Meet Don Lareau | Organic Farmer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Don Lareau and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Don, how does your business help the community?
Having a farm is a way to impact your community in many different ways. We sell plants, flowers and vegetables that all impact peoples lives. We share the farm space with students, researchers, kids and families. We strive to provide a living wage, and care for the employees on the farm. But perhaps the community we impact the most is the biodiversity. It is easy to think about how we have created habitat for birds through the planting of trees and shrubs on our farm. Or the huge diversity of flowers, especially perennial flowers that provide places for insects to live and thrive. The most important for us is biodiversity below ground. It is all of the microorganisms the ones you can not see, but you know are there through tell tale signs of soil composition.

The social impact that farms can have on soil and soil life holds a huge amount of potential. Not only for limiting the need for inputs on farms, but also for providing healthy food for people. These processes can help keep carbon cycling in our soils which are so often depleted from years of abuse. It is these invisible impacts that are difficult to understand that need to be understood by a consumer that is often so far away from the farm field to know if what they consume comes from dirt or soil. We strive to create a living, vibrant soil by feeding it and caring for it with cover crops, compost and love. Perhpas this is the most important social imact.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Choosing to be a farmer is not a typical descion to make today. In the last one hundred years we have gone from a nation of farmers to about 1-2% farmers. It tooks years of struggle, side hustles, not paying ourselves well, not paying our employees well, relying on grants and voluteers to get the farm off the ground. Raising two kids at the same time always added extra challenges. Farming happens seasonally. You never leave work because work is not a room in your home or an office in the city, but your home instead is in the middle of your work.

But getting to wake up and see the moon set while the sun rises and the sandhill cranes rise from their slumber make it worth it. Bringing beauty to peoples lives and nutrition to their bellies makes it worth it. having been able to actually see the change in the soil over the twenty plus years we have taken care of the farm makes it all worth it. Farming is constant trial and error. You are at the mercy of so many things that are not in your control, the weather, bugs, diseases, weeds, along with the typical challenges of running a business, cash flow that is either full on or full off, employee burnout, capital investments and loans being difficult to fund. But over the years we have learned to work with all of these aspects of our farm. We have acheived a flow state with the farm now. And this would not have happened without amazing customers who value what we do, that in turn allows us to value the employees that make it all happen.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My shoutout goes to the 2 Forks Club out of Carbondale Colorado. They are a philanthropic organization built on the principles of Slow Money, the groundbreaking book by Woody Tasch, about reinvesting money into soil. It is a great read if you do not know it. 2 Forks give out loans to farmers and food entrepreneurs at 0% interest. They focus on young startups and those who a traditional bank loan would be challenging to aquire. We have twice borrowed money to help us get a refridgerated truck and the second time to get lots of equipment for our farm to mechnise our planting and weeding operations. The best part is that as the money is paid back it gets loaned out to another farmer. It was the first one of its kind as it was started by Woody Tasch and Susan Brady among others. We were lucky enought to be the first loan they ever gave. We know dozens of farmers in our area that have been helped by this great organization.

Website: https://www.zephyrosfarmandgarden.com/

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