Buying Food Fresh from the Farm

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"I like providing healthy food for middle-class families," she says. "At the same time, we want to make our farm sustainable, so when we pass it on to our kids, they won't just have debt."

The only potential fly in the ointment for these small farms may be the federal government, and its campaign to head off potential outbreaks of Mad Cow and avian flu epidemics. A new book, Mad Sheep: The True Story of the USDA's War on a Family Farm (Chelsea Green, September, 2006), recounts the experiences of Linda Faillace, a Vermont sheep farmer, who eventually gave up her small farm after the U.S. Agriculture Dept. destroyed her sheep herd because of fears of Mad Cow disease—even though she contends the disease hasn't been a problem for sheep.

Fighting the Feds

Additional efforts by the U.S. Agriculture Dept. to implement a farm registration and animal identification program before the end of this decade, to help in more easily isolating and monitoring disease outbreaks, has many small farms on edge (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/19/06, "Farmers Say No to Animal Tags").

A number of organizations representing small farms are fighting the proposals. According to one such organization, Rural Vermont (www.ruralvermont.org), "If this program is implemented, it's very likely that many small-scale meat, milk, and egg producers will simply go out of business rather than deal with overly burdensome regulations." The group also argues that the dangers of disease stem more from large "factory farm practices of keeping animals indoors," as opposed to small farms, which mostly raise their animals outdoors.

Nevertheless, Bill Emmons, Cathy's husband, says he isn't worried about the government's animal-identification efforts, since he already keeps meticulous records of each of his 120 cattle. "We know what each pound of beef costs us. It's just good business." I certainly hope Emons is right. As far as we've come as an urbanized, digitized country, there's something refreshing about seemingly going back in history, back to the land, and meeting and learning from the farmer who has produced the food you're purchasing.

Updates on this trend can be found at Gumpert's blog thecompletepatient.com.

David E. Gumpert covers business/health issues.