223. Kelly Shepherd on First Generation Regenerative Farming

What ways can your farm bring more value to your community?   In this week’s podcast, we’re hosting Kelly Shepherd, Co-Owner of What the Farm, located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. What the Farm is focusing on the health and vitality of the land through regenerative farming, and their mission is simple: serve the soil, serve the animals, and serve the community.    They recently expanded their operations and opened What The Farm Store so they can share farm to table with others. What the Farm aims to provide local families with an affordable way to bring home food free of chemicals and hormones, and they do so swimmingly!   Come hear all about how they do it in this episode.  You’ll hear: What prompted Kelly to shift from business coaching to farming 2:03 The first sales outlets for the farm 6:05 Classes the farm offers to homeschoolers 10:09 How Kelly handles the farm’s meat CSA 17:39 What What the Farm does with the Savory Institute 21:20 What Kelly would do differently if she could go back to the beginning of her farm 31:56 Kelly’s favorite farming tool 33:30 About the Guest: Kelly Shepherd is the co-owner of What The Farm, a regenerative farm that specializes in chicken, pork, lamb, and beef in Virginia Beach, VA. With a background in business coaching, her primary focus is helping farmers achieve profitability through agritourism, education, and subscription-based sales. Kelly believes that the only way to grow the sustainable farm movement is to make it a win/win for both farmers and consumers.  Resources: Website: https://whatthefarmlife.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhatTheFarmVa Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatthefarmva/   The Thriving Farmer Podcast Team would like to thank our amazing sponsors! Steward is transforming agriculture by equipping regenerative farms and food systems with the capital they need to grow. As a mission-driven financial partner, Steward works closely with agricultural businesses to scale their operations, improve the health of their lands and waters, and bolster local-to-regional food systems. To date, Steward has provided over $15M in business loans to fund 75 unique projects, backed by more than 1,500 participating lenders. Steward is proud to be a Certified B Corp. Seek financing or support a loan campaign at gosteward.com   GrownBy is the farmer-owned online marketplace. In the last three years, their 200 farmers have sold over $2M of products to shoppers on the GrownBy app. GrownBy works for all scales and types of farm sales. Spring Plant Sale? Yup. Annual Freezer Meat Emptying? Check. Multi-season, multi-farm 300 member CSA operation? Absolutely. GrownBy supports it all. As a cooperative, farmer success is their #1 priority. They are the first farmer-owned cooperative ecommerce platform in the world. With auto-payments, built-in customer notifications, CSA subscriptions, and customers helping to pay site fees, GrownBy is a tailored fit for your farm’s online sales. Upcoming, GrownBy will be the first online platform accepting SNAP/EBT with authorized farms. Startup is free, and pricing is transparent and affordable. The cooperative collects 2% of each transaction, but customers often contribute to this fee and bring down farmer costs significantly. Listeners to the Thriving Farmers Podcast get 50% off their first three months on GrownBy. Just email [email protected] to get this offer. You can learn more at GrownBy.com, or download the app on the Google Play or Apple App stores.