The Ashfount blog
Practical writing on regenerative agriculture, the US local food scene and farm to table: soil, grazing, markets, policy and the people doing the work.
What makes a breed heritage, why those genetics finish on grass and mother without help, how to read the Conservation Priority List, where to buy sound stock, and the premium markets that pay for a slower-growing animal.
Wheat is the last big gap in most local food systems. How small farms grow bread grain, clean and store it, mill it on stones, keep bakers happy and plug into the regional grain alliances, plus the buyer that vanished this spring.
How to take a soil carbon baseline that will still mean something in five years: sampling depth and density, bulk density, the lab method to ask for, when to sample, how much change is detectable, and why the baseline is for your management first.
The farm bill extension and federal funding both run out on September 30, 2025. Which programs keep paying, which stop taking new sign-ups, why the dairy cliff is a December problem, and what to do if your application is sitting in a county office.
A grocery chain or a hospital kitchen wants forty cases a week, every week. No single small farm can promise that. A producer cooperative can. How one is formed and governed, how patronage and capital work, and the failure modes to design against.
A third of the Lower 48 is in drought. How to size a stock pond that fills and holds, test a well before you trust it, bury lines below frost, build tire tanks and freeze-proof waterers, and what NRCS and FSA will pay.
What federal law requires at slaughter, what the best plants measure that the law does not, how mobile and on-farm harvest work, and the questions a pasture farm asks before it books its first animal with a processor.
Which electric tractors, utility vehicles and pickups a US farm can buy in August 2025, how battery hours line up with farm days, what charging asks of the wiring, where maintenance really differs, and the payback math before federal credits end on September 30.
An enterprise budget for a market garden or a pasture herd: the variable costs, the overhead and unpaid hours most small farms skip, break-even per unit, and a price list that follows from your own numbers instead of the neighbor's stall.
Egg prices doubled, then fell back, inside six months. A pastured flock cannot ride that curve. How to size the flock, house it on skids, budget feed, read the seasonal lay rate, handle eggs legally and price a dozen from your own costs.
Jam season raises the question every farm kitchen asks: can we sell this? A plain guide to cottage food laws: what you may make at home, the sales caps, the label every state checks, where you may sell, and what the 2025 sessions changed.
Put a tenth of a sloping corn and soybean field into native prairie strips and the Iowa State trials say most of the soil, phosphorus and nitrogen stays put. Layout, seeding, first-year mowing, costs per treated acre and what CRP practice CP43 pays.
