Meet Your Farmer

Let me introduce myself.

I go by Chip. My legal name is the letters that stand for Leslie Gordon. I came out with the letters because the name “Leslie” did a turn as a girl’s name in the middle of the last century. My dad was an old man when I was born. He was two years younger than I am now. He wasn’t one to shy away from a problem. He just didn’t want to saddle me with a girl’s name. He didn’t want me to be a fighter. 

Let me tell you about the fight I am waging right now.

My Family has been cattle ranching since the early 1880s. My father was a cowboy, and my mom was a Hippy. They built a ranch that reflected their shared values of staying as natural as possible. As a result, I was born on a cattle ranch. Unfortunately, my parents lost that ranch in the farm crisis of the early 1980s. My parents had been insulated against the modern economic realities of agriculture until they tried to increase production beyond what was sustainable.

My parents would go on to rebuild their ranching enterprise. I would learn much from my parents about debt, cattle, and agrarian life. When I became an adult, I went to work for two of the largest livestock merchandising companies in the world. I had a front-row seat to the industrialization of agriculture.

When 9/11 happened, I joined the Army and was selected to be a Special Operations Assaulter, and later I would serve in Special Operations Intelligence. I saw firsthand that the men who are the elite warfighters in our country are predominantly from rural America or have an extensive background in athletics. 

When I left the military and returned home to the rural Midwest, I saw farming industrialized, family farms on their last leg, and small towns hollowed out by lack of opportunity. After considerable research, I found that regenerative agriculture was the only fix for the myriad of problems associated with the destruction of our agrarian society.

-To regenerate our society, we must value how our food is raised.

-To regenerate our food system, we must have healthy soil.

-To regenerate our soil, we must have healthy plants.

-To regenerate plants, we must have grazing livestock.

-To regenerate our livestock industry, we must have a market for grass-fed protein.

As a society, we lost our connection with the land and what it provides for us, and we are suffering for it. 

Won’t you join me in this fight?

-Chip