Farm Field Trip: Reverence Farms

by Lena Van Wyk, Farm Director

Farm Field Trip to Reverence Farms
Saturday, April 6, Time 9am-3pm

We would love for our parish to experience the growing network of Christian farmers in North Carolina who are being called to farm in ways that fulfill our Scriptural mandate to be peaceable stewards of God’s creation. So we are organizing field trips to see examples of God’s Kingdom at work through farming.

Our first trip will be to a 400-acre rotational grazing farm called Reverence Farms, owned by Suzanne and Hue Karreman, two believers who are called to practice “land-healing agriculture” on their farm. They raise 60 Jersey cows, 150 feeder pigs, 125 St. Croix sheep, 150 turkeys, and 6,000 pastured broilers, along with about 700 laying hens. But unlike many farm animal operations, all their animals are on pasture (rather than kept in enclosures) and are intensively rotated across the land so that the fields flourish with nutrients instead of becoming exhausted. This way of raising animals is similar to ancient ways of grazing animals that we see in Scripture. Suzanne and Hue were mentored by fellow Christian farmer, Joel Salatin, famous for his pioneering ways of rotational grazing and author of The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs: Respecting and Caring for All God's Creation.

The farm is partnering with Reverence Farm so that once a month, you can pick up their meat/eggs/dairy from Redeemer, to support a Christian alternative economy of food production. This field trip is a way to see how their animals are cared for!

We will caravan from Redeemer to the farm (located in Graham, NC, about an hour away) and then take a hay wagon tour through their 400-acre rotational grazing farm (kids will love this!) and share lunch together there at Reverence Cafe (optional).

https://redeemergso.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/217101

Registration is limited so please sign up early!