de•fi•ANt

Adjective
showing a daring or bold resistance to authority or to any opposing force.

The Defiant Farmers

Sarah, Chief Farming Officer

Bob, farm husband and head intern

The Defiant Farm

Our defiant field is west of Washburn, Wisconsin, nestled at the edge of the Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest. Our farm is a 20 acre parcel that includes a mix of sugar bush, wood lot, field and pasture. We purchased the property on April Fools Day 2013.

Our Mission and Standards

We believe in the beauty of food, and leaving this land and the water flowing in and around it, and all they combine to produce, ourselves and our community better -than when we started.  More than just being local and sustainable, we want our food to be beautiful to look at and to taste. We want it to truly nourish all of your senses. Not only your bones and blood,  but a feast for your eyes, your palate. That's why we don't just grow the standard grocery store varieties. We choose crops and critters suited to our special little spot in the world and for how they look and taste on the table.

We believe in bio-diversity.  We follow sustainable practices. We believe in preserving a diversity of ecological landscapes.  We acknowledge and honor that we live in the great beauty of the Northwoods- an edge of the Boreal forest, and that this, not our small cultivated acres, is the dominant system of the land. This means we hear owls hoot at night and see the auroura borealis with more clarity than most but also we sometimes share a chicken with the coyotes,  or our fruit trees struggle to thrive because our pine barrens sandy soil fails to hold the moisture they need to drink up,  but this is an acceptable price to pay for attempting to farm a small corner of the wild. We add organic matter to our naturally sandy soils with compost from our own pastured chickens and pigs and vegetable scraps from the garden as well as managing a year round cover cropping program. We use techniques and learnings from many branches of sustainable agriculture-organic, permaculture, biodynamic.   We strive to rotationally graze our chickens and pigs to regenerate our field space and diminish invasive species.  We prioritize health of all- forest/food/farm/farmers over the bottom line.  We want all life on this scrappy piece of land to have the best life possible, and every day we're course correcting, learning and changing and getting up and learning more.  It is our privelege, and a grand humble experiment to steward this piece of land and feed this brilliant community beautiful and nourishing food.