Healing The Land To Heal Ourselves

We believe that modern foods are causing many of our health, social and environmental issues. We started Natural Pasture Farms to heal. To heal ourselves, our community and the planet and through what we eat and how it’s grown.

I. Mission

Our mission is to restore our families health, the health of our land & the health of the people in our community through the food we produce. Our 75 acre family farm in the rolling hills of Central Texas was purchased in 2007 by my parents Nuell and Marion. In 2020 after graduating from college, my wife and I decided to start Natural Pasture Farms.

II. Motivation

With my background in Ecosystem Science and Agriculture, I am very aware of the environmental issues surrounding the way we produce our food. In addition, while in school I developed some health issues which were not resolved by the mainstream medical system. This led us to search for alternatives.

Functional Medicine

Luckily we found functional medicine, which is a wholistic approach to healing the body. They focus less on treating the symptoms and more on getting to the root cause. They value the mind-body connection as well as the connection between the body and the environment.

Regenerative Agriculture

Functional Medicine reminded me of Regenerative Agriculture, which is a new approach to growing food. I was aware of the concept before I knew its’ name, but I had danced around the idea a lot during my environmental studies. While I was in school we decided to get our first cows and in researching grazing management techniques I came across Joel Salatin and his talks on rotational grazing and regenerative agriculture. The similarity between the two concepts was eye-opening.

III. Healing the Land

We have worked to heal the land since we became its’ steward in 2007. From 2007 till 2014 we had mostly let the land rest. Though we did do some clearing to open up some of the wooded areas, had done a bit of mowing & some prescribed burns to promote the pasture.

Regenerative Farming Practices

We have been a regenerative farm since the 1st day our cows came onto the property. We use rotational grazing with all of our animals on the farm. Moving them around, away from their manure and onto fresh ground. This all but eliminates sickness, which means we do not use antibiotics. It moves them away from their parasites and allows the land to rest. We are mimicking nature by trying to replicate large herds moving across the landscape.

No Chemicals

We do not use chemicals on our farm. No herbicides to kill weeds are needed. No pesticides to control the bug populations. No Fly sprays are applied to any of our animals. No dewormers are needed to control internal parasites. When you work with nature it doesn’t need to fight back.

Organic Feed

To take the No Chemicals idea further, we do not bring any feeds or minerals onto the farm which are not Organic. We get our feeds and minerals from local companies whenever possible. Our feeds come from Coyote Creek Feed Mill and our Minerals come from Fertrells.

Limit Fossil Fuel Inputs

We try and limit the use of tractors or other gas powered vehicles on our farm. We walk, a lot. We use them strategically to speed up certain tasks or to do things like cutting hay, but we do not use them as transportation. This drastically reduces our carbon footprint and helps to preserve our pastures by stopping compaction and erosion.

Animal Impact

We use animal impact to promote soil formation while we limit their ability to cause compaction and erosion. We control their density depending on what the ground is like. For instance, if we want to control some weeds we can use a high stocking density for a short period to pound the weeds. Or, if it is wet we can spread the animals out and move them quicky to lessen their impact on the soft soil.

Species Diversity

We promote species diversity, both through the types of animals we raise on the farm and through the way that we manage the land. We raise many types of animals which all have a purpose on the farm. The cows are the main grazers, promoting the pastures and building soil through their manure.

We use sheep as the cleanup crew, they help to eat what the cows don’t eat so we do not have to mow the weeds. The chickens help to control the bug population and provide a bit of soil disturbance and fertilization. They also help to spread the manure left by the other animals. And the pigs help to root and open up the wooded areas, letting in light so we can grow more grass for the other animals.

IV. Healing Ourselves

We are intimately connected with the world around us, both physically and spiritually. We have physical connections with our environment such as with the vitamin D we absorb from the sun, or the nutrients we get from consuming a ripe homegrown tomato. We also have spiritual connections with the world such as the way we feel when the sunlight warms our skin, or the feeling of calm which comes over us when we walk down the beach. We are trying to strengthen these connections in order to heal.

Farm Work

Being in nature and connecting with the land can really help to reduce anxiety and depression and boost your mood. Having your hands in the soil or working with animals has been shown to benefit your physical and mental health. The intense physical activity involved with farming can improve cardiovascular health and reduce your overall stress level. We have really noticed a big improvement in our health compared to our desk-job days.

Community Building

Many feel like they are longing for connection. With the complexity and go go mentality of the modern world, many of us are struggling to make connections to our community or lacking it altogether. Having a community of like-minded individuals help to provide a sense of belonging and support, which can aid in feeling less isolated and more supported. Since starting the farm we have found a new community of other like-minded individuals and families who value the role which nature, food & people play into our metal and spiritual health.

Nutrient-Dense Food

Many of todays foods are highly processed and lacking in nutrients. Even those whole-foods like meats and vegetables are often not as nutrient-dense as they historically were. Modern agriculture has led to soils which are often depleted of many of the vital minerals and nutrients which our health depends on. The lack of species diversity, both in our crops and our pastures also plays a major role in the lack of nutrient diversity within our foods.

Shelf stable foods are generally processed to keep them from going bad, but this process strips many of the nutrients from them. Even fresh fruits and vegetables are often not as nutrient-dense as they could be because of the need to ship them long distances. In order to keep them from spoiling they are often picked before they are ripe and are made to look ripe by using gas to promote the ripe color, but the fruit was not able to uptake many of the nutrients which it would have if it was still on the plant.

We are working on growing as much of our own nutrient-dense food as we can while sourcing the majority of the rest from local farms which have a similar vision as us. We are shifting our food production by trading chemical and mechanical inputs for physical labor.

V. Healing the Community

We plan to heal our community by not only providing a source of nutrient-dense and humanly-raised food, but by fostering the connection between the people within that community and their connection to the land.

Educational Opportunities

We host many farm tours throughout the year, providing an opportunity for our community to see first hand how our farm operates. We also do provide a lot of information here on our website, through social media and through our presence at local farmers markets.

We hope to expand our community outreach to include seasonal farm events where we provide tours, food tastings and educational activates. We would also like to provide local schools the opportunity to do fieldtrips so that our youth can see where their food comes from.

Supporting Local Business

We support local businesses as often as we can. We buy all of our feed from Coyote Creek, a local organic feed mill. We purchase a large portion of our building supplies from a local supplier Crowe Co. in Milano TX. We have all of our animals processed at locally-owned facilities with our pigs and cows going to Texas Natural Meats and our poultry going to Burgundy Pastured Poultry.

We support local farms by sourcing most of our vegetables and some other goods like soap etc. from other vendors at the markets we attend. We get back so much more than the minimal increase in the costs we pay to do so. We often find the value to price ratio is much higher with local products, and this not considering the exceptional customer service experience gained while shopping local.

VI. Conclusion

Our goal with starting Natural Pasture Farms was to heal ourselves, our community and our land by changing the way that we grow food. We are off to a great start, but we have so much more we want to do! We are excited about involving more people in the local regenerative food movement through education and food exploration.

VII. Contact Us

If you would like to get involved, please reach out by filling out the form on our contact page.