Murray Provine
Murray Provine is new to the agricultural world. He spend his professional life in the major appliance business starting with the old Westinghouse Corporation, then moved to White Consolidated Industries where he became a regional sales manager before becoming an independent retailer when he purchased a small neighborhood retail appliance store in Atlanta.
He quickly realized that he needed more purchase power to compete with the mega retailer like Sears, Lowes and Home Depot. So he started a independent dealer buying group with eight other independent dealers in Georgia. From that beginning he grew the organization into a national buying group doing over a billion dollars a year in purchase volume.
Upon retiring from the buying group Provine and his wife Angela were suffering the typical health challenges that come along with aging bodies. Their conclusion was that their challenges were the result of a lifetime consumption of the wrong foods. Those same foods advocated by the American Standard Diet which low are in saturated fats and high in carbohydrates that convert to sugar and cause of most of the chronic diseases we face today. Saturated fat is not the problem.
The Provine’s then decided to convert their 110 acre horse farm into a farm that would provide the proper foods required for better health. They wanted their farm to b their pharmacy.
And they wanted their farm to be economically sustainable.
In pursuit of economic sustainability Provine discovered that the American small farmer has similar disadvantage as neighborhood appliance and TV dealers. The big players in the market created a competitive environment that makes it difficult for the small farmer to be sustainable and make a profit.
In the appliance business the solution was for the independents to ban together and combine their purchase volume to buy better then provide better service to the customer. Provine concluded that the solution for the small farmer is to reduce cost and inputs and produce superior products and sell them directly to the consumer and build an ongoing relationship with their customers.
That led to a study of sustainable agriculture and Intensive grazing of cattle. Along the way Provine learned that he could improve the farms soil without fertilizer and pesticides and that allows the amebic life in the soil to grow. The life in the soil sucks carbon from the atmosphere and returns it to the soil and promotes growth of more forage. As the result the farm now has 170 head of cows on our farm thanks to our consultation with Allen Williams who has been our friend and mentor through this four year experience.
