In 2016, Maple Valley Farm and Harvest Partners will provide the meat for 23 families with a goal of 50 families in the next \u00a0year. \u00a0 \u00a0We’re quite honored and proud to do so. \u00a0Yet we still get some interesting sideways glances when we mention this fact to friends in the conventional farming world. \u00a0Maybe it’s the concept of actually feeding people whom\u00a0we know (including ourselves) that surprises them. \u00a0 Or maybe, it’s that all-too-common mantra of conventional ag — “We’re feeding the world!” — \u00a0that’s causing a sense of cognitive dissonance in them. \u00a0 Sometimes we can imagine\u00a0the words passing behind their skeptical face: \u00a0“Most farms are producing enough to feed thousands, and you seem happy to feed just 23 families??…” \u00a0It’s true. \u00a0Many of these conventional farms produce enough grain and\/or meat to feed thousands upon thousands of livestock or people.<\/p>\n
What gives us the right to exist as a farm, much less make a living, from feeding just 50 families when other farms can feed thousands? \u00a0Here, it would be easy to jump straight to an\u00a0answer that ignores the historical benefits of\u00a0large-scale, mechanized, chemical agriculture. \u00a0 It would be difficult to argue that most of us have not benefitted in some way from conventional farming\u00a0practices. \u00a0Nonetheless, it’s also becoming clear that the current system has drawbacks, externalized costs, dangers and possibly limits in scale and duration that warrant the exploration of alternative approaches. \u00a0After all, the term “sustainable farming” implies that the conventional approach is not sustainable. \u00a0Whether this is true or not, in a literal sense, is a topic that we could examine in a separate post. \u00a0Either way, \u00a0our answer is that we would rather feed 50 families the very highest quality food with as little use of chemicals, antibiotics, pharmaceuticals or other additives as possible than feed thousands of people food that could make\u00a0them\u00a0chronically ill.<\/p>\n
That’s the basic\u00a0answer. \u00a0There are many other challenges and benefits\u00a0to consider\u00a0— families living and working together, transparency in the food we eat, improved environmental stewardship, the benefits (and challenges) of decentralization and so forth. \u00a0 \u00a0Most systems that exist do so because someone\u00a0thought they were better than what came before. \u00a0 Often, the new system eventually suffers from the “too much of a good thing” syndrome. \u00a0Or, the benefits (and the costs) come to be\u00a0awkwardly or unjustly distributed. \u00a0 We’re on the lookout for those issues in the approaches we’re taking. \u00a0Nonetheless, we are passionate and determined in our efforts to feed a few people very, very well.<\/p>\n