A Question of Certification

I've been curious for a long time about what drives certain farmers to not only choose organic methods in their farming, but to elect organic certification. I knew that in the case of Fair Trade certification for coffee, for example, many felt the costs of obtaining and maintaining certification were prohibitive. I'd read that USDA organic certification was also costly. And so, if you are buying locally, does it really matter if the farmer is certified organic? To you or to them? I suppose that the obvious answer is that if you know your farmer and how they farm, then no. It is true though that in many farmer's markets - ones that aren't "producer only" in particular - unscrupulous businessmen will label store bought produce as local organic, duping the unwitting shopper. Or even just being part of the market may give a false impression that the produce is local. That happened to me once on the Eastern Shore. A roadside stand on a rural road in early Summer. I remarked at how early the peaches were. Apparently they weren't early in Georgia! It had never occurred to me that they hauled fruit several hundred miles to sell in the middle of farm fields. Now I always ask. Another confusion are signs. You might see signs that say "our fruit is never sprayed". What does that mean? It generally does not mean, "we don't use chemical sprays". Organic certification offers a transparency to the buying process. I set out to see what a variety of farmers thought about the whole thing.

For this article, I asked the farmers all the same questions:

1. Are, or have you been, certified organic?
2. what is the primary motivation(s) for that choice (to certify, to stop certification, or not to have sought certification) ?
3. How would you summarize your practices for fertilization, pesticides, and protecting against disease? Here I'm wondering about the actual differences in practices between certification requirements and what people practice, like the use of organic fungicides, etc. 
4. What do you think a consumer should know about the label "certified organic" ? or any other label for that matter.
5. What questions do you think a consumer should ask a farmer when buying local produce?
6. Do you think that the certified organic label does, or would, influence your bottom line? 
7. If you aren't growing organically, why is that? Perhaps this is due to specific crops or other choices. 
8. If you are growing organically, what is the most difficult thing to successfully bring to market? Is there something(s) that you would really like to provide organically but find too hard to grow organically in the area?
9. If a home gardener wanted to try to grow organically, what would you suggest as the easiest produce to bring to harvest organically? Where should they start?

The farmers I spoke with for this article all farm organically, but most are not organically certified. One is certified Naturally Grown, a farmer-based certification. I also arranged to meet with a Howard County Farmer who employs Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in the New Year, to include a discussion with their IPM consultant. In a separate article, I'd like to address the consumers perspectives. 

The farmers included in this post are, in no order: Sally of White Rose Farm, Michael of Green Akeys Farm, Jackie of De La Tierra, Tom of Nev-R-Dun Farm, Greg and Kris of Thorne Family Farm, Josie and Shawn of Truffula Seed Produce. I also used knowledge of two other farms, Celidh and Copper Penny Farm; organic farms that I patronize regularly. 

Of these, only Nev-R-Dun is certified organic. The reason he chooses to certify reflects his commitment to principle that I described in an earlier post. I'll take the liberty of saying it this way: stand up and be counted. The more farms there are that are certified organic, the bigger the impact. While others might be dissuaded by the record keeping or cost structure, Tom is not, and sees the increased voice for organic practices as critical to success, not necessarily to his business but our future. Organic certification costs vary and there is some cost sharing with the government, however, the farmer must pay up front, as with most of their supplies. Meticulous record keeping ensure the customer that everything from procuring seeds to harvesting produce was done in accordance to the regulations. A farm that sells over $5000/year is required to certify if the use the label organic. As a result, a stranger cant trust, within reason, that Tom is truly providing organic produce. Does he think it affects his bottom line? At first, like the others I spoke to, he said no. He has a relationship with his customers that doesn't require paperwork. But later, he said maybe. Does it matter to his bottom line? "Ultimately it does, though not greatly. This past week I had a half dozen or so customers offer dismay for me not having the organic produce they sought, and only after not finding the produce at my stand did they go to others. In many ways, it is hard to determine just how important it is to customers, since I don't have a chance to question each one.", he said. 

Oe of the kickers about organic certification is that it is government regulation, making it susceptible to big lobbies. As a result in the boom in organic demand, organic is becoming big business and large corporations have fought to make strategic adjustments to the organic standards. One example is the inclusion of 38 synthetic ingredients that can be used in the manufacturing of certified organic food. These ingredients include things like food colorings, and sausage casings, as well as hops, which allows Anhauser-Busch to market certified organic lager grown with chemically fertilizer and protected with chemical sprays. On the other side of the equation, Michael Akeys points out that you can fertilize with animal manure regardless: "Manure is organic.  Manure from conventional poultry farms is considered organic.  Tell me how that makes any sense?  Once the feed has been pooped out, voila, organic.  I think that is crazy." On the other hand, he notes that for organic certification, you have to ensure organic mulch and says, "I dont want to buy certified organic straw for mulch.  Mulch isn't going to be eaten.  It breaks down and is composted."

Of course, local farmers at the market aren't in a position to take advantage of the permissible synthetic ingredients; those are designed for big food processing. At the market, the orgnic certification signals to the customer that they aren't using chemical or genetically modified seeds. But to get at other question, you'll have ask. about half o fthe farmers I spoke to are using only an initial thick layer of leaf litter compost for fertilizer, often six inches thick. Others are using sheep or cow manure, and a few are using other organic fertilizers. 

The pesticide of choice is a pair of nimble fingers, plus dedicated crop rotation and winter clean up. Still hand picking pests from your plants will only go so far.  Jackie of De La Tierra Farm tells me that having summer squash and zucchini all summer is tough. She says, "I am able to have it in the early summer and then again in the fall. Melons, gourds, pumpkins and winter squash are the hardest because they have to stay in the ground all season long, and the squash bugs always get them before they ripen. Squash bugs are a very difficult pest to control because they have an outer shell that is like armor. It would take some nasty chemicals to destroy them and I am not willing to use nasty chemicals (any chemicals, for that matter). Cucumbers are also difficult for me to get a nice crop of. They are finicky and the cucumber beetle is always around my farm." I saw with my own eyes the damage that flea beetles did the the Truffula Seed eggplant this year, and both Nev-R-Dun and Thorne Family Farm had problems with bean beetles.  At Green Akeys Farm, they are "using a certified organic spray to help with a powdery mildew epidemic on our pumpkins." Michael continued, "We really didnt even want to use anything at all, but we compromised with the pumpkins because most of them are either ornamental or carving pumpkins, only a few will be used for eating.  We use crop rotation, distance, and try to plant some beneficial plants that attract good insects, etc.  We really want zero inputs other than green manure (turning over cover crops), grazing animals over the ground, compost, compost tea, lime and perhaps some other organic, renewable fertilizers.  We may spread cow manure or chicken manure if we can get it this fall.  Im also looking into spraying raw milk on the pastures and gardens as a way of stimulating the microbial activity.  Supposedly milk really kickstarts the soil into high gear." Jackie finds that she needs to amend the balance of her soil, and reported, " I also use organic fertilizers such as blood meal, greensand and rock phosphate for a NPK boost. These are natural fertilizers derived from rocks (except for the blood meal), so they stay in the soil much longer and don't wash away as easily as chemical fertilizers. I also use lime to balance pH in my acid soil. I am experimenting with cover crops and mulches as well."

Everyone agreed that organic fruit, particularly orchard fruit like apples and peaches, are extremely difficult to grow organically in this area. If you want perfect loooking apples, you're probably out of luck locally. Sometimes you'll see great looking fruit and a sign that says, "we don't spray our fruit". This probably means that they spray the trees before it fruits, but not once the fruit have started. Berries are a lot easier, and a I know a number of folks who grow blueberries and other types organically in their yard. Blueberries don't have a lot of enemies and so, of the common berries, they seem easiest.

Most farmers encouraged asking lots of questions to learn about their practices. We often assume that if someone is at a farmer's market, they grow organically or if they're certified organic, they must have exemplary practices. I've found that the people I want to buy from are farmers who are glad to describe their setting and reasoning, regardless of whether it's organic. Michael Akeys said, "hen you make a personal relationship with someone, they quickly forget about labels and they build up a level of trust.  We do everything completely transparently.  We have nothing to hide.  We probably could triple our output if we used a lot of fertilizer but we dont want to buy commercial fertilizers."  All of these farmers are open to any questions, even controversial ones. Some consumers are concerned about farms using water and various farms do use different means to irrigate their fields. It is pretty unrealistic, especially in summers like this last one, to expect no water usage on the farm. Jackie says, "It is very difficult for people to farm without watering their crops, so I wouldn't be too worried about questioning farmers about whether they irrigate or not. If you are very worried about the water table, you can ask them if they collect rain water to irrigate, or about their methods. Drip irrigation is the most efficient way to water and this is a popular method among farmers. "

I know that when I buy from Lakeview Farms, the IPM farm in Howard County, they are using some fertilizers and pesticides. Linda openly discusses the 100+ history of their farm and how they've changed from a scheduled spray program to using integrated pest management (IPM) to minimize chemical additives. If you're buying meat, it's definitely recommended to scratch deeper than organic or not organic. As discussed in an earlier post, chicken farming practices very widely and the same is true of other livestock. 

When asked about great starting points for the organic gardening in your backyard, heirloom tomatoes were the  mot common recommendation. Kris Thorne said not to start with eggplant! and Jackie has found, like I have, that cucumbers are finicky. Interestingly, I've had good luck with bush beans, where the farmers, who are dealing with a lot more plants, have had issues with bean beetles. I'm trying garlic this Fall, and that was recommended by others. If you don't have room for crop rotation, you could use gaps in growing years or grow in containers. Things like potatoes can cause problems if related plants are grown in the same space every year. Last year, I tried potatoes in a trash bag, in part to avoid this issue with bugs, and it worked okay. Tom suggested spring lettuce as another option. I mentioned already certain bush berries. If you live near the woods, wild wine berries could be transplanted and they are reasonably managed. They aren't actually native plants, but they don't have much problem producing good fruit. 

When these farmers were asked about their own purchasing, all of them buy organically where they can. A few though, like Michael Akeys, prioritize the local economy over organic produce, saying, "I always look at the quality of the fruit and veggies at the store.  If the organics look awful, Ill buy conventional.  I'm not as worried about my personal health from eating conventional.  I don't think that its that big of a deal, some people may have sensitivities and need to buy it, perhaps I do and dont realize it, but Im looking at things from a sustainability and environmentally conscious sensibility.  I'd rather not support big factory farms.  I'd rather buy local conventional food too.  Keep our money in our local economy."

Ultimately, for this set of farmers, their practices are derived from their beliefs in how farming should be done. But most are electing not to certify organic for pragmatic reasons and are making that choice without a financial impact. It will be interesting to see how the adoption of Certified Naturally Grown, as de La Tierra has chosen, gains adoption as a potential way of being counted, verified, but at less cost. 

What do you think?

P.S. A lot of good information on organic certification can be found online; wikipedia is a good start. Regarding the controversy of big organic, Organic, Inc. is an excellent read. 

Passionate Pursuits

Nev-R-Dun Greenhouse

Perhaps the most telling insight I have into Tom Reinhardt of Nev-R-Dun Farm came from a brief exchange at the end of my visit. In an ill-worded question,

I asked, "so are you glad you're doing this?"
"Doing what?", he replied
"farming,... organically, I mean."
"well, I wouldn't say, glad, but someone's got to do it."
As we continued up the hill, he added, "I know I couldn't work for someone else."

I'm not sure exactly what had let me to ask whether he was glad about his work. I think in my mind it was: given all the obstacles we had discussed on the walk arond the property, it wasn't clear why he was choosing this path. And, so I wondered aloud, or meant to, is it worth it? is it fulfilling?

All the organic farmers - here meaning using organic methods - I've talked to are doing so in part on principle. They are concerned about the impact of chemicals and other synthetic products on people and the environment. But, Tom seems driven by principle. He's reserved, and he doesn't make small talk at his stand. Each week, though, he puts out an article about his farming experience in a series called, Tales of Idyllia. From these, you can get some insight into the passion he puts into his business. Ask him about something in one one of his writings, or about his perspective on organic farming, and you'll tap into a font.  He'll openly share the good and bad of his venture, as well as methods and hopes for the future. It doesn't ring of enthusiasm, though, but principle.

Tom has been organic farming for about 10 years now, having started as part of an effort to open an organic restaurant. The restaurant fell through, but the farming stuck.k Tom began selling his produce at the farmer's market and running a small CSA. He studied the methods of Eliot Coleman and kept detailed records. he began organic certification a few years ago. Now he farms his father's property outside of westminster, the home of the original Nev-R-Dun farm of a previous owner.

I guess Tom is lucky that his dad has a little land that he is willing to share. The alternative is to find land to rent or make a costly investment in property. For the average small farmer, these are options they can't afford. Almost everyone I know either is using land belonging to a family member or has some income to pay the land mortgage. But using someone else's property has it's own challenges. They might sell it, as has already happened to Tom, or want to use it for something else. You also have to deal with things like water.

Tom's farm is on a well, and his father uses that for his own needs. Tom is leery of draining that well, but in summers like this one, the plants need watering. Getting that water seems to be one of the most daunting challenges Tom faces. His own house is around a mile down the road. He owns a truck and big water containers. I think it's an 1100-gallon tank that fits on the truck.  He hauls water from his house to the farm and fills several other large containers to water the multiple fields. He's rigged drains to the two greenhouses to collect rainwater and hopefully feed the plants inside in the future. But most of the property needs water from elsewhere. It takes him fifty-four found trips to his home to fill the giant water tanks. Imagine the time and complexity of that. That's one hundred eight miles of driving for water. Ideally, he wouldn't do that much, but this Summer, it rained twice. He hauled a lot of water in that truck. With the water in the tanks, he then watered the fields by hand! Talk about carrying the water. He is rigging drip line systems, and he had one complete at my visit, to avoid the labor of hand irrigation in the future.

One of the water tanks at a field

The plots themselves seem very organized, with slightly raised 50' beds of four rows each. To be sure, there are weeds, but the layout seems particularly well planned. And it is. The crops are rotated according to family, so that a certain crop sees the same ground every 4-6 years. This cornerstone practice of organic farming helps dissuade insects and diseases. He keeps detailed records about his seeds and how they fair, both for certification requirements and to learn from his specific land. Unlike any number of folks I've spoken to who are daunted by the record keeping required for organic certification, Tom sees it as an important part of farming. I know my own efforts to track the details of my garden always seem to taper off over time, though I recognize the importance even in the home garden.

A major practice is seed saving: this are pollination cages to guarantee true seed

Another key practice is the winter cleanup. This is one area I definitely lag in within my own garden. Good thing I'm not a farmer. I usually find myself raking off the soggy leaf piles just after the crocuses have broken through, reminding me that Spring is coming. Last year though, we had three massive snow storms. The first came in mid-December and the cold and the follow-on storms prevented Tom from finishing his clean up before the perennials broke out in early spring. The consequence? Bean beetles destroyed his crop this year. And along with the rest of the mid-Atlantic, he's been terrorized by stink bugs. After my visit, I was more motivated to clean up this Winter. We'll see.

Now that we've had some rain, Tom's Fall plants seem to be coming along well. I always look forward to the bags of lettuce, and I love how he sells his cooking greens complete with roots. (I have no idea why does that, nor why it appeals!) Besides selling at the Tuesday and Sunday farmer's markets in Westminster, he runs a forty-three member CSA.

The CSA gives him some operating cash each year, but not a lot of wiggle room. A CSA isn't a very reliable business model (imho), however there aren't a lot of options for Tom and other small farmers to cope with their annual upfront costs. He juggles a lot of credit cards, rotating debt to keep cash available. In one conversation, he explained that if people thought it was tough to get a loan in this economy, it was nearly impossible for a small business like his to do so. Instead, they have to creatively manage their finances. When they have unexpected losses, like may had from the drought this year, or like Green Akeys had when a fox killed his chickens overnight - they have to absorb the loss somehow. You can only charge so much for a tomato. This year, instead of being about 75% of his income, his CSA is closer to 90% of his income. If you crunch the numbers, it ain't good. No gold is being made off this small venture.

So, I guess that's why I asked whether he was glad or not. And like he said, maybe glad isn't the word. I think passionate might be.

Updates

I got a chance to get some updates on folks I have introduced in earlier posts, and I wanted to share them. I guess this is the first weave of the woven stories that I promised. It's a short update, but an update nonetheless.

I'd been away from the market for over a month for a variety of reasons, but the talk of all the stalls Sunday was no different than that in the office cubbie: stinkbugs. and the discussion no less animated. All of the local farmers have been hurt by this year's stinkbug invasion. Unlike many other bugs attack on the fruits of your labor, this one is rather insidious. The bugs poke a tiny hole into things like tomatoes to feed, as I understand it.  So the fruit looks fine on the vine. When you take it off, that open wound starts to rot quickly and you'll get some oozing sometimes. Organically the way they are dealing with these beasts is pick them off and squish them. Tom of Nevr-Dun finds their smell the smell of victory (with the number flying around, I'd call it a small victory), and at least one of his clients thinks the smell is "woodsy".  Most other people think they plain stink. If you did want to spray them, there doesn't appear to be much option there. I haven't looked into this in great depth, but Karen of Serpent Ridge Winery, who I introduced here, noted that they are still waiting guidance from the USDA on handling the bugs. For their part, luckily, they have seen a lot of bugs, but don't feel their crop has been impacted.

The market on Saturday yielded the first bag of lettuce for the Fall season (for me, at least). It's amazing how good a fresh salad can taste. While we have lots of variants on salad during the Summer with various fresh produce, lettuce hasn't been available locally since June. So, no salads for us since June. The challenge of eating this way tests our creativity and ability to work with what we have.  No cold turkey here, I've been slowly increasing our dependency on local produce and reducing our reliance on the supermarket over a couple of years. This Summer is probably the first three month period where not a single item, I think, was bought from the store. So, the first salad of the season, with our own cucumber, our friend's tomatoes, radishes and peppers from the market, and our own lemon-infused vinegar, was amazing.  But, I digress....

Everyone has definitely struggled with the stinkbugs, and the drought is no less a problem. The farmer's I talk to use have a wide range of irrigation philosophies. Some are using water from their city water supply, some rely only on rain barrels, and some rely on nature. The latter were hit badly this year.  Shawn and Josie (introduced here)  have been using their water supply to keep their acre plus of property for Truffula Seed Produce going. This does mean very creative water hauling, as the property is divided across a road and their is no water on the one side. They have access to an old, deep well and would like to get that going so that they can rely on the rain more. But that requires investment in a pump and various other things; funds that they don't have now. Still, they've done pretty well this year and are sticking in for another. This was their first year at the market, and they had rented one property to grow on. In the coming months, they are hoping to find a second property, an acre, so that they can expand their farm next year and provide a CSA, as well as the Westminster Market. As though they had nothing else to do, Shawn is starting a graduate program at Goddard College in Vermont. It's an interdisciplinary program in sustainable farming, looking at the practicalities of sustainable, local, organic farming practices on scale. He'll do most of his work here, while he's still working their land. Josie is busy too with a bunch of canning. I've done some this year, but she love canning, as she described in this post. Because of her background in photography, her posts always have these fabulous photos and layout. She also has a posts on the beans that I described, but again, her photos are fabulous.  Otherwise, their Fall crops are coming along. They had some issues with the first set of seeds not germinating fully, but now everything is coming along. So they'll be in the market until November.

Serpent Ridge is now at the new wine season. They are picking their reds this Saturday and received shipment of the juice from the grapes they can't grow themselves over the last few weeks. Later in the month is pressing. I hope to be present for that and bring back tales of that adventure.

Summer Reading

I have several posts in my mind right now, but unfortunately, haven't had the time to get them out and onto paper. I thought I'd start this one by highlighting some of the reading I'd done this summer, and where I plan to take what I learned to investigate and write some new blogs in the near future. Call it a preview. With references.

I tend to read mostly non-fiction and in the last year have read a lot about food and food movements. I'm amazed at how influential the written word can be, how it can drive people to make wholesale changes in their lives and behaviour. The classics in local living, or at least the mosts referenced in my experience, are Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and several by Michael Pollan, most often Omnivore's Dilemma.  I think the former tends to resonate heavily with people who like a personal story, to which they can relate and be encouraged to take on similar endeavors. Kingsolver makes it attractive to try living locally, at least just a bit. The number of people I have met who cite her book as a major source of change in their lives is huge. And more than one have taken steps such as raising chickens based on her family's story. I myself started making cheese solely based on her insistence that it really wasn't that hard to make mozzarella cheese. As a result of that chain, I now make yogurt every week, and it's the best you'll ever taste. So, those kinds of works are extremely motivating. Others like this are Plenty, by the Canadian couple who was among the first to attempt a 100-mile challenge, and the more extreme See you in a Hundred Years, from the New York couple that decides to regress to the turn of the 20th century in the Virginia countryside for a one year period. Ok, I'm not sure that the latter book will motivate many people to give up running water, even for a month, but it is interesting.

Michael Pollan of course has a long run of books that are fact-based accounts of food and food industry. Omnivore's Dilemma hit my sweet spot, at least for the first three-quarters of the book, and I found the material both shocking and enthralling.  I can source that book as a major change point in my life, leading to a massive reduction in the use of grade two corn products and a complete re-evaluation of our family's meat sources. Because of that material, I initiated group buying of pasture-raised meat and all of our meat in the last eighteen months has been purchased from local farmers practicing sustainable, admirable techniques. That book is a bit thick for many, and I know a lot of people preferred Food Rules, though I never read that one. Going outside of reading and onto the screen, the film Food, Inc. has had a massive influence people and the way that they think about food. I have had countless people ask me about that film and other tv reports that have spawned since it was released. Another fabulous fact-based book about nutrition, so with a different perspective than Pollan's work, is Real Food, by Nina Plank. I read that one sometime in the Spring, and I thought it was absolutely excellent.

But I digress, as I didn't read any of these works this Summer. I did read Organic, Inc. though, by Samuel Fromartz. This is sort of a mix of the two styles above. Fromartz discusses the history, motivation, and existing tensions of the organic food movement and industry, starting in the early twentieth century. He interweaves the stories of farmers who have tried to make a living from sustainable  agricultural practices in a global economy world. A central theme is this tension between organic and local movements, and whether that can realistically be one in the same. As organic food becomes more widely consumed, what is the impact of the resulting Big Organic industry.  It's definitely an interesting read for the lover of non-fiction, fact-based, stories kinda things. Here in Maryland there are a number of local farmers who are certified organic, and a number who aren't. I am also seeing more Naturally Grown labels posted. In any case, one of those is Nev-R-Dun Farm in Westminster, Md., owned by Tom Reinhardt. In the last few months, he went through his recertification process and I hope to talk to him soon about what that entails, why he's going through formal certification (which costs), and what he thinks about being an organic farmer in Maryland. More to come on that. In the meantime, you can find Tom at the Westminster Farmers markets (Sun/Tue) and at his website, www.nevrdunfarm.com.

Another book I picked up in the middle of Summer and haven't completely made my way through is The Winter Harvest Handbook, by Eliot Coleman. This came to my attention through Amazon "recommended for you" and the subtitle is Year-round vegetable production using deep-organic techniques and unheated greenhouses. I like the idea of year round vegetable production, so I took a closer look. Low and behold, they are running a winter CSA (community support agriculture) in Maine, growing produce in unheated greenhouses. This just fascinates me to no end. I have a small greenhouse that I usually run as a cool house, meaning at around 40 degrees Fahrenheit, but here they are in Maine, in lots of snow, using no heater at all and making enough produce to sell to folks. It motivated me to get my own greens, like lettuce and a few other things, in the ground early enough so that they should provide a harvest without using electricity this late-Fall and winter. It also motivated me to find a winter CSA somewhere that I could take advantage of for fresh produce through the winter months. Thanks to Local Harvest (www.localharvest.org), I was able to locate a winter CSA about 40 miles away in Pennsylvania. It means we'll have to take a hike every few weeks to pick up food, but I gathered up some friends to pitch in, and it seems well worth the experiment. This CSA doesn't start until nearly Thanksgiving, but as it does, I'll report on that experience. The farm we've subscribed to is Everblossom Farm, www.everblossomfarm.com, just outside Gettysburg.

Another book from this Summer was Made by Hand by Mark Frauenfelder. The subtitle of this new book is Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway world. This is a light read that fed into my own drive to be self-sufficient, or to at least have the knowledge that you could be. Fraenfelder takes the reader through his own adventures of raising chickens, keeping bees, building musical instruments, pursuing edible landscaping/permaculture, and the like.  I'm not about to raise chickens, but I do plan on writing a post about my friend who has taken on raising egg layers over the last year and a half.

Other things in the head and hopefully soon in the works are a few local farmers we buy from: Michael Akeys of Green Akeys farms (www.greenakeys.com) just sold me eighteen chickens in the last few weeks after an eventful six months trying to get them all to processing stage, thanks to intervention by the local fox population. And, Greg Thorne of Thorne Farm in Westminster runs a naturally grown 25-acre farm with a wide selection of produce, but also flock of sheep that are used both for wool and meat. (http://www.thornefarm.blogspot.com/)