Our Story

Our History

Jonathan and Kaylyn Cobb steward land that has been farmed by Jonathan’s family for over 100 years. His great-grandfather first farmed the land as a sharecropper. When his father was a child, the farm was an integrated system of grain crop rotations and multi-species animals. As time went on, farmers were sold on the promises of industrial agriculture. Our farm became like many other farms, using large equipment and many inputs to harvest monocultures of corn, cotton, wheat and sorghum. Jonathan and his siblings had all moved off the farm, obtained degrees, and worked other jobs. We moved back to the farm out of our desire to continue the family farm, but after five years realized something needed to change.

Catalysts for Change

Faith - We realized that as Christians, we were not farming in accordance with our values. If we believe God created the earth and we want to glorify Him, we should steward creation. Our actions should regenerate the earth, bring healing, and promote life. We were farming the opposite of this. Health/Nutrition - Through our own health problems, we began to learn about health and nutrition through food. We became aware of the problems that plague our conventional food system and how it is affecting our wellbeing. We realized that we didn’t want to eat the things we were producing on our farm. Broken System - Three of the five years after we moved back to the farm were some of the worst Jonathan’s father had experienced despite being considered “good” farmers in our county. We were facing a seemingly endless treadmill of adding more and more inputs with little to no improved results.

New Hope

At the time, these realizations led us to believe that we had to leave the farm because we didn’t know of another way. Then, by God’s grace, our house wouldn’t sell. In the meantime of waiting to be able to move, we were exposed to Holistic Management and the foundations of soil health. In 2013, we formed Green Fields Farm and embarked on a journey to regenerate our land.