Terrill Esposito raises Animal Welfare Approved laying hens and dairy goats in Loganville, Georgia. Terrill grew up helping her friends on their family farms, but it wasn’t until 2004 that she established Legacy Alpaca Farm outside Atlanta. Ten years earlier, she saw a tiny ad in the back of a magazine on an airplane for the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association and began amassing books, articles and knowledge about raising these South American fiber animals.

In October 2009, Judith McKenna and Richard Barker bought 12 Palms Farm in Cocoa, Florida, 45 miles from Orlando on the East coast of the state. Their property, which had been a horse farm, required months of work clearing pastures and fixing fences before Judith and Richard began the slow business of starting a farm. First, they added a small flock of chickens with the intention of collecting eggs for their own consumption. After some research, they decided that goats would be a great addition to their farm and they added Nubian and Nigerian dairy goats to their 3.5 acre property.

Ralph Hayes has been farming most of his life on his third generation farm in central Alabama. Fifteen years ago, Ralph began raising goats, which were smaller and easier to handle than the cattle he and his family were accustomed to. Finding a market for his goat milk used to be his biggest challenge, but now, his partnership with Deborah Stone at Stone Hollow Farmstead allows him to focus on caring for and milking the animals, while Deborah makes farmstead goat cheese with his milk and markets it under the Stone Hollow Farmstead label.

Stone Hollow Farmstead was founded by Deborah and Russell Stone in 1999 in Harpersville, AL. The Stone family comes from a long line of Alabama gardeners and farmers, who share their history in all facets of the farmstead. Lessons learned from Deborah’s grandparents, who ran a sustainable farm and grocery store, are evident in the jars of rose petal jam, the hillside of happy goats, hives of the honeybees, and the heirloom vegetable gardens.

Elton Sermons’s mother and father were farmers. Both of their parents were farmers. So farming is in his blood. He raises Animal Welfare Approved Boer cross bred goats, which are raised for their meat, rather than milk production on about 10 acres of pasture on his farm in southern Georgia.

Indian Creek Angus is a collaboration between a lifelong, third-generation cattleman, Dennis Barron, and a former environmental studies professor, Carol Corbin. Bringing together their passions and expertise, Dennis and Carol, along with the fourth generation farming Barron, Denny, who joined the family business in 2010, raise Angus cattle with respect and care. They believe that cattle should be bred and raised with high-welfare practices, in a natural and low-stress environment.

After careers in the hardware and real estate businesses, Jim Wood began breeding show pigs in Southeast Florida just a quarter of a mile from the dairy where he’d grown up in Avon Park, Florida. Jim’s plans for his pig operation changed drastically in 2004 when he was invited to an event at the University of Florida where he tasted pastured pork next to conventionally raised pork. The differences were extreme and led him to leave show pig breeding behind in order to find the best breed for meat quality. After tasting more than a dozen breeds and crosses, he decided on the Hereford breed for its superior meat quality. They have required, however, genetic selection for mothering ability and heat tolerance. After 12 years of researching and raising pigs, Palmetto Creek Farms LLC now produces some of the most consistent, highest quality pastured pork available according to many top chefs in Florida.

Adam Grady raises Animal Welfare Approved pastured hogs in coastal North Carolina. He has been farming for 15 years, raising tobacco, cotton, corn, soybeans, and small grains, among other crops. He currently has 40 sows, and the largest herd of registered Berkshires in North Carolina.

James West can’t be positive what year his family farm was established, but he knows that his family came to eastern North Carolina between 1740 and 1750 and has been there ever since. James helped his father and grandfather raise hogs and cows on the family farm where he was born and raised. Now, after almost a 20 year break, James is raising pigs and growing watermelons on that same land in Kinston, North Carolina.

After relocating to Alabama from Gulfport, MS in 2007 following Hurricane Katrina, Cricket and Kim began farming just one acre with the intention of producing enough food for their family to be self-sufficient. When they realized their little acre was producing far more than they could eat, the Adams started selling their excess produce at farmers markets. Now, they are growing produce on 10 acres and raising their AWA-certified laying hens on 16 acres of pasture for local farmers’ markets, stores and their CSA.