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Your Field Guide

News, Explainers, and Articles About Food, Farming, and the Politics of Land

Here you'll find big and small picture info on all things related to food and farming - terminology, definitions, and the intricacies of raising pigs and the challenges of producing lab grown meat.

If you're interested in the more personal side of Cairncrest Farm, head over to the How We Farm page.

From the Ground Up

  • Terminology

    A useful guide to words commonly used in pasture based farming.

    Pasture Terminology

  • Grass Fed Basics

    If you're new to the world of grass fed and pastured meat, this is a great place to start.

    Grass Fed Basics

  • Grass Fed vs. Pastured

    Two common terms with important differences.

    Grass Fed vs. Pastured

Deep Dives

  • Grass Fed Chicken

    If someone claims to raise grass fed chicken, you should be skeptical.

    Grass Fed Chicken

  • Reasons to Doubt Lab Grown Meat

    In the past decade there's been immense hype about lab grown meat. So why isn't it in stores yet?

    Lab Grown Meat

The Latest From the Farm

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  • Google Comes for Us All

    Google Comes for Us All

    Digital life often feels far less regulated than the real world, mostly because people are so rude when talking through screens. The single most notable quality of online discourse, something...

    Garth Brown |

  • Beyond Meat Failing and the Future of Fake Meat

    Beyond Meat Failing and the Future of Fake Meat

    When it comes to fake meat there are two flavors of skepticism. The first is an instinctive and powerful distrust of something so unnatural and a consequent grasp for anything...

    Garth Brown |

  • Dealing with Scammers

    Dealing with Scammers

    “We are having a birthday party for my mother, and I would like to order 100 pounds of ground beef. I will arrange for a truck to come pick it...

    Garth Brown |

  • We Can't Remake the Past

    We Can't Remake the Past

    I’ve come to believe that quite a lot of our ideas about how the world should be effervesce from a sort of cosmic gumbo of influences: media, our friends, world...

    Garth Brown |

  • Dam Season

    Dam Season

    Earlier this spring I predicted 2025 would be the year of children building forts. Though time may yet prove me correct, the early signs are not promising. Despite a flurry...

    Garth Brown |

  • The Self-Sufficiency Trap

    The Self-Sufficiency Trap

    A recent essay by Mike Riggs in the Washington Post caught my eye. In it the author describes his family’s move from Philadelphia to a few acres in North Carolina,...

    Garth Brown |

  • Heading Out

    Heading Out

    In the morning haze I saw a deer bounding through my neighbor’s wheat. The way it arced up out of the rippling green reminded me of nothing so much as...

    Garth Brown |

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