A Little History
We are John and Lisa, owners of Little Shire Farm. We began our love for raising our own food as children with our hands in black Nebraska soil. Lisa had always worked in plant nursery and horticulture. In 2000, John traveled to Norway to study Agroecology and worked on Fukhol Gard (Farm) in Stange, NO. After arriving back in the states, we began our own farm market and CSA enterprise in Lincoln, NE and renewed our love for growing.
Over the past two decades we have worked with numerous gifted farmers in several states, helping develop community gardens, farmers markets, and even a new farmer training site. After several years of remodeling an acreage in rural Brookings County, in 2016 we decided that it was time to start our journey back into what we love the most...sustainable agriculture. We are now growing on 5 acres, with 1,900 square foot in our greenhouses.
In 2017, we started our infused honey venture with a great reviews, evolving into multiple flavors in over a dozen stores. You can order yours in our online shop, or give us a call for wholesale inquiries.
In 2022, we will have an additional hoophouse, seedstart bunker, and well on our way to having our very own commercial kitchen. Lisa will also be venturing further in beeswax products, and John has started working with his collection of bean seed. Carl and John have started working with distilling, and working on a meadery to be located in our commercial kitchen. Our goal is by 2024, we will have a commercial kitchen, on-farm market, and a bit of agri-tourism.
Our goal: be the most diverse small scale agriculture system in the region...and a consistent reservoir of genetic diversity. In the face of monoculture that surrounds us, we hope that we are a shining light of what agriculture should be. Our Markets include Farmers' Markets in Downtown Brookings, Sioux Falls Falls Park, and the Lake Lorraine Farmers Market, as well as wholesale to several restaurants and stores.
