Amid food shortages during the Covid-19 Pandemic, southern Californian city girl, Tawney, and southern Illinois hunter, Chris, didn’t want to rely on grocery stores for meat anymore. So, when their local stores had limits on how much protein they could buy, they decided to start their own farm, Fluffy Butt Farms.
During this time farmers couldn’t sell their pigs to market because of Covid restrictions, but Chris was able to find a farmer selling pigs. With hesitation, as this is something that they had never done before, they brought the pig home. Chris and Tawney are grateful they took a risk, “This city girl loved every minute of it,” Tawney said.
Over the years, they continued raising pigs in their backwoods, but it brought questions to Tawney like, “How can we improve our operation?” This is when Chris and Tawney discovered GreenStone's CultivateGrowth grant. They were struggling with understanding how to price their pigs and how to market them better. They decided they wanted to apply for the CultivateGrowth grant to attend Farrow to Finish Marketing School!
“The program mostly focused on rotational grazing, and lucky for us, they have the same topography we have. We got to tour the area and see firsthand how they moved the pigs. It was wonderful to see the practice in action,” Tawney said happily when talking about what she learned from the class.
“Then, the program moved into finances and marketing. It was the biggest areas of our operation I wanted to learn about, so that was a big impact for me personally.” Tawney learned how to create a new cost sheet, adjust the prices, and then started looking for new land to lease to allow them to expand their farm.
Now that Chris and Tawney have seen first-hand implementations that can make their operation better, they know exactly what changes they are going to make to drive forward.
“The more people we meet who share our same goal of raising our animals naturally, and the more knowledge we gain, the more inspired we are to continue. The CultivateGrowth grant really helped offset the expense of leaving the farm to attend this program. We are grateful GreenStone gave us the opportunity to help us grow as farmers.”
GreenStone is proud to support other young, beginning or small farmers like Chris and Tawney with the help from the CultivateGrowth program. To learn more about our CultivateGrowth program and what possibilities there are for you, click here.
