FORT BACON FARM

Our Farming Philosophy

What We Do & Where We are Going

Produce healthy, nutrient-dense food for our family and yours:

Healthy soil = Healthy food. By caring for and improving our soils, we produce healthier and more nutrient-dense foods for our customers. We do not use any chemicals or chemical fertilizer on our pastures, minimizing harmful impacts to the plants, insects, and micro-organisms in our soil.

Build a healthy soil ecosystem through managed intensive grazing (MIG):

We move our cow herd to a new piece of pasture every 24 to 48 hours to ensure that the grass is not overgrazed. This rotational grazing technique allows grass to continue the photosynthetic cycle while reducing stress to the roots, which promotes faster regrowth and more resilient vegetation. Once an area is grazed, we leave it for 3-6 weeks to fully recover before the next grazing. This also ensures that our animals are kept on fresh, clean grass that will not have the parasite load normally present in a continually grazed pasture – better for the grass and the animals!

Build organic matter and promote polyculture in our pastures:

We are converting our hay fields into pasture fields to allow us to graze more throughout the year, with an end goal of continuous, year-round grazing. By eliminating the need to grow and harvest hay, we will greatly reduce our fossil fuel use as the animals do the harvesting for us and cycle nutrients back to the earth. Uneaten grass or other organic material may be trampled and left to decompose, providing groundcover and nutrients to promote healthy pasture growth. We also encourage the growth of many different species of grasses and forbs (broad leaf weeds) to give our animals a diverse forage selection with differing vitamins and minerals. 

Protect and improve our watershed:

Fort Bacon Farm is the proud recipient of the Clean Water Farm Award from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. We have worked with Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation to fence our animals out of the majority of the streams and ponds on the farm. By doing this we are creating riparian buffers that help stabilize our stream banks and filter the water that runs into them.