Foggy Bottom Farms

The purpose of Foggy Bottom Farms is provide healthy, nutrient dense foods, free of pesticides and artificial hormones, to clients who value the time and expense required to offer quality nutrition. Our mission is to educate our clients as we provide these superior foods for the ultimate benefit of their families and friends. Our goal is to fulfill our purpose and accomplish our mission profitably, with a commitment to excellence and integrity, in such a way that Foggy Bottom Farms becomes a sustainable model for future Alabama organic farm generations. We sold our entire herd of Dexters during covid. We sold our entire herd and have not replaced them. You can find Dexter’s for sale athttps://dextercattle.org/and athttps://www.dextermarketplace.com/ Certified Organic was once a standard that dramatically set apart farms that did not wish to use the methods prevalent in large agribusiness settings. With good faith efforts by the farmer, it still does. Initially, certified organic was mocked by the large farm interests who were happy to continue using their petroleum based methods that poisoned the water table, degraded the food value, sickened the farmers and ultimately made the small local farm an unsustainable idea. Likewise, the large land grant universities claimed that there was no difference between large scale farming and organic farming, primarily because their research was funded by the corporate agricultural interests. For many years, the local organic farms could not survive the pricing pressures of government subsidized cheap food.  It costs more to produce a quality product and consumers were told “food is food” so they were hesitant about paying more for organic products. But the absurdity of the idea that all food is the same becomes quite obvious when controlled studies demonstrate declines in health, increases in disease and decreasing nutrient values.  Besides that, better food tastes better. It usually happens in December. We get 3 inches of rain in a 24 hour period and the fields flood. Here is what it looked like on 12/25/2015. flood_122515from John Langloison Vimeo. Because real food is alive it has a shelf-life.  It will spoil, if not preserved through fermentation or canning.  This is a good thing because when you feed your body with living food, you are also feeding the billions of organisms within your body that turn that food into energy.  Overly processed and improperly preserved foods satisfy your temporary hunger pangs, but do little to provide your body with the essentials it needs to remain healthy. Organic foods can compete with the cost of processed foods when the cost of bad health, eroded soils and poison removals are factored into the pricing equation.  Of course, the consumer does not see those aspects listed on a sign at the grocery store.  Therefore, in the absence of perceived value, price becomes the deciding factor, at least until education levels the playing field. For over thirty years, organic farmers have struggled to educate consumers on the benefits of better food. Eventually many have come to see the relationship between bad food and bad health, as evidenced by diabetes, obesity, nervous disorders and exaggerated or erratic behaviors in their children.  And because people valued their health, and even more so, the health of their children, they began to pay the additional prices charged by the organic farmers. And as soon as it became apparent that consumers were willing to pay more for better food, the large agribusiness interests conspired with the USDA to weaken the organic standards to allow for large confinement operations like Dean Foods with their adulterated products, such as re-constituted 2% milk and and unsupervised imported foods from countries such as China.  At the same time they flooded the market with products that barely met the minimal and compromised organic standards, in order to occupy the coveted shelf space at the supermarkets. At the same time