Our pasture-raised chickens,

dining on clover

Merry Christmas Maudie!

Owain, Hank & Holly

Photos Copyright Julie Atkinson

OUR MISSION STATEMENT

“Our mission is to provide a living for our family by raising and selling healthy, gourmet-quality meats and dairy products, in the spirit of community with each other and our livestock; with the forests and fields, the water, the soil, and all the wild things; and in the spirit of community with our customers.”

THE GREENWOOD FARMS PHILOSOPHY

Here on Greenwood Farms, we have made an unusual choice. Rather than become a part of the government-regulated organic certification program, we have chosen to raise our beef, lamb, pork, chicken and dairy products without the use of antibiotics, hormones, or other drugs and in a way that is gives all our animals the best life possible. We have made this decision based on three guiding principles that go above and beyond the government regulated standards for organic certification:

First, we place quality over quantity. We select the breeds of livestock we raise based on the tenderness and marbling of their meat, not the quantity they produce, and we process our meats when they are most flavorful, not when the cuts reach maximum size. We raise Jersey cows that give us milk high in protein rather than breeding for unnaturally large quantities of milk. This keeps our cows healthier and makes our milk tastier.

Second, we place the health benefits of our meats and dairy products over ease of management or high yield. Our grass-fed, grass-finished beef and lamb and our pastured pork and poultry contain a higher percentage of vitamins A, D, and E, more Omega-3 fatty acids, and more CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) than meats raised in accordance with the government’s organic standards. Because our animals live on pasture, (instead of in feed-lots or confinement barns permitted in the certified organic program), the risk of BSE (mad-cow disease), E. coli, and salmonella are virtually nil.

Finally, and most importantly, we place the welfare of our livestock above the principles of organic farming. Although none of the animals we process for meat have received drugs of any kind, we love our animals and when one becomes ill, we treat it with the latest advances in veterinary medicine. Then, when the animal is mature, we sell it on the commodity market rather than from the farm.

We lose a little money that way, but we’d rather do that than watch an animal we care for suffer and die from a treatable condition. To that end, we also inoculate and deworm our animals on a regular basis and we allow our cattle to use a rub to prevent the stress of biting flies. None of these practices leave residue of any kind in the meat or milk, yet they are prohibited in the government certification program.

We farm because we love the land and the animals who share it with us, and our commitment is to the stewardship of both. If we sacrifice the welfare of our animals to receive a certificate of recognition, then we have failed in our task, for we believe as Gandhi did, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."