avrom farm

We manage the farm as an ecosystem by integrating livestock, pasture, vegetable, and mushroom production to create a farm-ecosystem that is both resilient and productive. By farming in this way we are able to produce exceptionally flavorful and nutritionally dense food. Our plants and animals are raised without growth stimulants, GMOs, antibiotics, pesticides, or any preservatives or chemicals, ever! We are in the process of becoming USDA certified organic for produce and Certified Humane for livestock. PIGS We raise several breeds of heritage and endangered hogs including Berkshire, Red Wattle and Tamworth to resemble the old-world characteristics of hardiness, marbling and slow growth. These qualities make for deeper, richer flavors with excellent marbling. To revitalize the health of our soils and to ensure the health and happiness of our animals we practice high density mob-grazing techniques to raise our hogs. This practice mimics the predator-prey relationship in wild ecosystems by keeping the animals relatively close together (in the wild to protect themselves from predation), but moving them frequently. This increases pasture diversity, water retention, and promotes healthy and resilient animals. This practice is typically done with cattle and other ruminants, but we're trying it out with pigs. During the winter months we replace what they get from the pasture with haylage - hay that is baled at high moisture and left to ferment so that all the enzymes and nutrients produced from the lush grasses and legumes are captured. CHICKENS We raise slow-growing, pasture-raised chicken. There are many terms and buzzwords that get thrown around the supermarket in attempt to appeal to the demographic of food-eaters that value healthy, local and nourishing food. After a certain point, it is hard to distinguish what these terms mean when they are used liberally by the industrial food industry. When we talk about "pasture-raised" chickens we are referring to continuous flock movement, mimicking how birds in the wild interact with their environment. By moving the chickens to new pasture every day and encouraging them to forage amongst the diverse polyculture of plants and insects, the result is a fundamentally different chicken. This chicken is firm and savory with deep, rich flavor produced by the culmination of a diverse diet and healthy lifestyle. Choosing chicken breeds that are slow-growing is an important part of producing chicken with extraordinary flavor. A chicken that has taken longer to grow will have more complex proteins, antioxidants, and vitamins than the 5 week old turbo-charged chickens common throughout nearly every grocery store in the United States. The slow-growing breed we have chosen is called the Freedom Ranger. They were initially bred out of protest of the fast-growing, industrialized breed of chicken, the Cornish Cross. They come from Northern France as part of the Label Rouge movement, which is similar to the USDA Organic Standards, but has much more stringent regulations on animal welfare with a focus on small, diversified farms. In addition to their superior flavor, Freedom Rangers are equipped to thrive in the outdoors and transform grasses, bugs, and grain into highly nutritious food. VEGETABLES We focus on growing heirloom and uncommon varieties of vegetables. Although a perfect looking tomato might feel safe and familiar, just wait until you try an ugly heirloom tomato! So much of the diversity on vegetable farms has been boiled down to just a handful of varieties that have been manipulated for the longest shelf life, ease of processing, and highest yield. Flavor and nutrition simply don't play a role in the equation from the standpoint of grocery stores and many restaurants. Because we only sell to local markets, shelf life isn't nearly as much of a concern to us. Flavor, nutrition, and beauty are what we focus on expressing in our vegetables. We achieve this through focussing first on soil health - disturbing the soil as little as possible, balancing soil nutrients with organic fertilizers, and building organic matter in the soil by rotating the land we use for growing vegetables with perennial pasture that we graze our pigs and chickens on. This rotation utilizes the ecological role of animals to consume plants in the pasture and disperse their manure, which cycle nutrients, increase rainfall infiltration, and build soil by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere at staggering rates. MUSHROOMS We grow several kinds of gourmet mushrooms by inoculating wheat straw and hardwood chips with mycelium (the growing portion of the mushroom) that we culture ourselves. We grow these indoors so that we can have them available bug-free year round. We are experimenting with feeding the spent mushroom-straw mixture to the pigs as there is research that shows that the enzymes and other nutrients in the mushroom-straw can benefit a pig's diet. This is an important part of reducing our dependance on grain to feed to our pigs.