This Old Farm has New Ideas

Erick and Jessica Smith were not born into a farming family. They met while attending Purdue University while Erick was studying electrical engineering and Jessica was a biology major. Now married with five children under the age of twelve, they own This Old Farm in Darlington, Indiana where they raise what Jessica calls "healthy food".

At first, the desire to have wholesome, nutritious food for their family lead the couple to begin gardening and raising their own meat. But a demand for their products soon grew and they now offer pastured eggs, pastured broilers, stewing hens, Katahdin lamb, pastured turkeys, and pastured pigs to a long list of happy customers. Currently  they sell directly to the consumer. They're working on a website, but you can get a list of their products by sending an email to Jessica who sends a weekly email to all her customers informing them of what's available for purchase and arranges drop off locations. She encourages customers to contact her, ask questions, and get information about their farming practices so they "know where their food comes from and how it's raised".  

You would think the family and farm would keep this couple busy enough, but they have exciting plans in the works for enlarging their operation. They were recently awarded a planning grant to explore expanding their farm to include an educational facility, commercial kitchen, community meeting room, and multi-purpose meat processing facility (designed especially for the "backyard" producer) which would be available to the public. If all goes as expected, the new facilities will be up and running in 2010. As the plans for this expansion progress, Jessica would like to hear from people who might be interested in using the new facilities and is open to suggestions for what kinds of facilities would be of best use for the community. Please contact her if you would like to talk to her about and have input on this project.

This Old Farm
Erick and Jessica Smith
7206 N 950E
Darlington, Indiana 47940
765-436-2186
thisoldfarm@frontiernet.net

Photo: Courtesy of Jessica Smith
            Evan and Conner Smith take a break from collecting eggs