Bountiful benefits of regenerative farms: Top 24 reasons why we love local food and farms in 2024

We LOVE our small-scale regenerative farms and are counting the ways they benefit us all as this year winds to its end.

Let’s dig in!

Oh so healthy

Our local farms:

1. Produce nutritious and delicious food – Local food is often healthier and tastier because it’s harvested at peak ripeness, which also means peak nutrients and flavor. Short transport times equals fresher food on your plate with more natural taste and texture and less processing and preservation.
2. Increase variety – A diverse diet of local produce keeps meals interesting while boosting our health by ensuring we get all the nutrients our body needs to function. Different foods bring different vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other nutrients that combine to support immunity, provide energy, and repair cells. Variety also feeds our helpful gut bacteria, which are key to digestion and overall health.
3. Allow eating with the seasons – Locally-grown seasonal foods align with our body’s natural nutritional needs, providing the right nutrients at the right time. In winter, we need hearty, calorie-dense foods like root vegetables and winter squash, plus immune system support from leafy greens. In summer, light, hydrating fruits and vegetables cool us down and keep us hydrated. Seasonal eating reflects the natural rhythm of the environment, keeping our bodies balanced and healthy all year.
4. Provide safer food – Local farms use sustainable practices like natural pest control, soil health management, crop rotation, human-scale production, and farm-to-table sales which means less need for chemicals like pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and preservatives.
5. Embody “food is medicine” – Eating nutritious, high fiber food from local farms boosts our immune system, gut health, and helps us maintain a healthy weight, which means we can fend off chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes and any conditions we get from nutritional deficiencies, like anemia or osteoporosis.

Community power

These cornerstones of our communities:

6. Build local economies – Money spent on local farms stays in the community because it gets spent at other local businesses. Plus, small farms often partner with nearby restaurants and stores, building a network which contributes funding to local tax bases, schools, infrastructure, and public services. Agritourism attracts visitors to rural communities, too.
7. Ensure food security – Food and products grown locally means folks are less dependent on imported goods. Small farms are often more flexible and able to respond quickly to changing conditions, such as natural disasters or external shocks (think pandemic). Together, this gives communities more control over their food and other farm products.
8. Connect with neighbors – Small farms and farmers markets create spaces for neighbors to meet, interact, and build friendships, while aligning around shared values like environmental stewardship and healthy food. Community members may volunteer on the farm to help plant or harvest, nurturing teamwork and sense of purpose. Local farms remind us of the common thread of food in our lives.
9. Create jobs – Small-scale farms mean less automation, offering meaningful jobs to folks who want to be outside and active. More jobs ripple out through the supply chain, as products need transportation and value-adding, or through services like education and agritourism.
10. Provide food for all – Local farms often donate surplus products to food pantries or food banks, which supplies folks who often depend on processed or canned goods with fresh, nutritious food. To increase accessibility, farms often provide a sliding scale for monthly CSA food subscriptions, or sell at markets that accept food assistance programs. They may also exchange food for volunteer hours.
11. Support traditions and cultures – Local food systems often celebrate and preserve regional traditions, cuisines, and heritage which strengthens community connection. Multi-cultural farms also enrich our lives with cultural exchange and new recipes, while providing fresh, authentic ingredients to other members of the community from their culture.
12. Educate our next generation – Farms provide hands-on learning experiences about growing food, raising animals, and caring for the environment through farm tours, field trips, farm-to-school programs and even summer or after-school jobs. Students can explore where their food comes from, learn about nutrition, and connect to the land.

REstoring our ecosystem

Regenerative farms:

13. Filter our drinking water – Regenerative agriculture provides plant roots, soil organisms, and organic matter to filter water as it moves through the soil, trapping and filtering pollutants before they reach sources of ground or surface water that supply our drinking water.
14. Shelter wildlife & pollinators – By using regenerative methods like rotational grazing and agroforestry, and avoiding disruptive practices like tilling, farms create diverse habitats for wildlife from plant roots to tree tops. This diversity provides food, shelter, and nesting sites for a wide range of species, like soil organisms, pollinators, birds, and small mammals.
15. Restore soil life – Practices like no-till farming, rotational grazing, and keeping soil covered year-round protect important soil organisms, like earthworms, fungi, and bacteria. Many farms add compost and organic matter back into the soil, which provides food for beneficial microbes, nutrients for plants, and improves soil structure. Healthy practices also fix nitrogen in the soil, improving soil fertility.
16. Sequester carbon – As plants grow and decompose, carbon dioxide (CO2) is captured from the atmosphere and stored in the soil in the form of organic matter, acting as a carbon sink. Minimizing soil disturbance (no or low-till) and increasing trees and grass cover on farmland preserves soil structure and keeps the carbon in the soil, reducing greenhouse gasses.
17. Preserve genetic diversity – Local farms grow a variety of heirloom crops, heritage livestock breeds, and save seeds that are part of local food history, serving as banks for varieties that are well-adapted to local conditions, and that preserve traits like disease resistance, drought tolerance, and unique flavors. This diversity, that might otherwise be lost in monocrop large-scale farming, is critical for food security and adapting to future challenges.
18. Reduce runoff – Growing trees or pasture with deep roots and keeping living plants in the soil year-round, help create channels in the soil that allow water to soak in which reduces the impact of rain, prevents erosion and keeps nutrients in the field, not in water bodies. Regenerative farms also mimic nature and leave space for wetlands, forests, and grasslands that absorb water to combat drought, control flooding, and purify water for cleaner lakes, rivers, and streams.
19. Cool our environment – Small farms have more ground cover and a greater diversity of plants, which release water vapor through transpiration, cooling the surrounding air by absorbing heat as the water evaporates, just like sweating in animals. Practices like agroforestry and permanent ground cover also create shade, reducing soil and air temperatures.

Less Waste and Pollution

Local food and farms:

20. Reduce packaging – By selling directly to customers, local farms reduce or eliminate packaging as customers bring their own reusable containers and bags. Farms may also sell in bulk, using bins, sacks, or crates, rather than individual wrapping. This not only reduces prices for customers, it also conserves resources like water, energy, and raw materials, reduces garbage in the landfill, litter in our environments, and harmful chemicals that come in contact with your food.
21. Shorten transport distances – Food and farm products grown locally means no long-distance shipping and fresher food on your plate. Keeping production local builds a stable food network that’s less vulnerable to disruptions. Shorter farm-to-plate distances also decrease the wear and tear caused by heavy trucking and save taxpayer dollars. Growing food close to home creates food literacy as people are more in touch with where their food comes from.
22. Minimize food waste – Local farms know what their customers need, meaning less overplanting, less overharvesting and less food lost to spoilage. Local farms often sell second-rate produce to consumers at a discount or transform it into products like jams, sauces, pickles, or dried goods to reduce waste due to imperfections. Bountiful seasonal produce can be sold to restaurants or donated to food pantries, or as a last resort, fed to livestock or composted and returned to the soil.
23. Utilize animal manure – Small farms know manure is a valuable resource and integrate into a healthy, holistic farm system. Because they only raise the number of animals the land can reasonably hold, the land can absorb the manure, reducing the risk of nutrient runoff and pollution. Any surplus can be composted and applied to enrich the soil with organic matter and nutrients. Manure also increases water absorption, aerates the soil and feeds the microbiome, which supports more plant growth.
24. Capture knowledge – Local farmers love to share the stories behind the products they grow and the methods they use, connecting us to each product’s history and importance and helping us understand and appreciate them even more. On-farm workshops and field days teach families about growing their own food and skills for preserving food at home, ensuring this place-based knowledge is kept safe for future generations.

Thank you to all of our farmers and farm supporters for working to make our community a healthier, happier place. We wish a merriment-filled holiday season to all. Have a beautiful start to 2025, we’ll see you there!