One Straw Farm

Drew Norman knew he wanted to farm from a very young age. Being the child of a research physician at Hopkins and a mother who worked in real estate and education he did not grow up on a farm, but his parents always encouraged him to follow his dreams and explore his passions. Drew spent summers and free hours in high school working in local orchards and dairy farms. He knew he was hooked. Drew and Joan met while studying at University of Maryland and quickly became inseparable. While Joan was excited about Drew’s passion for farming, she started her own career and didn’t get pulled into the farm (just yet…) While studying at UMD, Drew had a pair of defining experiences with his professors. One was teaching about agricultural chemicals and safety. He pointed out that one common insecticide can cause severe nerve damage if you get even a drop on unprotected skin. Drew had another professor who taught that the keys to plant health and vigor are all tied up in nurturing the microbiome of the soil and focusing on soil health. From that moment Drew knew that he was going to farm with nature and not in spite of it. It led One Straw Farm to become one of the fist farms in Maryland to be certified organic. The professor’s emphasis on working in harmony with nature to support and improve soil health as the foundation of a healthy farm left such a lasting impression on Drew that it is still the bedrock of our farming practices today. The first twenty years of One Straw Farm were focused on supplying the organic wholesale market. Our produce was featured in grocery stores up and down the east coast with a focus on distribution in the Mid-Atlantic region. While the wholesale market provided an eager market for our produce we found that we were missing the personal connection with our customers. It was around this time that Joan started hearing whisperings about this new kind of local farm model - something called Community Supported Agriculture. At the time it was a revolutionary idea - most people never had an opportunity to have a relationship with a local farm apart from dropping in to a farmers market in the city. Joan’s passion for connecting with members of the community and feeding families as a way to bring people together was the perfect compliment to this new idea. Joan organized the first CSA pickup site at Boordy vineyards in 2004 with just a couple of members to see if it would work for our farm. The relationships that formed in that first season were so powerful that Joan shifted her full-time focus to growing the CSA program. Under Joan’s leadership and enthusiasm the CSA program has blossomed to become the main focus of our farm. It has been an incredibly rewarding experience to build such deep, long-lasting relationships with our customers! As Joan and Drew grew the farm’s relationships with its CSA members, the relationships in their own family began to grow as well. Their children, Andrew and Sarah, grew up on the farm and were ready to embark on their own careers. Andrew worked on the farm on and off through college and realized that he never wanted to leave. Andrew works with Drew and our field crews to ensure that we grow the best possible produce each year. In 2016, Joan and Drew’s daughter Sarah returned to the farm with her husband Mark and daughter Ellie. Mark left a background in corporate finance and joined the farm full-time, focusing on the financial and business needs of the farm. Mark and Sarah welcomed Meredith to the farm family in 2017 and Andrew and Mary welcomed Sadie to the farm family in 2021. One Straw Farm is currently focused on a seasonal CSA program (June-November), direct sales to area restaurants, and regional wholesale relationships. We are certified organic by the Maryland Department of Agriculture and certified by the Real Organic Project. We are also certified in Good Agricultural Practices, the standard in national food safety guidelines, and are trained in food safety protocols outl