Snyder Family Farm Established in 2017

IN THE BEGINNING

My earliest memories of agriculture began in my elementary years. My family had a small garden in the midst of our and neighbors' homes in our subdivision on Peck Road. We grew a variety of staple vegetables that we enjoyed fresh, frozen, canned and dried. At the time I thought what we were doing was the norm, only later to recognize it was a necessity in order for my parents to afford to provide us with the high quality and nutrient dense foods they knew we needed.

Soon I was spending as many weekends at my grandparents’ house as possible to help my Grandfather work in the garden. My grandfather grew up poor and out of necessity learned how to make the best of what he had and to do what was needed to survive. He was a WWII vet and retired insurance agent that had a love for outdoors, working with his hands, gardening and teaching the next generation. We would work together, my grandfather, brother and I, manning his 2-acre bounty. He taught me everything I know like: what phases of the moon are the best for planting and harvesting, how to tell when you were going to pass the frost, observing animal behaviors and trees to determine if a weather front was moving in, and how to watch your plants for signs of what they truly "needed." I remember being 10 years old carrying buckets of water the 100 yards or so through the woods to water the plants with nothing but a mere ladle. My grandfather insisted we do it this way, despite our rebuttal, because when he was a child, they had to make every drop of water count so as not to use up what little they had available.

GAINING EXPERIENCE

Some of my fondest memories are at my Grandfather's home place my family refers to as "The Country." I always told my mother that I felt as though I were born 100 years too late and that I longed to live in "the olden days." The Country was my connection to "the olden days" and my only source at the time.

Fast forward to 2003, now 21, I quickly became "a local" in my then current county of residence, Amelia. While my main career always centered around real estate and insurance, I spent every opportunity I could working on and helping friends with their farms. I have firsthand experience in about every form of modern industrialized agriculture you could imagine. I have cleaned up "lagoons" at large dairies then spread the waste on the fields and have hooked up cows to be milked. I've implanted hormone tablets between the skin and cartilage in the ears of hundreds of cows in order to synchronize their estrus cycles to make insemination more efficient. Nearly have suffocated walking through a Tyson chicken house with 60,000 chickens, picking up hundreds of them dead to be discarded of, as part of the daily chores. Planted 250 acres in one day with the most modern tractors and seeders. Run half million dollar combines to harvest wheat, soybeans and corn. Spent days collecting soil samples from fields to determine what crop needs to be planted in order to gain the most profit while continuously stripping the soil of needed nutrients. It's shameful to admit now, as I was naïve and ignorant of the effect, but I have also applied hundreds of thousands of pounds of Round-Up and liquid fertilizer.

GETTING EDUCATED

Once I met my now wife, Heidi and with also being a father (to our oldest Korbyn) I began to examine everything a little different as my life began to change and I began to "settle down." I knew that I didn't like the monster that corporate America had become and was making me (although I am thankful for the lessons it has taught me along the way). With my growing family I didn't have the time I once did to "play farmer." As I watched my father battle diabetes, I started to become more aware of foods and how they affect people. It also became more apparent to me that the "corporate monster" was in fact the power behind the food that was ultimately killing us. Much to my surprise, my wife Heidi, a native of rural Amelia and student of an Ag class in an agricultural community knew even less than me about where our food came from. We began with little steps like educating ourselves, raising laying hens for eggs (which lowered my cholesterol 35 pts!), going to farmer's markets, and ultimately Me learning to raise and process our own meat chickens. When Heidi became pregnant with our youngest, Cole, we became even more aware of the food we ate.

LOOKING FORWARD and GAINING FRICTION

I was at this point working 50+ hours a week for State Farm Insurance with the intent to open my own office, being so consumed that I did not even have laying hens at this time. I came home late one night as usual and began crying talking to Heidi, telling her that I was living someone else's dream and that I just couldn't stand it anymore; I felt empty/without purpose/like I wasn't making a difference. Cole was born in May of 2016, and I stopped working at State Farm in January of 2017. We had talked for years about my dreams of becoming a farmer and decided there was no better time than to take the leap!

Nature grows slow and organically, and we wanted to mimic that as best we could. After some shifting of priorities, simplifying of life and a lot of continued prayer, we were confident we could survive off of Heidi's nurse income as long as we did not occur any debt from the farm.

And Snyder Family Farm was started!

FAST FORWARD

In 2021, we came across an old farm house with 80 acres in Keysville and needless to stay… it just fell into place.

We closed on our new farm home in 2022.

Now in 2024, Heidi was able to scale down her nursing career to 2 shifts a month and works alongside Jeremy on the farm. We are able to home educate Cole and teach him all about life, farming and and God on this wonderful bounty we have been blessed with.

We set out on a journey with a plan of slow, organic, debt free growth to share our love of the farm, passion for healthy local foods, and delicious meats with everyone we could.

And God has brought us here!

If you would like to purchase our products, check out our online shop!

- Jeremy Snyder