At Food as a Verb, one of our most honored and urgent tasks is to promote the voices of regional farmers.

Why?

Most media walks on by, quoting instead a rogue's gallery of celebrities, politicians, athletes and entertainers, but not cattle farmers or chefs or row crop producers.

Yet, it's food and farming that keep us all together. Shouldn't agrarian voices be central?

Especially now: bird flu. Federal cuts. Tariffs. Recently, we asked regional farmers a series of questions:

• How have recent funding cuts from Washington impacted you?
• How have egg shortages and the threat of bird flu impacted you?
• How do you anticipate tariffs impacting you?
• What changes are you making to mitigate any recent difficulties?
• What can regular citizens and the non-farming community do to help?

Here are their answers.

Dr. Jim Osborn raises Wagyu cattle on his Chili Pepper Ranch in Apison. (He and his wife Amy Jo are the founders of The Austin Hatcher Foundation.)

Here's Jim:

Currently, we haven’t seen any negative impact. Our post-election retail sales bloomed in November and December, setting a new record for sales.

We are seeing an increase in customer calls looking for an alternative source for eggs.

As a result, we have increased the number of chickens we have available to produce eggs.

Our chicken consume Wagyu beef/fat to meet their dietary needs and improve the richness of their eggs.

Our hope is that the new economic forces will drive customers to become more educated about the products they use and consume and, as a result, continue to improve our beef sales.

Our naturally-raised, 21-day dry-aged Wagyu beef is similarly priced to regional and local butcher shop beef products sourced from less discriminating commercial farms.

The quality of beef produced in Tennessee is head-and-shoulders above what is imported from other countries.

Based on our growth history, we continue to be optimistic about retail sales, however, we are cautious obligating funds to long-term project expansion given the interest rates, etc.

We would like to expand our retail operations to improve our customer experience and expand our locally grown product offering.

From my perspective, customers need to be their own advocate and research the products they purchase and consume.

There are healthy and cost-effective locally produced food options available that are direct from the farmers. Customers get a better product and the farmers directly connect with their customers.

This whole process improves the connection of people with their food source.

Our understanding of healthy foods has completely changed over the last 40 years and preparing food is part of the experience, enjoyment and development of family time.

Most locally-produced food is going to be a higher quality product at a comparable price to what you’ll find at the chain stores or online. The non-producing resellers truly have no input in the production of the beef/product and are subject to the integrity of the producers.

Meet your food producer, look them in the eye and shake their hand. They will take care of you and become part of your family.

Ron and Cynthia Shaffer own Red Clay Farms, the first organic farm in Bradley County, where they produce an abundance: breads, milled grains, microgreens and vegetables. (Their mill was featured in our story on Niedlov's rogue bread.)

Here's Ron:

The answer to the first four questions is: no impact at all.

The fifth question: buy local.

We are a small seasonal market farm that does not rely on federal funding. 

We only have about 20 chickens, so for us, the bird flu has no impact. 

Many of the seeds that we grow are open pollinated and/or are produced in the U.S., or we can save the seeds for the following year. 

The only impact that we might see from tariffs would be possible increased cost of equipment, if we needed to purchase any. 

From a produce perspective, the last time of uncertainty was Covid, and many people either started buying local or bought more local produce. 

It's possible that these changes are an opportunity to grow more food for our local communities.  

Roy Jones is the sixth-generation farmer of Jones Farm in Valley Head, Alabama. He and his daughter Rebecca grow fruit, row crops and nuts which they sell at the Main Street Farmers' Market, along with Gulf seafood. (Read our feature here.)

Here's Roy (with contributed photos from Rebecca):

If there were more local farms, there wouldn't be as much reliance on the government.

Federal cuts have not impacted us so far probably because we don’t participate in many of the programs.

Bird flu has had zero impact.

The new tariffs will increase our cost of potting soil for plant starts, but if they are rolled back before we start next year’s strawberry plants, then it shouldn’t matter.

It’s the same old story: anything Washington does will make things harder for the small business but the large business will get a break.

Kelsey Keener is the third-generation farmer at Sequatchie Cove Farm in Marion County - here's our story from 2023 - where the Keeners oversee a diversified, regenerative and beautiful farm, including a significant layer hen production.

Here's Kelsey:

It has been great for us!  For the first time ever, the crappy cheap factory farmed eggs cost as much as ours, sometimes more! 

We have more demand for our local pasture raised eggs than ever before!

If our input-material-equipment costs go up, we will have to raise prices. Seems inevitable at this point that is going to happen.

We are growing our business and focusing on doing what is profitable so we can hopefully save money and have a buffer if things take a turn for the worse. 

We do now have more of an action plan in place if we were to get the avian flu in one of our flocks. Having a plan is a good idea because it could happen to any of us, but, at the same time, just like Covid, we also need to stay calm and keep living our lives.

Supporting local in whatever ways that make sense. Follow us on social, sign up for our emails. We will keep you updated on what our needs are and how we are effected by the ever changing environment (political, economic, pandemic or weather-related).

Jennifer and Daniel Hernandez are the founders of Hernandez Farms in Morrison, Tennessee, where they've been homesteading and organic farming for 15 years.

Here's Jennifer:

If Daniel and I are honest, most of these things do not affect us.

We are such a small farm that we don't qualify for most, if any, government funding.

We also do rely on outsourced fertilizer or add-ins on the farm. These for us are an added cost we really can't afford so, we, for the most part, keep everything done in-house so as of today the tariffs won't affect our ability to get compost or the like as we already have it here.

We strive to learn as much about ancient ways of growing so we aren't affected by the ever changing world we live in. We don't sell eggs but do have chickens here on our farm. Currently, we have not been affected by the bird flu. 

The biggest way we have been affected by all of this is the demand for vegetables.

In the past week alone, we have been contacted by several farmers markets in the area from Chattanooga to Nashville who wanted to personally invite us to sell at their markets.

We have also been contacted by individuals and resellers worried about getting produce this year at reasonable rates.

We have had to turn all of these people and markets down.

In an attempt to provide the best quality veggies with the resources we are currently working with, we can't just plant more to meet the demand. It would result in poor quality management of our farm and ultimately in poorer quality vegetables.

We are actively searching for a bigger farm so in the future we can provide more vegetables but the price of land is extremely high and most likely unattainable.

I can only imagine that most of the demand this spring has come from uncertainty in the market. With that said, the only advice we would have is: be patient with your farmers.

Don't purchase more than reasonably consume from your markets.

Remember that farming is about much more than the end product you see at the markets.

Love of the land, love for families both ours and yours and building something lasting a living legacy in the form of living soil and so much more go into our end products.

So be patient with your farmers and show up even when the end product may be scarce, especially during changing and difficult times.

Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com

This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.