community-based, regenerative agriculture.

So many of us face the same challenges in our local markets that you mentioned, from restaurants or local grocers backing out of agreements, to customers who balk at our prices.

We’ve all been there. We ARE there.

But, we have worked hard to cultivate personal customer relationships to buoy our business. We don’t rely on on-farm sales alone – delivery to urban markets is almost a given in any direct-marketing business.

However, we own the means of distribution and delivery. It’s a vertical integration and still allows us to maintain and develop relationships and report with our customers, which is integral to any local, transparent food system.

We have also had to develop the skills necessary to build a solid website, blog, and social media pages to continue that relationship with our customers. This is something that is hard-fought in the trenches of the internet – learning SEO, algorithms, creating content, and adding marketing time to our daily chore list.

Online presence is 100% necessary to any small business, and farming is no exception.

Through immense grace, insane luck or some combination of the two, your farm was given a platform on an unimaginable scale (without the work required by all small farmers entering the market today).

All because you wouldn’t FedEx a chicken to Michael Pollan.

Yes, you built an incredible farm and business before him. You and Teresa deserve 100% of the credit.

But, imagine if you had shipped that chicken to Michael Pollan.

He may have tried it, given you a phone interview, written a nice piece about your farm that may have garnered some attention; maybe you would have seen a bump in sales for a bit. And that would be the end.

Instead, you didn’t.

Instead, Pollan took the time to visit the quirky farmer with the weird ideas, with whom he likely agrees on almost nothing politically, who refused to compromise his values and principles, and his world was flipped upside down.

He experienced it all – he got the vision, the views, the smells and the TASTE of what farming and food could be. What they were meant to be.

Because you wouldn’t ship him a chicken.

But, if your farm can’t be viable while staying true to its core values, then what the hell have you been selling everyone for the last 25 years?

Michael Pollan may have given you the platform and notoriety, but it is you who made a second career telling folks that You Can Farm.

With a little bit of elbow grease, creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit, you taught us through numerous books, documentaries, Polyface primers, speaking events, workshops, field days.

As Mickie and Travis Davis commented on your recent blog post,

“So you urge everyone to go out and FARM. Heal the land, rotational graze, don’t use chemicals, use nature. And we jump, risking everything, sweating, toiling, being called crazy by relatives, getting up early to go to the market, traveling to VA to SEE-THE-POLYFACE………..struggling to BE – LIKE – POLYFACE.
Wearing your T-shirts at our market, professing your words, changing hearts and minds with YOUR-WORDS. Selling local.
And now Polyface is the BEHEMOTH that will take away our local business.
Rome has fallen. The Idea is betrayed.
Shame Joel. Shame.”

These words are not meant to tear you down.

Folks are responding out of deep, abiding love and respect for you and your work.

Because you have been the leader of the local, sustainable, regenerative, land healing farming movement. We expected better.

We actually aren’t opposed to shipping per se. We know several farms who have scaled large enough that shipping makes sense for their business.

But please don’t call your food local anymore. Nor sustainable.

“COMMUNITY: We do not ship food. We should all seek food closer to home, in our foodshed, our own bioregion. This means enjoying seasonality and reacquainting ourselves with our home kitchens.”
Polyface Farms (website) 2019

Your no-shipping policy (under the heading “COMMUNITY”) was one of your farms’ core principles, along with transparency, grass-based, individuality, nature’s template, and earthworms; and shipping has been an option since at least 2002 when Michael Pollan wanted that chicken.

If you can toss out that core principle, and will now be coating your food in fossil fuels as it travels around the country, how are we to believe that your farm will stay non-GMO? Maybe next year you’ll decide that GMO’s aren’t so bad and they’ll make you more profitable.

Will you also start doing business on Sundays?

Which values change and “evolve” for convenience and profit and which ones are the true, core principles?

Shipping is not the “natural evolution” to a local, sustainable farm business.

Taking credit cards, having a robust website, active social media accounts, hosting farm tours – these are part of doing business in 2019.

When someone is first introduced to the “integrity” food movement through one of the innumerable articles, films, and books your farm is featured in – where is the incentive for them to “find their farmer” when they can order from the famous farm in all those films, books and articles?

And they will feel good about it because you still champion local, sustainable, regenerative, community-based agriculture (coated in petrol).

I understand this letter won’t change your decision.

And I know it was a painful decision. I suspect it’s not a decision that originated with you and yet you are taking the publicity (positive and negative) for the decision.

And I can imagine the excitement around Polyface about the new venture.

But, please understand why so many feel shock, grief, disappointment and betrayal at this decision.

There are so many of us who have risked everything to follow in your footsteps and we’re left wondering which core principles you’re going to remove next.

As the defacto leader of the local food movement, you have inspired an entire generation of young farmers to shift the food paradigm.

Deeming national shipping as acceptable only means that others will surely follow suit; what gains that have been made in creating a local, viable, food system will wither away as everyone chases their tail to “keep up with the times.”

My hope is that others who were inspired by you, will resist the temptation to give in to consumer demands for “convenience” and stay true to the pursuit of a seasonal, local, and sustainable food system; but your departure from our ranks, will certainly shake the faith of many.

We wish you all the best, with love + respect // Two Sparrows Farm

January 7, 2019 By Whitney Belprez 5 Comments

Organic Monopoly

A rogue dry cow behind our barnyard – December 2018

This is a bittersweet time for us as we welcome a few new members to our herd share from another herd share that recently closed in West Michigan.

Of course, we are always excited to add folks to our tribe – people like us who appreciate real, local food. But it is also painful because it means that the family is no longer able to operate their herd share.

Like several farms we know of, this farm was faced with a difficult decision when Dannon purchased Horizon Organic last year. Many farms with Horizon contracts also ran a herd share for additional income on the side. After the purchase, the co-op has been ruthless in finding any herd shares that farmers are operating and giving them the ultimatum – end the herd share or lose your contract.

It’s a ridiculous power game because sales of fluid pasteurized milk are down every year and many processing facilities are either dumping milk as it comes in on the trucks or putting production caps on farmers because of the overproduction problem.

So, it’s not that the co-ops need 100% of every farm’s milk.

No.

But they need to provide the sole income for the farmer, thereby relegating the farmer to serfdom. It is a tactic to simply keep the farmer in his place.

Friends of ours who milk for DFA (Dairy Farmers of America) were shocked to learn that we’ve always had diversified livestock on our farm, keeping pastured hogs and poultry along with dairy and beef stock. This would violate their co-op contract they said.

Because, heaven forbid a farmer could get a paycheck beyond his milk check or selling cull cows at the livestock auction to McDonald’s and Campbell’s Soup.

After speaking with our friends this past spring, we knew this was the position Horizon had forced them into: ditch the herd share or lose your contract.

And, what choice does a farmer have in this situation?

None.

They have invested thousands of dollars into certifying their land and animals USDA Organic. And the paperwork to maintain that certification. And all the equipment to grow and harvest and store that feed.

And all of the cows themselves! Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of productive, healthy milk cows. That they would get next to nothing for at auction. Pennies on the dollar for what they’re worth.

Not to mention the money, time and effort to maintain their Grade A certification. Countless hours and, again, thousands of dollars to meet their standards, pass inspections, and produce clean, safe milk to be processed into a milk product for store shelves – nothing resembling the fresh, REAL milk that was originally shipped from their farm.

The farmer considers all of this.

And we would have made the same, painful and tearful decision they did.

All those investments would have been wasted to go down to a dozen cows, milking just for the herd share. Herd shares don’t require Grade-A certification, expensive organic paperwork and multitudes of equipment to feed hundreds or thousands of cows. The co-ops requires those things.

Herd share members require clean, fresh, safe milk from their local farmer. And they love supporting those farmers.

And once a co-op contract is lost, it is lost forever.

Most organic co-ops have 3-5 year waiting lists for farmers to join.

And so, we are supportive in our friends’ prayerful decision to end their herd share in pursuit of keeping their Horizon Organic contract, even though they have devoted hours of time and energy to making unprocessed, fresh milk accessible to families all over Michigan.

They have developed and maintained positive relationships with MDARD, in spite of some sticky disputes over raw milk in the state.

We happily welcome many families who have been with this farm for well over a decade to our farm – talk about loyal customers!

We can’t express how much of an inspiration this farm was to us when we started our own small farm 7 years ago on 10 small acres.

And how their friendship bolstered us to expand to 35 acres of production last year. And how supportive they were of our operation MOOving home to our 80 acre farm, where our family is just minutes away and where our roots were pulling us back to.

And we will forever be grateful to them for paving the way for smaller farms like us to flourish.

May 22, 2018 By Whitney Belprez 3 Comments

MOOving Home

As many of you know, this past year has been exciting but quite challenging for us.

The past two summers have both been droughts and this winter was the coldest and snowiest winter in decades, followed up by a prolonged cold muddy spring.

As farmers, we’re out in the thick of it – rain or shine, cold or heat, and everything in between. Naturally, the bizarre weather patterns we’ve been experiencing make life a lot harder for us in our day-to-day routines.

In addition to the strange weather, we’ve also had quite a few changes in our family life over the past year.

First, we moved from Lowell to Howard City to expand our business. Almost immediately after moving, Baylor was born, followed by our rapid expansion into the Metro Detroit/Southeast Michigan area, and our absorption of the bulk of a retired herdshare in the Greenville area.

All of these changes have been for the better, but they’ve also come with a cost. Our work-life balance is practically non-existent and we are finding it increasingly difficult to balance our family’s needs with the needs of the farm.

One year ago we had 8 milk cows, while now our total herd has grown to 38, with 2-3 more calves born every month. It’s great for the farm! We are growing the dairy herd and have started crossing some cows with Angus to build up a better grassfed beef line.

The downside of all this, is that our new bigger farm in Howard City, is starting to feel small.

With all that in mind, my mom sent us an ad for an auction on a defunct dairy farm in Eaton Rapids, the town where I was born and where most of my family and extended family still live, it seemed like an opportunity worth checking out.

Dan and I went to see the farm, and at first neither of us seemed to want to admit how much we liked it. It was the trifecta – beautiful farmhouse, all the farm facilities in place, and the perfect location near our family and the support network we’ve been lacking.

On a long shot we registered for the auction and by some miracle found ourselves to be the highest bidder on auction day.

So….

We are moving (again).

That is absolutely crazy for me to write.

One year ago – literally May 16 (our wedding anniversary!) – we moved into our current farm, quickly listed our farm in Lowell and purchased our current property.

Never in a million years would we have thought we’d be finding ourselves in the same position only a year later. But, as both our family and our farm have grown, we are realizing how important to is to us to be near family.

We want our kids to see their grandparents regularly, and to know their aunts and uncles and cousins, and we need that support network in order to continue doing what we do. We are excited to be moving home, but we will certainly miss our farm here in Howard City and all it’s natural beauty.

As for our new farm in Eaton Rapids, the farm buildings are perfect for our operation – until 15 years ago the farm was a fully functional Grade A dairy. The house is beautiful – just in need of some wallpaper removal. And the location is ideal for our family’s needs, central to highways and both our West and Southeast Michigan delivery routes – plus, it’s 80 acres.

We will have enough land to finally keep all of our calves and be consistently finishing beef. We also plan to get back into breeding stock for our pastured Berkshire hogs and run them through the 17 acres of woods on the property. We will continue to expand the dairy herd and cut much of our own hay over the next 2-3 seasons.

The family who auctioned it has had the farm since the early 70’s and the husband died unexpectedly in 2015 in his early sixties of a heart attack, and the wife died of cancer in the fall of 2017. Not one of their 5 children have an interest in the land, house or farming, unfortunately.

Dairy farms notoriously do not ever become available for the public to purchase. Generally, once a farmer dies, the widow stays in the house, and rents the land to local crop farmer until she dies at which point the farmer who is renting the ground snaps up the property before anyone else has a chance.

Usually, they then parcel off the house and buildings on 5-10 acres, pocket the cash and continue cash cropping the tillable acreage.

This happens over and over again.

So, when we saw this listing for the auction we knew we would be crazy to not at least entertain pursuing it.

And, within a week of winning the auction, we had made arrangements and sold our current house to a local herd share family without even listing it!

And, we are thrilled to be closer to the family and friends that we’ve spent over a decade commuting to visit – an increasingly difficult task while running a dairy farm and chasing young children.

After over a decade in West Michigan, we are finally MOOving home.

Below are some notes with answers to questions you may have regarding this news! Please read over everything and do not hesitate to contact us with any other questions or concerns.

What this means for…

Pigs!

We will be combining two smaller batches into one batch that is scheduled to head to the butcher mid-June. We plan to sell a few by the half/whole and the rest will be ground into brats for grilling and breakfast sausage. Our next batch won’t be available again until fall so stock your freezer now!

Click here to reserve yours here

West & Southeast Michigan Deliveries

None of the milk deliveries will be affected by the move to the new farm (beyond the one week while we move) – except the current on-farm pickup folks in Howard City. We will not be continuing a delivery location there. Families can form a drive share to one of our other locations or choose to let the lease expire on their share. You can contact us for more details on this.THANK YOU!

As always, thank you so much for the opportunity to serve you – we are immensely grateful for your business!

-Dan, Whitney, Cecilia, Beau & Baylor

March 15, 2018 By Whitney Belprez 465 Comments

the end of the road

Last week while on our monthly grocery trip, we were shocked to see that milk was selling for $1.50 a gallon at ALDI in Big Rapids.

$1.50.

Stripped former milk house. This room usually serves as the heart of the dairy farm – bulk tank, sinks, pipeline equipment, etc.

“Limit five,” the sign said.

Clearly, most shoppers’ reaction to these prices was to say “wow, $1.50!” and to then stock up.

For us, our hearts sank. Those farmers, their families, their cows. How in God’s name can they survive $1.50 a gallon?

This week, Dean Foods gave notice to 140 small family dairy farms in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio that after May 31 of this year, there will be no truck to pick up their milk. Walmart, the largest buyer of Dean’s milk in the region, has vertically integrated and will now be processing their own milk. But not from those farms. Those farms are too small for Walmart to waste their time with. And now, Dean has no avenue to sell those farms’ milk. After years of low prices, it is, likely, the final nail in the coffin for those farms.

These are the guys who are up at work at 5 AM feeding calves, milking cows, and cleaning barns. Then after breakfast, they don their ties and head into town for their 9-5 “day job” before coming home for evening chores and starting the routine all over again.

Silo & barn foundation – all that remains of this homestead

Truly, over 85% of farms can’t support a family, financially, without added outside income, according to recent USDA surveys.

What was once the most common job in America, now can’t even support a single family.

In a typical year, dairy farmers get only 11 cents from every dollar spent on milk.

From that 11 cents they have to pay for their mortgage, feed, fuel, labor, insurance, equipment, and any debts they have on those items. What’s left to actually feed the farmer’s family?

Stop by the average small farm in America during business hours and no one’s home. More often than not, the post-retirement-age-farmer, whose kids have all grown and left the farm for greener pastures in the city, is gone at work. Working to pay for his habit.

this former farm sits on the edge of a tranquil creek in the woods. It’s easy to see why the original family chose this spot for their family.

His habit? Farming.

A few days ago, we were running low on round bales for our cows – our next semi load wasn’t supposed to be in for a few more days. So, I thought I’d run down the road through Lakeview farm country and knock on doors at any of the small farms I saw with hay bales stacked up. Having recently moved to the area, buying hay is always a good way to connect with neighbors, local farmers and create community.

Not one person was home. The barn roofs sagged in the middle as the ridge beams rotted away. The tractors, mostly over 40 years old, sat rusting in barely standing equipment sheds. The old fence posts looked more like Woodpecker feeders, and the barbed wire fences that once controlled livestock now swung limply in wind. Paint peeled from the siding, and shingles were missing from the roofs, and no one was home.

Empty tie-stall barn where cows lived & were milked at a local defunct farm

Despite all their hard work, those farmers still couldn’t afford to make ends meet without a towny job. In a few more years, after that farmer has worked until his last day, those tractors will be wrapped in weeds, the barns will be piles of rotted wood and twisted nails, and the houses will sit vacant – too poorly maintained and outdated to even sell.

Eventually, some mega farm will come burn the collapsed barn, bulldoze the house, and try to squeeze out a few more bushels of corn over-top the tomb of some other farmer’s dreams, until they eventually succumb to the same fate.

I don’t say this to be pessimistic. It’s the truth.

The rot and decay in our food system has taken such a hold that, without drastic intervention, the industry will die.

What then?

According to the USDA the average age of the American farmer is 58, with over 31% still running their farm at over 65 years old. Anyone can see that the population demographics in agriculture are dreadful. It didn’t used to be this way. The idyllic farms pictured on the front of every Country Crock margarine container in the supermarket used to be real. Small, diversified, family farms were the backbone of America.

What happened? Who is to blame for the demise of an entire way of life? For the collapse of rural America?

The answer – the 1970’s. No, really. The 1970’s ushered in a radical change in the government policy surrounding agriculture and subsidies.

Policy that interferes with the natural rules of supply and demand and encourages farmers to “get big or get out.” Moreover, our government farm subsidies prioritize the growing of commodities – non-perishable food products that can be stored indefinitely in grain-bins and traded on the world market to increase our nation’s GDP, thus giving the government more borrowing power to stem off its eventual debt-defaults from bloated budgets and out of control spending. The deeper you look, the farther the rot penetrates.

The farm of days gone by – of Old MacDonald with his diversified farm of edible crops, cows, pigs, and chickens – has been replaced with endless rows of corn and shiny-new grain bins that stick out of the countryside like cathedrals paying homage to holy corn.

But the rot has spread to these now, too. The price of a bushel of corn was $3.58 on Dec 2, 1974. In January of 2018, a bushel of corn sold for $3.56, down two cents from 44 years ago. The farmer who planted his first field of corn in 1974 can expect the same prices for his corn as he retires. All the while the price of seed, land, equipment, fertilizer, and fuel have grown exponentially.

It’s unbelievable. It’s an insult. It’s downright sinful.

Even now as I write, farmers are taking their planters out of winter storage, they are inoculating their seeds, calibrating the sprayers, and eagerly awaiting to get back out in the fields. Yet, the forecast for commodity futures on corn and soy don’t look any better than they did last year, and sadly, they will probably lose money after a year of work.

So, as the days get longer, and the sun comes out of it’s winter hibernation, take a ride down a country road and see the vacant houses, the barns falling down, the rows upon rows of corn and soy.

But, when you see that veggie stand on the side of the road, stop and buy something. Buy everything you can afford to locally.

Your dollar will have a greater impact when you buy anything directly from a local producer than switching to an organic item at a chain supermarket. Truly.

More and more farmers are finally starting to see the writing on the wall, and they’re trying to save themselves. They are returning to growing food instead of commodities, and more importantly they are marketing that food directly to customers, instead of selling it for pennies on the dollar to multinational packing and processing corporations.

Farmers are fiercely independent, and they are indoctrinated with the “pull-yourself-up by your bootstraps” mentality, but they can only partially save themselves. The consumer has to help save them.

Instead of Costco, spend your money at the farmer’s market. Or a buying club, or a co-op, or any farm. Buy your food direct from the farm as often as possible.

barn collapsed into a field of king corn

Not only is it better for your health, (and your taste buds!), it helps restore rural and local economies. The radical intervention that agriculture needs is here, and it’s to do away with the cheap global commodity food system that helps no one and fails everyone. Instead, opt for a vibrant, local, and sustainable food system built on the relationship between farmers and consumers, without the government and middlemen in the way.

//Guest Post by Dan Belprez

Suggested Further Reading

Global Dairy Industry (Canada & Trump)

The Need for Off-Farm Income

Finding Local Farmers

Dear Joel

Organic Monopoly

MOOving Home

the end of the road

follow farm life

find the farm

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