HANCOCK COUNTY — Coming off one of their busiest months, attracting over 7,000 visitors interested in their meat products to their website, the owners of Tyner Pond Farm found out they will be one of the farms supplying food for this year’s Farm Aid Music Festival on Saturday in Noblesville.
“It’s super exciting and humbling to be recognized,” Tyner Pond owner, founder and farmer Chris Baggott said. “They just called us out of the blue. I guess people told them they need to talk to Tyner Pond about what we do here.”
Tyner Pond produces grass-fed beef, pasture-raised chicken and locally raised pigs. They will supply the grass-fed beef brisket for the Farm Aid Music Festival.
The holistic farm practices regenerative farming, a process that aligns with the mission of Farm Aid, a nonprofit founded by music legends Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp, who organized the first Farm Aid concert in 1985. The goal of the concert has always been to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on the land.
“Our entire context is about soil and soil health and the way we manage that is to have animals on grass, and that’s a really interesting thing for our customers,” Baggott said.
Turning land formerly used for conventional crops such as corn and soybeans into diverse pastures for animals to roam, graze, fertilize and regenerate is what the farm is all about. Farming responsibly and regeneratively leads to healthier soil, which in turn produces higher quality, natural food for their animals and, therefore, the customers, the family says.
Baggott feels it’s important for people to purchase locally when possible and noted times have changed with the internet allowing consumers to be more selective with their products, meaning they don’t have to purchase everything from a supermarket.
“People now have a lot more choices,” Baggott said. “That’s what is happening with Tyner Pond. People are opting out of the grocery store and buying what they want directly from the producer.”
Baggott laughs when he thinks of himself and the family as “locally minded environmentalists,” he said. “We may not be able to do anything about coal plants in China, but we can do something locally here in Hancock County.”
Baggott’s son, Jim Baggott, 29, is the manager of Tyner Pond Farm and said the family was excited when they learned the farm was going to be recognized by officials from the Farm Aid Festival.
“I’m a big Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp fan, so to be included as part of the Farm Aid Festival is really, really cool,” Jim Baggott said.
The younger Baggott noted he loves his job and that the whole family, including his mother Amy Baggott, all feel great about the products they are supplying to Indiana customers.
“We just want to do what is best for the land, what is best for the animals and, by doing that, we are really doing what is best for the community and people really respond to that,” Jim Baggott said.
Tyner Pond delivers 99.9 percent of the business products to consumers within about a 50 to 60 mile radius of the farm. Around 25% of those products are delivered to Hancock County residents.
“We’re glad to see people are willing to spend a little more when it comes to purchasing good and healthy food,” Chris Baggott said. “Food should be quality.”
The family hopes their local business can serve as an example to other farmers out there who have good products to offer consumers. The Baggott’s bought the property in Hancock County in 2010 to implement the regenerative farming practices. The acres of corn once in place have now been replaced by cattle, chickens and pigs working their way through the pastures, dining on the fresh grass and living as nature intended in many ways, making the family farm a bit of a throwback to early farming days.
“There is way more demand than there is supply for what we do out here,” Chris Baggott said.
Chris Baggott noted he likes how his family is providing people with a positive choice when it comes to meat and feels fortunate their hard work has somehow given the family a chance to be part of Farm Aid. He said he almost had to pinch himself when he started thinking about being on a panel with some of the artists performing at the concert.
“It was kind of like, ‘Wait a minute… Do I get to be on a panel with Willie Nelson?’ That’s pretty cool,” he said.
Farm Aid has raised more than $70 million to promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture. The event is sold out.
