A few years ago, I spent a summer working on a nonprofit, educational farm in the Adirondacks of New York. Every morning, farm chores included making sure that the chicken, sheep, and bees were set for the day (and alive). I came to love the sheep, tolerated the chickens, and appreciated (from a distance) the bees. Each morning, the chickens would wobble over in hoards when they’d see me with their grain feed, and the slightly more eloquent sheep would circle around to eat kelp supplements out of my hand. It was one of the best ways to spend a morning. It wasn’t until I was schlepping food back and forth daily from the grain shed to the animal pastures that I made the connection (as most a-ha moments happen - when you have chicken poop on you) that the food that I eat also eats.

And what our food eats has big implications for what we - at the other end of the food chain – ultimately consume. As the saying goes, “you are what you eat”. And meat or produce that’s produced organically contains far more nutrients and far fewer toxins than conventionally-produced alternatives.

Stone House Grain, a 2,000-acre regenerative and organic grain farm in Hudson NY, recognizes this interconnected biological chain: how food passes from soil to plant to animals...eventually all the way to humans. Providing certified organic and soy-free feeds, minerals and supplements, and custom blends, Stone House Grain is nutritiously feeding cattle, hogs, chickens, turkeys, goats, and sheep all across the region. Simultaneously, the farm is regenerating the soil through a long-term crop rotation among pasture, hay, and grains. They even have a mill on the farm, which cracks and grinds the grains into balanced animal feed rations – as well as grains for millers and distillers in the area.  

Walden Mutual is thrilled to partner with Stone House Grain through a line of credit for working capital, allowing the farm to continue to build soil health while also feeding our local animals with organic and nutritious feed. They’re the rare business that brings to life the invisible chain of how everything is connected – a perfect partner.