Feb 5, 2020
Hey Everybody! And welcome to the Pasture-Raised
Podcast. My name is Luke Groce. Together with my wife,
Katherine, and our four children I run Groce Family Farm in
Southern Indiana. I really want to thank you for listening to this,
our first episode. If you're at all into pasture-based farming, I
hope you'll get some value out of what we're trying to accomplish
here.
A little about me: I met my wife in 2007. Once I convinced her
to Marry me, we started dreaming about having a farm one day. After
a year of working on someone else's farm, we started raising
vegetables on our own in 2010. After a few years of veg farming, we
were finding that, for us and with the way we were doing it,
it was difficult to make an income and have time to spend with our
young family. We also started to learn about the possibilities with
pasture and perennial systems in regenerative agriculture. So in
2014 we began raising pigs in the woods, and in 2015 we purchased
and moved to a new farm. Once we arrived here, we began adding in
more and more animals and eliminating pretty much all of the crops.
Now we are in our sixth year of raising animals on pasture. The
enterprises on our farm, in order of economic importance, are
chickens, pigs, ducks, cattle, turkeys and sheep. If you don't know
me, or know much about me, I'm sure you'll have chance to hear more
from me in future episodes.
I've been a big consumer of many podcasts over the years,
related to whatever interests I have: But most especially farming.
I've been thinking about producing a podcast like this for a long
time, mostly because it really is the podcast I've always wanted to
listen to. Many of my friends and colleagues in this space have
produced podcasts that had elements of what I was looking for. But
what you'll see here is my attempt at providing just what I always
was looking for more of: conversations with good, innovative, and
interesting pasture-based farmers out there; to see what is
working, what is not working, and how we can all build our farms
and farm businesses. My hope is to talk to people who are working
on solving the real problems many of us might come across daily on
our farms and in the marketplace. Throughout each episode, I hope
you'll hear novel and interesting answers to this question: How are
different folks with different skills and perspectives in different
contexts building farms that can sustain our families, our land,
our communities and ecosystems? If you're into that sort of stuff,
have a listen!
If that's the mission statement, so to speak, of this podcast,
then this sort of my shopping list: Here are a few of the markers I
hope are present in each of my conversations:
-
Regenerative farming Solutions: How are we producing food
while positively impacting our ecosystems: What are the ways that,
through our impacts on the land, we are improving markers of
biodiversity, wildlife habitat, and cleaner water, air, and
improved soils.
-
Pasture-Based agriculture: The farms I hope to highlight are
pasture-based farms. We are pastoralists, and our craft is a big
part of what I want to dive into. I want to talk to folks who are
doing good work in this field about this craft. Sometimes it may
look like nerding out or talking shop. But I want to go deep into
the particulars with those who are innovating and applying their
creativity to the craft of regenerative grassland management,
rotational grazing, and ecosystem solutions.
-
Profitable Farms: The solutions we pursue on the land can only
be long-term solutions if we can obtain and manage a yield adequate
to provide for a family, or multiple families. We will be talking
about how we can make our interactions with the land economically
sustainable. My hope is that these conversations will touch on all
manner of aspects of how we can do that: running efficient
operations with sound business principles, understanding necessary
metrics and how we can manage essential resources of time, labor,
capital, energy, etc better. Sustainable farms are profitable farms
and profitable farms are real businesses and running real
businesses is a skill and requires some thought. I used to think
that spreadsheets and a system for organizing invoices was boring,
until I realized it was the thing I could work on to make my farm
succeed. Then it became fascinating to me!
-
Featuring farms that communicate and market well: A piece of
economic sustainability is finding those who are looking for what
we have to offer, and then communicating with them well. I'll hope
to talk to farmers about how we can share our stories, but also how
we can make sure we're communicating in a way that helps people see
how we can bring solutions to bear in our customers lives. I hope
to chat with folks who are thinking about their customers'
experiences from first contact through to the eating experience and
beyond.
-
Farmers who are figuring out how to balance life on the land
with raising a family. I won't exclusively talk to people who have
young families, such as mine. But I do want to hear how people are
keeping themselves, their relationships and the people around them
as healthy as possible while they do the hard work of running a
farm business. If it hasn't become apparent yet, this podcast
-while not about my life per se- is about all the things I spend my
life thinking about, doing, and being invested in. That happens to
be the kind of things that I want to have discussions about. All of
the things discussed above are, in my case, done so that I can
enjoy life on the land with my family, living a well-balanced and
considered life. So I plan to talk to people who I think are doing
an exemplary job of raising a family in an agrarian context about
just that. Some conversations may not touch on this topic. And
others may be entirely focused on it. But in the end, this is the
topic that underlies every other one for me: because it is the end
goal, for me, of all we do here.
-
Solving the issues that come alongside rural life, and
navigating the new rural economy: I suspect that I'll have chances
to talk to first generation farmers and seventh generation farmers.
But either way, I'll be talking to people who work in pastures. And
pastures are usually in rural areas. In some places, rural areas
have seen issues related to urban sprawl and dwindling
opportunities for land access. But also in other places, declining
populations, brain drain, vanquished economies, and real social and
community decline are a set of local issues to contend with. I
suspect we will get into these topics some: including the nature of
those issues. But also solutions, and how regenerative agriculture
fits into rural economies now, and into the future.
So that's it. That's the vision for this thing. It's my dream
podcast. So each episode will feature those kinds of conversations
with those kinds of farmers. If you're into that, feel free to
subscribe and listen along.
If you want to see what I have going on on my farm, feel free
to check us out on facebook or instagram: at Groce (G R O C E)
Family Farm. Our website is grocefamilyfarm.com