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Welcome to Ararat Farm!
Ararat Farm is a family farm, owned by Mike and Ginger Watson and
operated/managed by their son and his wife Matt and Lauren. We are
located in the mountains of Lee Co Va and are dedicated to raising the
healthiest, best-tasting grass-fed beef, pastured pork, and other meats
that you can find! We practice holistic management so that we can better
steward all life on our farm, from the microbes under the soil to the
animals eating the grass. All of our meat is raised without any hormones
or antibiotics. This is due to the management that we use which
prevents the animals from getting ill in the first place. That way they
don’t require the crutch of medications in order to thrive. We welcome
our customers to come visit the farm and see how their food is raised!
It is our desire to connect hungry people with healthy animals.
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History of Farm
Ararat Farm has been in the Watson family for over 100 years. It was not originally called Ararat Farm until Mike and Ginger became owners and their son Matt became manager. The name Ararat came from the mountain in which God rested Noah's Ark in Genesis 8 of the Bible "and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat" vs. 4. The way in which the farm had been managed kept the fields from producing at their optimum performance. Through the use of intensive mob grazing the fields have recovered beautifully and continue to improve each season.
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Management Improvements
Over the years the farm management exhausted the growth through
conventional methods of growing cattle, corn, and tobacco. Our
management improvements began with a multi-species layered rotational
grazing model taught by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm. As our focus
became more strictly cattle and pigs, we began moving towards
mob-stocked intensive grazing as taught by Greg Judy and Jim Gerrish. We
intensified our management and broadened our gaze by implementing some
of the holistic management practices taught by Ian Mitchell-Innes. This
has brought us tremendous growth and excitement and we are looking
forward to tweaking our management and learning more to improve the
land.
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Thriving Farm
Because of the tremendous blessing of learning and applying so many
management techniques, Ararat Farm is truly thriving. In 2018, our grass
growth was better than even when Mike was growing up. Due to the
rotational grazing and rapid regrowth, the fields replenish quickly and
continue to provide enough grass for multiple grazing throughout one
year. Through proper management and using the animals to work with the
land, the farm continues to improve which makes the animals thrive.