Dependable local food

If you follow the news I’m sure you have seen stories of the potential empty grocery store shelves, big ag processing plants closing, factory farms being stuck with livestock they have no outlet for, and corn prices falling.  All of this leads to a great deal of uncertainty in the agricultural world that could spill over into the world of everyday people.  I don’t want this post to be alarming, I don’t write this to say we are on the brink of a national disaster, but a lot of the things coming to the surface today have been brewing for a while.  I’ve had some people ask about our supply chain and if I foresaw any issues coming in the future on our farm so I want to let everybody know where we stand.

To begin, I have already ordered all of our chicks for the year and I feel confident that our hatchey is rock solid and we will not have any issues getting those chicks.  If an issue ever was to arrive there are other hatcheries that could step up but I do not foresee that happening.  All of our GMO free grain is grown and milled on a small, family owned farm in Centerville, TN.  The grain we are buying this year was actually produced last year so supply will not be an issue.  Our grain mill does not operate in the same commodity space as most of the big guys so they are much more stable in these times.  Both of the processors that we use are local, family owned operations; they operate outside of the factory farming space.  They are both very confident there will be no interruptions in their operations.  

One beauty of being a small, independent farm is that I am not contractually obligated to use any of these providers.  If something were to go wrong, and I don’t think it will, I can always pivot to another provider.  Most of these big ag producers don’t have that luxury and they are hurting because of that.  I really do feel bad for those guys who are so beholden to how one large corporation chooses to handle this.

Another beauty is I just laid out, in one paragraph, our whole supply chain.  It really is that simple and has that few points of potential failure.  We have many fewer steps to get food to you.  Our farm doesn’t rely on truck drivers, grocery stores, or massive companies like Tyson and Smithfield having to make decisions for thousands of different scenarios.  We can strictly focus on producing food for you and others in the Memphis area.  As I said above I am certainly not trying to alarm anybody about an impending situation where the grocery store shelves are bare, but I do believe this gives hints as to how something of that nature could happen in the future.  We should take this as our warning to make better choices in the future.  Please let me know if you have any comments or questions.  I love the feedback and would like to do a follow up post about this.

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