Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Argyle.
Amanda, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Chris, a professional skydiver, and I, a skin care specialist, never set out to buy the small decrepit farmhouse on 2.5 acres in a valley that we always dreamt about living in one day. But, after spotting it on a Sunday afternoon drive, we couldn’t stop thinking about it so we, somewhat irresponsibly, put in an offer the next day that was contingent on selling our home and to our surprise, it was accepted! We were more focused on our wedding, which was only a month away, and had no plans to sell, but there was this overwhelming feeling of enthusiasm that we agreed we should pursue. So, we somehow managed to finish our basement, sell our home, get married in Montana, and move onto a homestead in a matter of 4 weeks! Whoa! It was a whirlwind. It was perfect chaos!
So, now what?
I had already been down the food system rabbit hole for years prior and I had prioritized our budget to allow for the expense of buying organic and I felt it was the right thing to do, but after reading, the Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan, it flipped my views onto their head and made me rethink everything I knew about food; I’d never read a better explanation of exactly where our food comes from. It gave me the invitation to think through the moral ramifications of my eating habits and I knew there was a better way and that the food I sought out to feed my family didn’t exist in my community or local grocery stores and organic wasn’t all that I thought it was (although still better than conventional in many ways).
We were both frustrated by the food system and struggled to source local, non glyphosate ridden, non-monoculturely grown produce and felt deterred with how animals were raised for our meat. We sourced some of it through hunting, but it is not always our primary source of meat. The answer, for us, was not to change our way of eating to a diet that requires a lot of energy inputs, or the ones that is riddled with complicated ingredients disguised as “healthy”. The answer was, since we couldn’t find it, to grow our own. That way, we would know exactly how that meal got to our plate. So, that’s what we set out to do, but we had ZERO experience in what we were about to embark on outside of Chris’ time spent on his family’s ranch in Randolph, UT.
We had some ducks and geese that we inherited with the property but we had no idea how to take care of them, luckily, we live in the age of the internet and quickly learned. We bought a cow, a couple of pigs, took in some chickens, and got to work. We were ordering books, watching endless videos and learning by just doing. That’s when we came across Joe Salatin. Joel operates Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with his family. He is the author of several books on ecological, family-scale farming. The reason why Polyface deserves mentioning is because their methods heal the land. Over the years, numerous scientists have used Polyface land to study their farming principles. They’ve enhanced diversity in bird populations, biomass variety, pollinator populations, and soil organic matter development aka carbon sequestration.
As we learned more and more we knew, this was it. We wanted to model our homestead methods after theirs and we did. We decided to get meat chickens and start to replicate the regenerative, multi-speciated model on a small scale and the results were outstanding! Not only were we growing food that never left our property but we were using less water, building soil, eliminating the need for synthetic chemical inputs, and mitigating the need for animal medications, and our animals thrived in being allowed to express their natural instincts: chickens allowed to peck and scratch, pigs allowed to root and wallow, and cows allowed to eat lush grass from start to finish.
Not only was our homestead thriving, so was our family. With the addition of our daughter in 2017, the lure of being home on the farm together was stronger than ever. We are at our best while stewarding our animals and the land as a family. We were also learning firsthand the benefits a developing child gets from this lifestyle and that’s when we knew we could never turn back.
As things continued to grow we decided to attend our first Farm and Food Conference in Cedar City and that’s where things really changed for us. We were surrounded by like-minded people, not just farmers and homesteaders, but people who were just interested in their local food system, and the conversations were invigorating, thought-provoking, and inspiring. When it came down to it we all had the same goal: to know how our food was grown, where it was coming from, and to make local foods more accessible, not just for the consumer but easier for the small food producer to get it to your plate. After leaving there, we knew we wanted to make a lifestyle change, but we really weren’t sure how.
Then 2020. While we are no exception to some of the scares the pandemic left, it also brought us great opportunities. At this time Chris and I were both still working full time jobs in the city, both in which were shut down very early on in the pandemic. We were nervous and our stress levels were high. I was in the throws of trying to absorb any information coming out about this thing to make the right decisions for my other business that was still in its infancy. Just like everyone else, we were decently nervous. We had no idea what was in store for our friends, family and our society. All we knew was paychecks stopped coming in and any help we did receive through relief funds was not enough to cover our basic expenses.
Ah, but just like life does, within all of that, we learned something pivotal: how to live with less. What we realized was that we were really okay without our fancy coffee, weekly amazon deliveries, and paying for the endless amounts of activities to entertain us (or distract us). We didn’t need Netflix, Hulu and frivolous apps on our phones. We canceled everything. We simplified. We worked on closing loops by starting a family garden that benefitted from all of the manure we were accumulating. We started making our own bread, buns, tortillas, and pizza crusts. We turned our produce scraps to broth, our bones from our meat to stock, we utilized every single part of every food morsel that came into our home, we had a strict no-waste rule, and do you know what we didn’t experience? The sheer panic others were having when the grocery store shelves were empty. Sure, we would have to rethink things without stuff we couldn’t produce like sugar, but we had honey! In all honesty, we had everything we needed to continue to feed our family and at that time, that meant everything! We had built resiliency for our family at a time when the fragility of our food system was more obvious than ever.
The breakdown of the system as we know it made many folks rethink where they were sourcing their food and interest in what we were doing exploded. We decided to seize the opportunity to grow with the demand, while simultaneously trying a different method that doesn’t exist amongst the traditional, generational farms that surround us. Chris, the professional skydiver, hung up his gear and officially turned full-time farmer- a regenerative farmer.
Although, we were able to feed 40+ families from our 2.5 acres of land we were selling out fast and could not fulfill the customer demand. We needed one crucial thing, the one thing that was incredibly hard to obtain in our area that prioritizes development over farms, because we haven’t inherited it, and we don’t have a lot of money: land.
Then our paths crossed with the people that could help change this. Unbeknownst to us at the time, they came to tour our little farm and we ended up talking for 3+ hours about holistic land-management practices, sequestering carbon, soil health, water resilience, animal welfare, and nutrient density. Later, they would approach us about managing the land on a project they were working on nearby: Harmony Ranch. Currently, we are forging forward towards something we all truly believe in: A collective return to living in community lands, belief in the virtues of sustainable living, the value of regenerative agriculture, the principles of land-based education, and the practice of living in holistic fulfillment.
To get there is a long road building a farm from the ground up and it comes with a lot of red tape, bureaucracy, frustration, tears, hard work, sweat, and more perseverance and grit than we knew we had. However, We know that on the other side of all that is a meaningful mission; one that will enrich our community, provide more families with nutrient-dense food, and a place to learn about the symbiosis of our ecosystems and soil biology.
We look forward to the partnership with Harmony Ranch and the opportunity to holistically steward the land we all love in the Ogden Valley and we can’t wait to fill the bellies and souls of those who give us the chance.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Many times on the farm, even when you give your best effort, things don’t go in your favor. Mother Nature can be unpredictable and crops can be ruined and animals can be lost to predators or other events. However, dealing with factors outside your control will always teach you how to be a problem-solver and that’s always a good thing and Nothing builds our strength like surviving difficulty. Nothing forces us to leverage what we have, dig deep and come up with every ounce of patience and strength like a hard time. I’m not sure there’s another way to learn humility, either. You feel more, you observe more, you are involved more when you are challenged. All your senses are working to their best, laziness is not an option and oftentimes becomes an important catalyst for growth, new relationships, knowledge, and fulfilling experiences.
The only true wisdom you have is of experience; good and bad. Like the Buddhist story of the farmer: good luck. Bad luck. Who knows?
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We follow these 5 important regenerative agricultural principals:
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE PRINCIPLE #1
Minimizing soil disturbance (physical, mechanical and chemical):
Physical disturbance to the soil breaks up its structure and introduces a sudden rush of oxygen, both of which create unsuitable conditions for soil microorganisms, causing many of them to perish. Not only this, it can also make the soil vulnerable to erosion as bare areas of soil are often exposed. No till cropping ensures there is only a small amount of disturbance as the seed is slotted into the soil without plowing.
Chemical disturbance through spreading chemicals onto the land in the form of fertilisers, herbicides or insecticides unsettles the balance of life and the soil’s ecosystem. The soil becomes dependent on fertilisers to provide it with readily available nitrates and other nutrients for the plants so at Argyle Acres, we use absolutely no synthetic fertilizers to allow our soil microorganisms to produce nitrates through nitrification. We also integrate chickens into our system to use the nitrogen from their feces to fertilize our soil, moving our chicken tractors daily to the places we need it. We also avoid pesticides to allow the ecosystem to work in harmony.
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE PRINCIPLE #2
Keeping the soil covered:
Exposed soil is vulnerable to erosion, which removes vital nutrients from the land, limiting future plant growth. Giving pasture longer recovery times allows the plants to get taller and thicker, providing more cover over the soil. When the livestock is moved into pasture, giving them a smaller area for a day or less means much of the forage which they do not eat is trampled.
This layer of organic matter (along with the organic matter from their feces) is cover for the soil when the plants have been grazed and provides less soil cover themselves. The organic matter also enables the pasture to grow more due to the nutrients it provides. Covering the soil also increases the water infiltration so the soil has a larger store of water and in periods of drought it can sustain crops or pasture for longer.
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE PRINCIPLE #3
Encouraging Diversity:
Diversity of all species should be encouraged, including that of livestock. Sheep and cattle target different plant species within the pasture, as well as provide different quantities of nutrients for the soil through their feces. Other livestock such as chickens or pigs seeks out insects, slugs, and parasites as well as the pasture itself, eliminating the need for pesticides and reducing the disease burden on the other livestock.
Plant diversity can be encouraged by increasing recovery times of the pasture, as many flowers, herbs and forages require a longer time to grow than many grasses. These different species provide a more nutritious feed for the livestock as well as using different nutrients from the soil and returning other nutrients, keeping the soil microbiology healthy.
Wildlife diversity is increased too as a bigger variety of food and habitats become available for them, including for insects and soil microorganisms. They break down organic matter, making nutrients readily available for plant roots to uptake and storing carbon in the soil.
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE PRINCIPLE #4
Keeping live roots in the soil:
Roots support the soil microbes and bind the soil together, providing a shield against erosion. The plants also use their roots to put carbon into the soil through the process of photosynthesis. Cover crops can be used in arable land over the winter when there is not a cash crop growing, it also provides cover for the soil.
Overgrazing can cause plant roots to die; ensuring the pasture has sufficient recovery time prevents overgrazing as the plant can grow deeper roots.
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE PRINCIPAL #5
Integrating animals:
Animals provide large levels of organic matter and, therefore, nutrients through their feces and trampling plants, allowing the plants to grow larger. This increases photosynthesis levels and nutrient content of the future crop (in an arable context). This produces more nutritious food, as well as provides food for livestock which, in turn, become food themselves, ensuring a rich, productive life cycle.
Steep ground and infertile soils make large areas of land unsuitable for growing crops for human consumption. These areas are most suitable for pasture. Being unable to digest grass, humans cannot eat it, so livestock are used to utilise it. Pasture can be harvested multiple times a year through livestock grazing or making hay to feed them indoors in the wetter months, ensuring the land is productive and its fertility improved.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Our hope is that more people will take more pride in knowing the farmer that produces their food and the methods in which they use.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.argyleacres.farm
- Instagram: @argyle_acres
- Facebook: Argyleacresutah
Image Credits
Chad Argyle
