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Earthmade Foods

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Resources for Small to Midsize Farmers in 2024

in Industry

Earthmade Encourages Small to Midsize Farmers to Take Advantage of Resources 

With Earthmade, sustainable farming is within reach. We provide farmers with the tools and knowledge to cultivate abundance without compromising the environment. We recognize that small and midsize farmers are providing new opportunities for American agriculture across the country, and our experts recommend valuable resources like conservation practices, finding local markets, access to capital and risk management, land management and other educational resources. Our goal? To pioneer change with comprehensive campaigns across digital and physical realms making everyone aware of Earthmade’s vision. 

Earthmade has tapped into California’s top farming insights to champion the environment and the future of food. If you are a small to midsize farm, you can pursue organic certification, which integrates cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promotes ecological balance, and conserves biodiversity. To make sure that your farm is producing the healthiest food for consumers, make sure to take advantage of the USDA’s Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) Certification. Especially if your farm is located in Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana, Pennsylvania and Missouri. We also encourage small and midsize farms to engage with the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program, which supports development and marketing activities for farmers markets, food hubs, roadside stands, agri-tourism activities and other producer to consumer markets.

Introduced as the world’s newest food category, Earthmade has had to take some risks along the way. By utilizing new tools developed by the USDA, your farm can be protected as you plan for the future with a whole farm insurance policy that meets the needs of highly-diversified producers, particularly fruit and vegetable growers. Small to midsize farms can also take advantage of the USDA’s Farm Storage Facility Loan (FSFL) that is tailored to these producers for cold storage and related equipment. If there is one thing we LOVE at Earthmade, it’s fruits and veggies! 

At Earthmade, we know the importance of land management – we wouldn’t be where we are without the generous farmland all around the world that we have had the opportunity to utilize. Sound water and land management plans are important for any farm operation, and the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) is working with farmers and ranchers of all sizes to develop land and water management plans that best suit their needs. For additional resources, we recommend the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) “Small Scale Solutions for Your Farm,” a series of educational resources designed for both small livestock and fruit and vegetable producers.

Earthmade’s method empowers farmers from all backgrounds to thrive, while preserving the natural resources that sustain us all. Value Added Producer Grants can help farmers in a variety of ways. Most importantly, priority is available for small and midsized family farms, beginning and socially-disadvantaged farmers, and veterans. We recommend taking a look into the “Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program” that provides grants to organizations that train, educate, and provide outreach and technical assistance to new and beginning farmers on production, marketing, business management, legal strategies and other topics critical to running a successful operation.

From farm to fork, Earthmade embodies sustainable solutions and nourishment for both our bodies and the planet. By providing and recommending resources for small to midsized farmers, we’re showcasing the strides we’re making together in agriculture. Join us in fostering a healthier future with Earthmade—where science meets nature to Farm it Forward™.

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Be our cheerleader! There are multiple ways you can support Earthmade, even if you aren’t a farmer or industry professional. Help us out by socializing online, downloading information, and getting the word out! Everyone can benefit from Earthmade, and can do something that is 100% Good for the earth!

Become a Partner

We are always looking for partnerships, industry professionals, educators, scientists, and distributors to help us make a difference! Get in touch if you are interested in helping us spread our mission and showing your support for better food, better health, and a better earth.

Become an Earthmade Farmer

Earthmade empowers our farmers, because they are our food champions! Join our coalition of farmers to help improve communities, the environment, and our future for generations to come- to truly Farm it Forward ™.

Refer a Farmer

It is Earthmade’s goal to form a strong global connection of farmers, and to find partners that share our vision of making a difference across the globe in sustainability. If you know someone that can help us fulfill our mission, refer them to us!

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Mike Dobbins

CEO, Vicentia

Mike Dobbins is developing bio inputs to replace pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. His mission is to give farmers the tools they need to produce 100% chemical free food at the scale needed to feed the 9.8 billion people that will soon inhabit the earth. “If you want to look after biodiversity, and you want to improve our soil health, and you want to improve our chronic illness growth, we have to have NO chemicals. And in all fairness there has not been, on a worldwide basis, a solution to the problem.

 
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Walmart

A few years ago, Walmart embarked on a journey to become a regenerative company, dedicated to placing nature and humanity at the center of their business. As part of their commitment, they recently partnered with GEM Pack Berries, and will be distributing the first crops ever to be grown using an innovative cultivation method that eliminates the need for pesticides and soil-damaging heavy metals… game-changing strawberries from Earthmade. In keeping with environmentally friendly practices aimed at minimizing transportation distances, Earthmade strawberries are available in select Walmart locations in Southern California’s Ventura County.
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Duda Farm Fresh Foods

The Duda family has been growing fresh fruits and vegetables for nearly 100 years. It all started with Andrew Duda, who had just 40 acres of farmland, and his sights set on the American Dream. Now, six generations later, the Duda family continues this legacy by bringing their farm-fresh products to a restaurant or grocery store near you and ultimately, your kitchen table. Among their responsible farming practices, Duda has graciously partnered with Earthmade in running chemical-free farming trials on celery.
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Gath Farms

Gath Farms has a strong foundation of four generations dedicated to the land. They base their business on relationships, and understand the importance of face-to-face business practices built on honesty and integrity. Working together to build and grow their own successful farming operation provides the foundation upon which they can help others grow their operations, increase their profits and protect the land for generations to come. Gath Farms has partnered with Earthmade to run trials of chemical-free farming on commodities such as corn and soybeans.
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GEM Pack Berries

With an eye on the future, an ace coalition of California farmers known as GEM Pack Berries long ago embraced the organic farming practices standardized in the late 1980s. When they banded together in 2015, they wanted to find even more sustainable, soil friendly methods. They soon partnered with Vicentia, which was conducting innovative research on developing a special kind of good bacteria as a substitute to both artificial and heavy metal-based pesticides. GEM Pack understood that, if Vicentia scientists were successful, their advancements could solve a long list of health, agricultural, sustainability, and environmental issues. GEM Pack allocated a sizable plot of farming land so Vicentia bioscientists could conduct multi-year research on the cultivation of multiple commodities.
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Vicentia

Australian bioscience company Vicentia’s bio inputs have not only protected crops all around the world from pests that prey on them; they also eliminated the need for heavy metals, which have been found to affect the biofertility of the soil. Better yet, these revolutionary innovations could be adopted by farmers everywhere to grow all varieties of crops, thereby potentially transforming currently problematic farming practices into healthy, earth regenerating, sustainable practices. Vicentia’s groundbreaking solution also lowered production costs while maintaining or increasing yield and crop quality. Today, Vicentia’s regenerative agricultural advances are being trialed in seven countries.
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Howard Shapiro

Professor

Howard Shapiro has made it his life mission to understand the health of our plant. He has been involved with sustainable agricultural and agroforestry systems, pattern recognition, plant breeding, molecular biology and genetics for over 40 years. He has worked with indigenous communities, NGO’s, governmental agencies and the private sector around the world. A former university professor for 15 years, Fulbright Scholar, Ford Foundation Fellow, Fellow of the World Agroforestry Center, Chairperson of the External Advisory Board of the Agriculture Sustainability Institute at UC Davis, and numerous additional accolades, Shapiro has certainly proved he has the experience and vast knowledge of the very critical status of the world’s agricultural crisis.
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Mark Gath

Owner, Gath Farms

Mark Gath is the owner of Gath Farms, and comes from a multi-generational line of mid-western farmers and growers. As a cancer survivor (brought on by years of chemical-reliant farming), Gath has been a champion of non-chemical farming and agriculture practices. He enthusiastically grows chemical-free corn on his Arizona farm, andis running chemical-free trials of soybeans on his mid-west farms.
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Carlos Meza

Bioscientist, Vicentia Farmer

Carlos is an organic farmer and bioscientist hailing from Chile, where he was one of the first certified organic exporters in the 1990s. Disturbed by the amount of chemicals that are still widely used in certified organic systems, he’s developing fully biological alternatives to chemical pesticides and herbicides. These bio inputs harness the power of naturally occurring microbes to naturally control pests. Carlos’ vision is to remove all chemicals and heavy metals from conventional and organic farming systems.
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A.G. Kawamura

Owner, Orange County Produce, LLC

A.G. Kawamura is the former Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. He is a third generation fruit and vegetable grower from Orange County. He is co-chair of Solutions From the Land, a non-profit organization that collaborates with farmers, ranchers, foresters and stakeholders to implement climate smart land management practices and strategies.
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Mike Etchandy

Owner, Etchandy Farms Co-Owner, GEM-Pack Berries

Mike Etchandy is a fourth generation organic and conventional Orange County strawberry farmer. Jaded by the ambiguous organic certification system and the heavy metals it relies on, he has been testing new bio inputs on his strawberry fields to reduce his dependence on harmful chemicals.