Producer

A farm, by definition, is a departure from nature — it is land taken from its wild state and turned to human ends. But it is possible for a farm to learn from natural systems, to work with mother nature and integrate her patterns. This is the soul of organic agriculture; it is also a practical way to produce high quality food while building soil and conserving the habitat and biodiversity that come with well-managed open land. No farm will ever approach the ecological sophistication of nature, because the balance of activity is focused on the needs of our one species. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take good care — and a little better care every year, as we learn, and learn. This is organics at its best — good stewardship of the various communities that overlap to create a farm.

Sidehill Farm Yogurt is certified organic by Baystate Organic Certifiers, and Meadowsweet Farm’s cows, milk, and pastures are certified organic by NOFA-NY, but that is the short version of a longer answer. For a long time, we joked that we would never certify the food we produce because the National Organic Program isn‘t strict enough to acknowledge how we farm. More seriously, we believe that producing food organically is a management decision; but certifying organic is a marketing decision. We are blessed with local customers who enjoy our food and know us by name and face. They know they are welcome to stop by anytime, and observe our practices. They have given us one of the most precious things a farm can earn from it‘s customers: their trust.

Pasture is so much at the heart of Sidehill Farm Yogurt and Meadowsweet Farm that we sometimes think of the main crop as grass!

Meadowsweet works with the cows to manage the growth of the pastures. The pastures provide a balanced diet for the cows, which then provide us with milk high in Omega-3's and CLA. At the same time, the grass is actually building soil. How? After each grazing, the plants shed some older root material, before putting on a new flush of growth in both their tops and roots. The discarded roots (and manure!) become a food source for earthworms, insects, nematodes, and a great diversity of bacteria, which digest it into rich new soil, ready for use by the plants. This process requires no tilling or mechanical harvesting, and therefore requires no fossil fuels and results in no runoff or waste of any sort. It is powered by the sun and rain and millions of mouths, eating their way around the carbon cycle.