2019 0420 Farm News & Updates

Product Update –

1) Chicken- The FIRST batch arrived February 28th and are doing great! We have commitments for 95% of our annual volume. We have limited availability for June, July, and August. Email me to reserve yours today!

2)Beef - Individual cuts - we are back in stock on all beef items and will be adding more on April 25th.

Custom Half Beef - I have added more for processing the week of May 13th. If you are interested in a half beef please follow this link to learn more and place your deposit to reserve your order https://naturesgourmetfarm.com/custom-bulk-orders

3) Pork- Individual cuts - pigs were delivered for processing on March 18th. This means we will be back in stock on all pork items April 23rd. Additionally, we will have plenty of pork available starting in July.

4) Eggs- Egg production is running on ALL cylinders! Lay rate is 95-98% which is outstanding. We have added all size options to our website and can easily fill your orders.

Stew Hens are back in stock. As we processed them this week we noticed all the rich "yellow" fat". A TRUE Pastured Raised and NOT grain fed animal's fat will be yellow. This is a sure sign that you are buying a true forage or pasture raised animal vs. grain fed.

FARM UPDATE:
Hey, Ben here - this week I want to share a farm visit we had from Eric & Morgan, a young couple who lives on the Gulf Coast and are expecting their first child. Eric called a few days earlier to schedule a time to visit. When they arrived I asked their interest and he shared they wanted to start eating local because they have concerns about eating industrial Ag food, especially now expecting their new baby.

So, I took them around and showed them what we do, how we handle the animals, and why we pay attention to the details. When Morgan saw the chickens she commented, "those chickens look very content". Fortunately, Eric & Morgan had been doing their research. They asked a lot of good questions about the farm and our practices & principles. Before they left, they purchased 10# ground beef, 1-chuck roast, 1-ea of the various steaks, and eggs. A few days later Eric sends me a text of his plate with these words, "Some of the best steak we've ever had! Thanks again, and hope y'all stay safe during the storm.

Today, many folks like Eric & Morgan are looking for transparency and authenticity in their food source. That's why they are turning to local farmers they can get to know and learn to trust with raising their food.

At Nature's Gourmet Farm our animals (for example -pigs) spend their days rooting in our forests and wallowing in mudholes. Good animal welfare isn't simply keeping them fed watered and within a comfortable temperature range, it's allowing animals to live in an environment where they can express their instinctive behaviors. At Nature's Gourmet Farm, we use our animals as tools to shape and improve the land. With their strong shovel-like noses, hogs are excellent at clearing overgrown paddocks. Hogs can take an uninhabitable forest and turn it into a nice shaded pasture. It simply takes patience and time.

Our location in South Mississippi offers many advantages for raising livestock on pasture: climate, soil & culture. We rarely have snow and our pastures are green and growing for 52 weeks a year. We get 60+ inches of rain per year, and it comes consistently (mostly) throughout the year, instead of having a monsoon season and a dry season. There really is no better place on earth to raise livestock on pastures.

Over the past 8 years, we have learned from some of the best Regenerative Land Stewards around and put those practices to work on our farm. This means applying proven practices like adaptive grazing with our animals to restore grasslands. Restoring our grasslands has many benefits, which include sequestering carbon, rebuilding healthy soil structure, reversing climate change, humane animal management and preventing erosion.

We feed the microbes that feed the soil, that feed the plants that feed the animals. It is biomimicry. The natural circle of Creation: Birth - Growth - Death - Decay - Life.

We thank you for supporting regenerative food sources to create a food system that is better for the animals, better for the land and better for the community.

Customer Feedback- "Stopped by the farm today and we were inspired! Big thank you for being there to provide quality food for our family. We will definitely be regular customers from here on out!." Morgan C

Quote Worth Re-Quoting – “The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.” – Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture

Thank you for supporting our regenerative, local farm.
Ben & Beth