No personal connection at all. I cold called around. My local farmers markets publish a guide of local farmers. [1]
I just put together a spreadsheet with all the farms within 50 miles and visited a few websites/made a few calls. Some farmers had already sold their beef for the season, others weren't grass fed, etc. Eventually I narrowed the candidate pool down to two or three and asked if I could come see their farms. One farmer said no, so I went with one of the others.
"the market garden" is a book that has inspired younger generations to go back to farming. I know some small scale farms making 100k a year in Portugal. Quite a nice book.
A couple summers back, I went to a state park in rural Indiana, where there was a working farm set up to resemble historical 1920s Midwestern life. The farm and its farmhouse were almost completely deserted except for myself, and I remember being struck by the fact that there was a large amount of homegrown produce for sale in the house completely on an honor system. Just a pile of squash on a kitchen table with a sign indicating price and a glass jar with money in it. It was a small thing, but it was great to see that that was possible, and it felt good for me to join in.
https://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/food/farm-to-fable/fa...
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