Tag Archives: Sustainable farming

The real dirt on regenerative farming

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Regenerative agriculture is a practice that is increasingly gaining notice from the general public.  However, within the farmer community — and beyond, more recently — there is some growing conflict on what regenerative actually means.

Are all organic farms automatically “regenerative” without further action? Can farm animals be raised in any way and be considered “regenerative”? Are small-scale, sustainable farms regenerative by default?  The answer to all the above questions is no. So what does regenerative farming mean? The good news is that it’s not complicated.

Regenerative agriculture means that farmers follow practices to make sure that the soil is regenerating, or improving. The essence of this concept s that farmers can use a balance of plants and animals, working together in a natural harmony, to draw carbon out of the atmosphere and put it back into the soil in the form of organic matter.

For a long time,   one of the biggest farming buzzwords was sustainable agriculture. But when you stop and think about it, reaching some level of sustainability just isn’t good enough for the problem we are facing with the environment. Think about it this way, if you had a cut on your arm, would you want it to sustain —not get better or worse — or would you want it to regenerate tissue and heal? This is the same idea we use in agriculture, how can we reframe soil as a living thing, and help it to regenerate?

Regenerative agriculture improves the ability of soil microorganisms to thrive, and, as a result, it increases the soil’s ability to infiltrate water. Simple. However,  it represents a radical departure from business as usual in the world of farming.  

Watch this video to find out more about where your sausage comes from.

One of the most well-known proponents of regenerative agriculture is North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown. You can find more details about his 5 principles of regenerative agriculture at his website: brownsranch.us

Here are some of the details of Gabe Brown’s regenerative practices: 

1. Keep a layer of armor on the soil surface. This means that crop stubble or grass residue is left on the surface in large quantities. Think of this as “mulch.” It slows down rainfall, so it doesn’t immediately run off and has a better chance to percolate into the ground.

 2. No mechanical tillage. Tillage provides a way for farmers to manage weed problems and loosen the soil. However, a significant amount of carbon is released when the soil is turned and exposed to the atmosphere.

 3. Maintain a living root in the ground. Living roots release liquid carbon (as sugar) underground and feed the soil biology. Beneficial microorganisms feed on these sugars and create underground communities.

 4. Diversity.  Have LOTS of types of plants growing at the same time. Each plant releases a different “flavor” of sugar (liquid carbon). These different sugars attract a diversity of microorganisms.

 5. Here comes my favorite…integrate livestock into every plan! The positive animal impact is the process of assisting the earth to digest plant matter and keep those nutrients cycling from plant to animals to soil and back to plant. It turns out that if you graze livestock in the right way, you get more and more grass with less and less human interference. . 

As time goes on, I’m sure you will hear more about restorative agriculture.

To distinguish whether a farmer is truly living up to the standards outlined above about restorative farming is relatively easy. The litmus test is as simple as the definition. Do you see lush, green grass? Do you see groups of animals that are tightly bunched and continually moving over fresh, clean ground? If you see that in pictures or at a local farm,, the chances are that soil life is on the rise and carbon is being sequestered in the ground. 

Finding farms that use restorative agriculture processes  is quite simple. It is also important that more and more farms incorporate these practices as time move on. The health of our planet depends upon it. 

Meet award-winning Niman Ranch farmer John Gilbert, a family farmer pasture-raising pigs in Iowa

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John Gilbert believes that farming has a continued, prominent role to play in American daily life — in terms of the economic well-being and health, for both the land and its people.

We were introduced to John through Niman Ranch, one of the nation’s largest collectives of  traditional, humane, and sustainable family farms. John has been supplying pigs for Niman for the last 20 years, and was awarded the organization’s “Farmer of the Year” in 2017. Along with his wife Beverly, his son John C., and his son’s wife Sarah, John operates the 480-acre Gibralter Farms. The Gilberts raise antibiotic-free, pasture-farrowed pigs, milk Brown Swiss dairy cattle, and grow an array of crops and forage.  Their family farm sits along Southfork, a tributary of the Iowa River, near Iowa Falls, Iowa.

Roam recently had a chance to interview John about his experiences raising pigs and running a family farm. As you’ll see, John has a powerful message to share when it comes to the role of modern farming in America as well as the importance of raising livestock humanely.

Roam: Great to talk with you John, can you tell us a little about your family’s farming heritage?

John Gilbert: I think my ancestors started out in Connecticut, went to the Finger Lakes region, and stopped in Wisconsin. Then — and I’m not sure why — but when they got to Hardin County in north central Iowa in 1869,  they didn’t go any further.

The farm has been in the family for more than 120 years. Midwestern agriculture has always been built around the dairy cow and the pig. Those are the two primary things that generated both food and income for a lot of farmers. That’s what we’ve always maintained here.

Sometimes, we’ve had more cows, and sometimes we’ve had more pigs, but it’s still a formula that works for us today.

Roam: How did you first become a Niman Ranch farmer?

John Gilbert:  I’m old enough to be a veteran of the farm crisis years in the 1980s. There were a lot of years when you weren’t worried about whether you were making money, you’re just trying to make sure you get the bills paid. And it was about then that we started raising a few pastured pigs — first as part of a 4H project — and one thing led to another.

Later, in the 1990s, I was at a Practical Farmers of Iowa meeting and talked to Thorton area farmer Paul Willis about his project to send pork to this California company. He called a couple of months later because a group was coming from Oakland to look at farms. He asked if they could stop by our place. Three or four carloads ended up stopping; the group included Paul, some of the early people from Niman Ranch, including Bill [Niman], a few folks from Whole Foods, and Diane and Marlene Halvorsen from the Animal Welfare Institute. [Ed. Note: the Halvorsen sisters were instrumental in establishing the protocols still used to raise Niman pigs and for the concept of third-party verification. Paul founded the Niman Ranch Pork Company, giving hundreds of midwestern farmers the vehicle to supply pork to Niman Ranch.]

They took a look at the pigs in our hoop. Bill turned to me and said, “I like your tails.” At that time a lot of the producers didn’t understand that you could raise a pig without having to dock its tail. We just never liked to do that, so we never did. And Bill turned to Paul, and said, “Which way is the tail supposed to curl?” And Paul said, “To the left of course.”  And at that moment, I figured  I could work with these people. [Ed. note: A curly pig’s tail is supposed to be the sign of a happy pig.]

That was about 1998, and I’ve been working with Niman ever since. They’ve been a good partner. I’ve always really been impressed with their people and the level of dedication and perseverance a lot of them have to build something that we can all be proud of.

Roam: Raising livestock humanely is part of being a Niman Ranch partner, but can you talk about why you think people are interested in humane and pasture-raised pigs these days more than ever before?

John Gilbert: You look at the way most pigs are being raised today, and you realize that if industrialization had never happened, there’d probably be no Niman Ranch. I’m reluctant to badmouth industrialization, but the reality is that there’s a world of difference between our animals and most of whatever else is going on the market.

If there wasn’t an awakening of consumer interest, you know, this market probably wouldn’t have taken off.

The only thing that really bothers me a lot is that we’re getting about as much stratification in food availability as we do in economic distribution in the country. I worry that we are building a market that’s not available as widely as we’d like it to be.

I also don’t think you can separate the problems we have in this country with healthcare and disease without realizing that a lot of consumers are eating proactively because they worry that one major health issue could put them into in a bankruptcy. There are people who aren’t sure that their insurance coverage is that good or there are people who don’t have insurance coverage for even minor issues.

I think that there are some things that are motivating it more than just consumer preference, and I think one big one is fear of health problems and realizing that a lot of the things we eat today maybe aren’t the best for us.

Roam: I know conservation is an important topic for you and your wife Beverly, can you talk about the importance of incorporating sustainable farming practices on your farm?

John Gilbert: A wise man once told me that if you have a loss, it’s lost. You may find a way to compensate for a problem, but a loss is a loss. I’ve seen this too many times with the soil. If you have any kind of rain events, you’re going to have soil movement and soil loss. I learned a few of those lessons the hard way. With the soil, you can work the rest of your career and never really make up for the damage you can create in a few minutes.

We have to do everything we can to make the soil better and keep the water cleaner. I feel we really have a moral obligation and that it’s our duty as a farmer to find the system where we can protect the land, produce healthy products, and still pay our bills.

I’ve heard people complain that they can’t do conservation because it doesn’t pay well. In my estimation, you have a moral obligation to find a way to make it pay.

There’s a lot of evidence out there that doing things like going to no-till, using cover crops, and having more than monocultures or mono crops can be more profitable. But there’s a certain amount of people in the in the farming business that, you know, think that “work” is a four-letter word.

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Roam: Why is it so important for you to raise your pigs in a humane manner? How can more farmers do sustainable or regenerative farming and avoid getting caught in the system of factory farms?

John Gilbert: There’s an adage that democracy is the worst system of government devised by man… except for all the others. There’s an analogy that the modern hog confinement system is the best method to raise pigs, well, that is, except for all the others.

I hate to use the word “greed,” but in a lot of ways, that’s kind of what it is. People think having money gives them economic clout, and we see that with the packers and this commodity-driven industrialization. Because of the factory farms, Iowa has seriously impaired waters that can be tied back to the concentration of hog manure and waste from industrialized farms.

That system is not sustainable for the animal nor the rural economy. Because they have a lot of money to throw at politicians to subvert the democratic process, they get away with a lot of things. I don’t necessarily condemn an individual farmer for investing in one of those stall-based confinement systems, I just think he’s pretty short-sighted and that they are being misled by those who don’t care for the welfare of the pigs or the farmers.

There are enough young people who want opportunities, and who are really interested in raising high-quality food the right way. There’s growing interest to do things the right way.

There are opportunities to mentor younger farmers with programs through Practical Farmers and some other programs Niman is setting up. There is definitely a growing desire to have higher-quality food without having to rely on the confinement systems.

Roam: It seems like you have wanted to raise pigs in a better way for the animals for a long time, can you go into some of the reasons why?

John Gilbert: I’ve been around animals since I was a kid, but I really didn’t come to appreciate the souls of these animals until I left the farm and then came back. What amazes me is just how much these animals are sentient beings. We milk dairy cows, and they are probably some of the most wonderful creatures in the world. You learn a lot if you pay attention to them.

I have a friend and fellow farmer who once told me that he really didn’t start to appreciate husbandry until he could look the animal in the eye. I think part of it was that when he had his animals in stalls,  he was just looking at the back end of the animals, and literally couldn’t look them in the eye. Once we start seeing the animals as individuals and as beings, you know, several things happen. You realize that they have personalities and that there are differences from animal to animal.

You can also pretty quickly learn that life’s a lot better if you can mainly work with animals that have pleasant dispositions. When it came to pigs, it didn’t take me too long to realize that you should be careful which breeding stock you select because you don’t want to be fighting with them all the time. If you pick your right animals, they are more docile and easier to handle, but also, they have a better life. We hope that contributes to having a better quality product in the end.

I have to admit that there is a certain disconnect that you have when you finally get to the point to sell an animal, but that’s the business we’re in. We just want to make sure that they only have one bad day in their life if at all possible.

Whether it’s from a moral standpoint or a practical standpoint, we realize that these creatures didn’t have any choice to be here. And so we’ve got a real obligation to make sure that they have a good life.

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The natural balance between the environment and grass-fed, pasture-raised livestock

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There is massive overlap among people who are conscious about how the food they eat is sourced and those who think a great deal about how their lifestyle choices impact the environment. I often hear from folks concerned about the environment, who state that they would “eat more red meat, but it’s just not sustainable for our planet.”

We at Singing Prairie Farm believe that there are solutions to the concerns about meat and sustainability. To our mind, it comes down to the management of the animals in question. If we use nature as our blueprint, we find that with raising grass-fed beef and pasture-raised pork, there are benefits to the earth that far outweigh the potential perils.

For us, restorative agriculture is the answer. The goal is to create better wildlife habitat and sequester MORE carbon in the soil — by removing it from the atmosphere. We found that we can do this by employing a form of rotational grazing that mimics the evolutionary pressures that formed over time in grassland ecosystems.

How many grassland ecosystems were historically devoid of large grazing animals?  None.

The North American plains were historically filled with bison. To the far north, the plains were rife with caribou. The Serengeti plains are still populated with a bewildering assortment of large herbivores. As part of a regenerative ecosystem, these animals allowed plant populations to flourish and thrive to the extent that would not have been possible without them.

And large predators who preyed on these grazing species played a significant role in the health of the grassland ecosystem. The effect large predators create in a healthy ecosystem is to keep the grazing animals in relatively tight groups. Herds of bison in the western U.S., for example, were kept in tight groups by packs of wolves. The bison constantly kept moving to find fresh forage to eat.  

Along the way, the large herds grazed intensely, trampled — indiscriminately — what they did not eat, and fertilized the rest with generous helpings of their droppings. Then they’d move on, to avoid predators. During the lengthy rest interval for the land that followed, the grasses grew back more robustly than before.  

Our model duplicates this evolutionary process to ensure animal health by moving our grass-fed cattle and pasture-raised pigs.

For starters, our livestock is always kept in tight, herd formation using solar-powered electric fencing. This fencing is portable and can be moved as often as needed. Some cattle producers in our area move fencing as much as six times a day.

This process allows for maximum biomimicry in our food system. As with the example of the bison, the herd is kept moving on the search for fresh grass. They graze intensely — but for a very brief window of time — on each temporary pasture. This intense grazing means that they don’t just eat their favorite species and leave the less desirable ones to reseed and thus advance in population. All plant species are uniformly impacted in a positive way.  

Secondly, hoof action brings the uneaten leaves and stems of grasses out of a vertical orientation and into a flat one, pressed squarely against the ground. This is exceedingly good for the soil. Ungrazed forage is not wasted but is the gift to the land.  

We love to explain how we perceive the soil: It is not the inanimate substance that animals stand on, but rather a giant living, breathing, eating organism with billions of life forms packed into each tablespoon of healthy soil. We love to imagine that our livestock is standing on the back of a giant lifeform, much like the legendary Whale or Turtle of ancient, indigenous stories. This giant organism consumes food through its “skin,” and the trampling of organic matter against its surface akin to setting food on the earth’s dinner table.   

As quickly as the animals enter a grazing space, they depart. The earth takes a deep breath. The grasses and legumes are left with enough leaf surface area to photosynthesize regrowth without accessing the carbohydrate reserves stored in the roots. They rebound stronger than before, developing deeper roots, thicker crowns and more stems and leaves each time.

This process has been occurring over and over and over for thousands of years. It has been key to the creation of traditionally healthy soils in the American heartland. However, large-scale, corporate farming has forgotten how vital this evolutionary process is. It’s an extractive race to get more meat and grain from the land, the regenerative process has been abandoned. Healthy, robust plant life and soil that is great at sequestering carbon is not part of the economics of industrial farming.

But it is what makes Singing Prairie Farm and other farmers practicing restorative agriculture thrive.

On our farm, after the livestock has grazed, tramped, and moved on, the land is already restoring itself. The microorganisms in the soil are having a party. They have access to enormous amounts of food in the form of leaf litter and livestock droppings.  They increase in health, vitality, diversity, and population quicker than most can fathom. As they do this, the plants are working slowly and steadily to draw down carbon from the atmosphere and deposit it — in the form of organic matter — into the soil.

This is the effect that rotationally grazed cattle and pigs have on the earth.  If we value the idea of farming in Nature’s image, how could it be more perfect?

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Sustainable farming: Spring forage planting by the birds

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One of the strategies we use at Singing Prairie Farm to produce the most nutritious and sustainable pork on the market today is to grow some of our own feed.

We aren’t just talking about corn here. On our home farm, we have four separate planting seasons. Every spring, I mark March 21st on the calendar as the first planting date. This seeding is done when the land is just barely returning after the long winter.

The grass is still brown. The trees are black-barked and leafless. The only notice we have that spring is coming back is the birds.

I don’t know where they all go for the winter, but one species at a time they come back.

First, come the cardinals, then the robins, then killdeer, then western meadowlarks, then redwing blackbirds and finally eastern bluebirds and purple martins. Several new bird species arrive every week until on the first sunny day in April; then the mornings are a sweet and raucous circus of birdsong.

It is with the arrival of the western meadowlark that we typically plant our spring crops.

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Some Native Americans groups are said to have planted a “three sisters” garden every year. It was comprised of: corn, a tall, vertically growing member of grass family; squash, a horizontally growing vine with leaves broad enough to shade out weed competition; and beans, a legume which can take nitrogen out of the air and deposit it in the ground. When grown together, these three sisters offer a variety of nutrition and amino acids which aid human health. Their growth habits are also complimentary from a farming perspective.

Drawing heavily on that traditional inspiration — and on forage techniques used by dairy farmers — we came up with our own three sisters for pork production.

Our mix is a combination of organically grown forage oats, the vertically growing member of the grass family in this system; turnips, the broadleaf species to help us shade out weed pressure; and field peas, the legume helping us to fix nitrogen in the soil.

Since we eschew commercial fertilizer, our planting mix is somewhat heavy on the peas. The nitrogen the peas deposit in the soil will remain for the next time this field will be planted in the fall.

Just like the traditional Native American three sisters gardens, our spring forage trio offers a mix of nutrition and amino acids.

While most of our farming at Singing Prairie Farm is done with teams of Belgian draft horses, pulling a 3,000-pound no-till drill with horses is something that we haven’t learned how to do yet. This year we borrowed a neighbor’s John Deere tractor and another neighbor’s modern no-till drill.

It has been a fairly wet spring so far, so when four sunny days in a row showed up, I knew the window of planting was open, but only for a moment. The day we picked to plant, the weather forecast was predicting four inches of rain starting at 9:00 pm and continuing on and off all week. If we were going to plant a spring mix, we had to do it then.

The sun set about halfway through the planting session. I turned on the headlights and finished well after dark as raindrops speckling the windshield.  That night, lying in bed and listening to the wind howl and the rain pour down, I felt very satisfied with the day’s labors. Not only were all those cover crop seeds safely waking up in the ground, but also the rain officially closed out the spring planting season at Singing Prairie Farm.

John Arbuckle this spring on Singing Prairie Farm sustainable farming
John Arbuckle this spring on Singing Prairie Farms.

Spring planting is just one of many planting seasons we engage in over the span of the growing season. The pigs that graze this impenetrable jungle of peas, turnips, and oats; in June will go on to graze several other mixes before the season ends in November. We have begun this year’s circle of life on Singing Prairie Farm…a holistic web that includes pigs, turnips, cows, peas, clover, farmers, apples, pumpkins, families in faraway cities, and the cheerful springtime song of the western meadowlark.

The simple and sacred beauty of raising pigs naturally

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I’ve just walked back in from tending to our pastured pigs. Rotating them to new pasture is quite a process and usually takes about 30 minutes.

But that work time allowed me to watch purple martins dip and roll through the sky. I listened to red-winged blackbirds and western meadowlarks sing, and I heard woodpeckers tap, tap, tapping their way through the woods.

Singing Prairie Farm is brimming with life these days. We hear wild turkeys and coyotes daily, and consider each one a blessing — yes, even the howling wild canines. A hundred kinds of birds fill the air with their song.

The Prairie here, quite literally, sings.

Our family farm is in the northeast corner of Missouri. The land here is an ocean of small rolling hills and creeks interspersed equally with cattle pasture and timber. There is not a truly flat spot of ground within walking distance of my kitchen table.

Our pigs run over about 50 acres of ground. Each year we raise about 250 pigs on pasture in a way that is careful of existing wildlife, sequesters carbon, enriches our grassland ecosystem, and offers a level of respect and caring to the pigs that we would want if we were them.  

We raise our pigs in groups of 35 to 50; currently, a single strand of electrified poly-wire, hung about 18 inches off the ground is enough to keep them in the correct paddock. We rotate them when they have eaten all the grass and fertilized the run sufficiently for the year. That grazing process typically takes about a week. In the cool of spring and fall, we keep them moving about the prairie. When the heat of summer descends upon us, they move into the woods where the breezes are cool, and there is plenty of shade.

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Moving them isn’t a very cumbersome process. I simply move the pigs’ feeders, waterer, and rain shelters into the new fenced run. Then, I lift up one of the tread-in fence posts that hold the electric wire so they can easily run beneath. The moment the wire goes up, they usually hesitate briefly, remembering that just a second ago there had been an electric wire in place. Then the “alpha” animal usually leads the “run,” as they wander over to the feeders which are full of about 8 pounds of 100% non-GMO grain. Quite often there are trees in the run for them to scratch their backs on. There are always acorns, worms, grubs, grass, roots, and clover to eat during the short transition.

Raising pigs this way allows the pigs to live happily, while also letting them get plenty of exercise. It allows pigs to experience life naturally and happily in a mostly stress-free environment. They spend their ample free-time mostly eating grass. This consumption of grass is what is so good for us, the humans.

One day we will harvest these special, sacred animals and consume them. In the roundabout mechanics of our digestion, we will replace the old, worn out cells of our bodies with the new fresh cells of their bodies. The realization that one day their flesh will be my flesh and that their blood in some small way will become my blood creates a unique bond. One that can never be dismissed or taken for granted.

At times like this, I think of the Lakota Sioux people. As Native Americans of the Northern Plains, their lives revolved around the buffalo. Its hide, its bones, and its meat were their mainstays. Their culture would not have thrived in that arid and cold habitat if not for their relationship to the buffalo. The fact that they required the buffalo to survive made them approach the species with sacred reverence.  

Today, it’s important to pause to recognize the sacredness of all the food we depend upon to build and fuel our bodies. Let’s all take responsibility to care for both plants and animals in a tender and respectful way.

There is a simple beauty each day in raising pigs naturally here on Singing Prairie Farms.

 

Image via White Oak Pastures' blog.

White Oak Pastures, getting sustainable farming right

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White Oak Pastures is a farm outside Bluffton, Georgia where some of the pork sausage that ButcherBox distributes is sourced.

When it comes to farming multiple species, White Oak Pastures has it figured out.

Recently, I caught up with the farm’s marketing director Jenni Harris, the 5th generation of the Harris family to farm at White Oak Pastures, and she explained a bit of what makes her farm tick.

“My family has been farming here since 1866,” Harris said. “Back then, we farmed only beef cattle which we sold in Bluffton, a town about a mile north of here.”

“Over the years, we evolved to be the farm that we are today. We raise ten animal species —five red meat animals and five poultry,” she explained.

How does that even work? I’ll let Jenni explain. “It’s our belief that having all those animals following each other around the farm creates the same sort of synergies that you find in nature. In other words, they help each other grow and be comfortable.”

The pigs at White Oak Pastures are also a special breed that lives in the forest. “Here in Georgia,” Jenni said, “pigs don’t want to be out in the sun…They get too hot! So our pigs live out in the woods. They dig around and eat brush and roots as well as our unsalable eggs (raised by pastured chickens), local peanuts, and 100% non-GMO grain.”

But for Jenni Harris, the White Oaks Pastures’ mission is bigger than creating great, naturally- and humanely-sourced meat.

“When people ask me what my favorite thing about our family’s farm is, I like to tell them that we want to fill the countryside with farmers!” she said. “Imagine a whole world of middle-class farmers? We are trying to make it happen right here.”

“We started out as a farm full of cowboys,” Jenni said explaining the evolution of her family’s farm. “As we grew, we turned into a farm full of both cowboys and farmers. Then we grew some more and turned into a farm full of cowboys, farmers, accountants, graphic designers, chefs, and educators.”

That’s a pretty great family business right there.

“That’s our vision for the American countryside,” Jenni added, “with agriculture leading the way.”

John Arbuckle is a guest contributor for Roam. He and his wife run Singing Prairie Farm in Missouri, which supplies ButcherBox with the farm’s signature Roam Sticks as well as pasture-raised pork. John was featured earlier this year in Roam.

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Meet farmer John Arbuckle

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We have a dream of helping provide the healthiest, highest quality meat to the world — ranging from 100% grass-fed beef to organic free-range chicken and heritage breed pork.

It is widely understood that commercial farmers today raise and distribute cattle, chicken, and pork through processes that are ethically questionable, and, unhealthy for both humans and the animals. We’re on a mission to change that by working with farms across the world who raise the highest-quality meat, free from antibiotics and hormones.

We work with farms both large and small to change the food system for the better; John Arbuckle is one of the farmers that we work with that we believe makes ButcherBox so special.

We met John in a manner that is quite unique to entrepreneurs these days. At last year’s Paleo f(x) conference in Austin, we connected and hit it off while comparing recent Kickstarter campaigns.

Finding kindred spirits in John and his wife Holly, we thought it would be a grand idea to work together.

And, so, we include the Arbuckles’ Roam Sticks, snack sticks made with non-GMO and pasture-raised pork, as part of our ButcherBox subscriptions. Additionally, we use pork from their pasture-raised pigs in our breakfast sausages.

We love their delicious products, but, more than that, we are enamored with the passions that drive the Arbuckles: Love of adventure, family farms, and regenerative agriculture (pasture-based farming).

Pork grazing on the Arbuckle's farm.
Pork grazing on the Arbuckle’s farm.

John is a tenth generation farmer, a lineage that can be traced to Scotland, where ancestors raised wheat and lamb north of Glasgow. While living in Maryland, he grew organic vegetables as part of the business model that relied heavily on CSA, farmer’s markets, and farm-to-table restaurants.

But the itch for more wide-open space to roam was ever present. And so John and Holly packed up for what John refers to as “the-middle-of-nowhere” Missouri to raise livestock and their family. “You can stand on the roof and watch the dog run for three days,” Arbuckle said trying to explain the vastness of their space in the “The Show Me State.”

The greater expanse of Singing Prarie Farm lets John continue his passion for cultivating a wide array of delicious greens, and also allowed the Arbuckles to let pigs graze and forage peas vine, kale, and more. This alone is no small task. Pigs really like to eat. By John’s estimation, their livestock has consumed more than 100,000 pounds of kale.

Eventually, John and Holly decided to use their foraging pork to create a snack they’d feel good about giving their kids.

And so Roam Sticks were born. The sticks come in different flavors including hickory smoked pork with uncured bacon and hickory smoked pork with pineapple. John raises the grazing pigs and later naturally ferments and smokes the meat to create these healthy snacks.

The most rewarding part of these efforts is the understanding that they are not only helping people eat healthier, but they are also doing good by the planet, as John explained. John even uses sustainable farming techniques, including ecologically-friendly cultivation techniques. The entire farm is also 100% Non-GMO antibiotic free.