Shawn and Beth Dougherty have been farming together since the 1980’s, for the last twenty years in eastern Ohio, where their home farm is 27 acres designated by the state as ‘not suitable for agriculture’. Using sunlight, rainfall, and intensive grazing as the primary sources of food energy, they raise dairy and beef cows, sheep, farm-fed hogs, and a variety of poultry, producing most of the food, and feed, on the farm.
Concerned that farming is so often dependent upon multiple off-farm resources, from feed, fuel and fertilizer to water and electricity, their ongoing project is to identify and test the means by which farming was done for centuries with a minimum of off-farm inputs.
Their research has led them to identify grass conversion, especially the daily conversion of grass into milk by dairy ruminants, as a key to whole-farm sustainability, combined with the integrated nutrient feed-backs that are possible with a community of diverse animal and plant species, domestic and native.
They are the authors of The Independent Farmstead, Chelsea Green Press 2016.
Shawn and Beth write a regular column for Plain Value magazine as well as articles for Hobby Farms, Mother Earth News, Grit, and other publications
They can be seen on Video through The New Polity, Justin Rhodes, The Living Web, The School of Traditional Skills, Homesteaders of America as well as heard on numerous podcasts.
Shawn and Beth are Founding Board members of the Healing Land Conference and Shawn serves as a member of the Jefferson County Soil and Water District Board
They speak around the country on sustainable agriculture at a variety of venues including Homesteaders of America, The Modern Homestead Conference, The Rory Feek Homestead Festival, The Ozark Homesteading Expo, The Healing Land, The Alaska Homestead Expo, Homestead Heritage Conference, Horse Progress Days, and the West Virginia Homestead Conference.
They consult with Hiram College in the development of campus farm programs