I believe that God made this land to be fruitful and productive, and with the knowledge of how to manage it, humans can manage and profit from it. I also think that to a point, micromanaging and manipulating God’s provisions can lead to bad results. I think there is something to be said about the mere fact that American health has seen a steady decline since our obsession with altering the genes of our food. While I don’t think that living a fully all-natural lifestyle is realistic, I’d like to think that I’ve made steps to make be more cognizant of the food I’m eating and what has been done to it. After visiting the Cory Family Farm, it would seem though that I have a lot left to learn.

Tom and Mary Cory are proponents of Joel Salatin’s farming methods. The Cory’s employ paddock grazing and and mobile chicken coops, methods popularized by Joel Salatin in Food, Inc.  Salatin’s presence was everywhere on the Cory farm. They utilized everything the land had to offer, but replenished it back in another way. The farm’s mobile chicken coops benefit the land greatly, and we were able to help move them ourselves. In moving the coops, the grasses under them are not destroyed, but rather improved. As the chickens scratch the ground, cow manure patties are torn apart and dispersed to fertilize the soil. Also, by migrating, the grasses have time to recover from the concentration of chickens on that particular spot of land.

Like Salatin, Mr. Cory says he has no interest in exponentially expanding. Though it seems to me that their family business is highly profitable at its present scale. They have a sizable goat industry from which they market both meat and milk products. In fact, we even had the opportunity to milk a few goats. The Cory’s sell their meat, which also includes sheep and beef, and dairy at local farmers’ markets and directly to customers. With great ingenuity, they seem to cater to every need of a customer. They sell everything from a sirloin steak to pig ears for dogs. Their business is a fine-tuned machine, with each of the children participating in a share of the company. It is businesses such as there that are so important in the food economy. With the food system being manipulated by huge commodity industries, we need smaller, higher-quality producers like the Cory’s. I think that it is important to that balance in supporting local producers while at the same time recognizing that many can’t afford these higher-quality products. Furthermore, as all the commodity producers and associations keep telling us, these smaller farms simply can’t produce the volume needed to feed everyone. We need the diversity to thrive.