Corinne Hansch: Small Farms Can Make a Great Living

291: Corinne Hansch and her husband Matthew Leon started farming during one of the hardest financial periods of their lives. Years later, Lovin’ Mama Farm has become a thriving organic business built around intensive production, direct relationships with customers, and an extraordinary diversity of crops and products. Corinne explains why they stopped wholesaling, how six weekly farmers markets transformed their cash flow, why microgreens remain an important year-round crop, and how flowers, herbs, perennial crops, value-added products, and a loyal customer base all contribute to financial stability. She also talks candidly about women in agriculture, raising a family while farming, paying employees year-round, and creating a business that supports both the people working on the farm and the community eating its food. https://realorganicproject.org/corinne-hansch-small-farms-can-make-great-living The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince. The Real Organic Project is a farmer-led movement working towards certifying 1,000 farms across the United States. Our add-on food label distinguishes soil-grown fruits and vegetables from hydroponically-raised produce, and pasture-raised meat, milk, and eggs from products harvested from animals in horrific confinement (CAFOs - confined animal feeding operations). To find a Real Organic farm near you, please visit: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.realorganicproject.org/directory⁠⁠⁠⁠ We believe that the organic standards, with their focus on soil health, biodiversity, and animal welfare were written as they should be, but that the current lack of enforcement of those standards is jeopardizing the ability for small farms who adhere to the law to stay in business. The lack of enforcement is also jeopardizing the overall health of the customers who support the organic movement; customers who are not getting what they pay for at market but still paying a premium price. And the lack of enforcement is jeopardizing the very cycles (water, air, nutrients) that Earth relies upon to provide us all with a place to live, by pushing extractive, chemical agriculture to the forefront. To read our weekly newsletter and get firsthand news about what's happening with organic food, farming and policy, please subscribe here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.realorganicproject.org/email/⁠