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Meet the Farmers
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Jim and Diann Moore with help from their son Wes (center), and occasionally Aaron (left) who is off to college, own and operate a small family farm near Watseka, Illinois. The farm has been in their family nearly 100 years. With a strong desire to farm and support their family on less than 100 acres (60 acres tillable) Jim and Diann have converted their farming operation from conventional methods to a system more resembling permaculture, where the farm produces its own needs. The Moores began this change in the mid-1980s when they started a vegetable garden and began marketing their homegrown produce at local farmer's markets.
As years passed Jim and Diann expanded their garden and experimented with raising livestock, as naturally as possible, at first for their own family freezer and now for the community. In 2003, the family began its first season with Prairieland CSA. (see how much the boys have grown since then)
The Moores believe in the importance of farming on a small scale with practices that are animal-, people-, and environmentally-friendly. Everything on their family-operated farm is produced and raised naturally, without pesticides, antibiotics, or growth hormones.
The Moores produce a 20-acre market garden, for a mid-May to mid-November season. They also raise seasonal pastured chickens, turkeys, and pork, as well as grass-fed lamb, goat, and beef. No animals are raised in conventional confinement. The chickens and turkeys are raised in portable open bottom shelters that are moved daily to fresh pasture. All animals are raised on intensively managed pasture. Jim and Wes mix any supplemental feed on the farm, providing a nutritional diet for each species.
Jim and Diann's strong desire to preserve their family farm has lead them to raising many older breeds of livestock. On their farm, you will find many species that are listed with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. These include Tamworth pigs, Katahdin sheep, and Buff Orprington, Black Australorp, and Barred Plymouth Rock hens. The Moores also raise, Cornish cross broilers; broad-breasted white turkeys, Nubian goats, and milking shorthorn cattle.
The Moores' mission is to maintain a family friendly farm that will produce natural, healthy, safe, and great-tasting food for generations to come.
You can purchase Moore products from the farm (call (815) 432-6238) and Prairieland CSA, as well as through several locations in Champaign-Urbana, including Common Ground Food Coop. Moore Family Farm meats, polenta, produce, and eggs also are featured on the menus of bacaro and The Great Impasta in Champaign and Urbana, Illinois, respectively.
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