Tour explores local farms

This past Saturday Know Your Farms held a farm tour with several area farms. The event took place from 2-7pm and participants had the option of choosing which farms they visited. Davidson's Eco House decided to take a group on the tour, and at 2pm about forty Davidson students and faculty met at the Eco House to travel to four area farms.

I was lucky enough to join the group, and the first farm we visited was Mary L Farm, a fourth generation dairy farm owned by Rick and Dorcas Parker.

At the dairy farm, we learned the special procedures used to raise organic milk-producing cows. The Dorcases strive to keep their milk organic for economic and personal reasons. They sell their milk to Organic Valley, which means that the milk must meet federal regulations.

Additionally, the Dorcases appreciate the health benefits that they and their cows now enjoy. In order for the milk to be considered organic, the cows must be fed a diet that is hormone free and they cannot be treated with antibiotics.

The Dorcases have their cows' best interests in mind, though, and if a cow becomes ill enough to need antibiotics she must be sold immediately to a non-organic farm that can treat her.  

Next, we made a brief visit to Wild Turkey Farms, where Lee and Domisty Menius raise a variety of livestock for the production of meat and other animal products. At the farm many Davidson students bought pork, beef, chicken and eggs. The Meniuses raise all of their animals free-range and feed them grass-only diets, creating a healthier environment for the animal and more nutritious meat for the consumer.

The next stop on the tour was Landis Gourmet Mushrooms, owned by John Herron. Herron's farming methods are a world apart from the more traditional farms visited on the tour. For starters, the entire "farm" is inside of a warehouse.

Inside the warehouse, Herron has a special lab where he harvests and grows mushroom spores. He then plants the spores into roles of cotton and waits about two weeks for the mushrooms to sprout. The entire process is very unique, from the burning and rolling of the cotton, to the special spore lab, which must remain contaminant free, to the dark dank warehouse ideal for mushroom growth.

The final stop on our tour was the Bradford Farm. Here Grier and Kim Bradford both run a farm and a store. The farm grows lots of produce, which is then sold at the store along with products from across North Carolina and several other neighboring states.

Products sold at the store range from produce to dairy products, locally made root beer to grass fed meat. The store is located on Highway 73 and is open Tuesday thru Saturday. It is a great resource for anybody interested in local food.

We returned to Davidson in the evening with loads of produce, meat, and new-found knowledge. We learned about the farming that goes on around Davidson. While on campus, students can easily forget about the surrounding farms, and the tour served as an important reminder of the agricultural community in which we live.