A Madison County Farm is Bringing Local Hoosiers Back to Their Roots

Remedy Farm, a regenerative organic farm situated outside of Pendleton, Indiana, began with a backyard garden and a refocus on healthy living. Now it’s a full-fledged farm offering choice cuts and farm-fresh eggs.

The first chill of the season hit just as I pulled past the front gate of Remedy Farm back in November. Steve Baney, Farmer-in-Chief, found me among his collection of short barn structures, examining the laying ducks. The air was sharp and thick with the smell of soft, wet earth. We turned to the far end of the field, where sheep grazed the last of the pasture grass in the soft morning light.

“We’re not quite in hay-eating season yet. They’re still eating off the pastures.”

This is where we began our tour of the property in its transition into Winter, with Baney pointing out the dividing lines of their various fields, and giving some background to the characters of his family farm. A friendly-if-partially-blind brown and white farm dog smiled and clung to my hip as we walked the garden rows. Each piece of Remedy Farm had a story. Over ten years into their exploration of regenerative farming, the Baneys seem to be hitting their stride.

BACK TO OUR ROOTS

At the heart of Remedy Farm is a belief in eating healthy, locally, and well. Through years of honing their craft, they’ve established egg routes, cultivated their land, and offered practical education to curious volunteers

“Like for a lot of people, it starts with just how are we going to do this for us,” Baney said, but his real watershed moment came after an early cancer diagnosis in 2011. “I wanted to be changed coming out of that and so that really honed us in on what are we putting in our bodies. growing your own is an affordable health plan, I like to say.”

And so the original concept behind Remedy Farm was born. It’s a story many Hoosiers can identify with, too. With a surge in grocery prices across the country in the past 5 years, more and more Indiana residents are looking for healthy, affordable food options. In 2019, after years of home gardening and involvement in community initiatives, the Baney family bought an old farmhouse and a plot of land.

“We found ourselves kind of this liaison of agriculture in some ways. We found ourselves to be in between suburban, urban, and rural.” Baney said, “And we had all this networking that we established because we decided to get out of our suburban bubble.”

But Steve Baney wasn’t the only member of his family interested in farming. His daughter, Claire Baney, began her fascination alongside her father, participating in the FFA and 4H programs, eventually attending Purdue for Agricultural Economics and Communications. She is now working as a post-graduate Princeton University Fellow in climate finance in Ghana, but she is still very much connected to her family’s farm.

She said, “I think people are yearning to reconnect with foods that support both health and a rich, fulfilling life.”

FOOD FOR THE COMMUNITY

For Remedy Farm, regenerative farming means biodiversity on property. In addition to the free-range chickens (of which they’ve had as many as 400 on property at one time), the Baneys steward 130 laying ducks, six feeder hogs, Katahdin sheep, beehives, a jersey cow, greenhouse, and seasonal raised beds in which they grow their own vegetables. (If you offered Steve a partridge in a pear tree, he’d probably find room). The feed, meat, and eggs that the farm produces are all non-GMO certified organic. 

“A lot of times they start before the sun rises,” Steve said.

For the interested home cook, Remedy Farm sells seasonal cuts of pork, chicken, and lamb at local markets. Their eggs are available at IN Italy in Pendleton and Hoosier Heritage Farm in Noblesville, and they offer home egg delivery to Pendleton and surrounding areas.

FOOD AND FARM EDUCATION

Steve and his wife Cindy keep education at the heart of their farm. Both have a background in education, and in the early days of their interest in regenerative agriculture, they even helped to establish a gardening project in Hamilton Southeastern schools. On their current plot of land near Pendleton, they’ve continued that education through community programming. They invite members of their community on-property for workshops and what they’ve dubbed “Remedy Days.” They also welcome volunteers on property to learn by doing, and Steve is constantly answering and educating when people have questions about what they do.

The workshops the Baneys host all focus on the art of small changes. Claire Baney recommends starting a garden in the back yard or keeping herb plants in the kitchen. The workshops they lead focus on learning through doing, which they hope others will pass on to the community at large.

“Our goal with the farm is to ground that food culture in its local origins,” Claire Baney said, “but ultimately farms like ours can only grow by having people see how their food is connected to it.”

Looking ahead to 2025, the main goal for Remedy Farm is to make nutritious, local food more easily accessible to the everyday person. 

“We want to be that model that people can take ideas from and scale down to fit their lifestyle, ” Steve Baney said.

Among the ideas on Baney’s plate are more workshops year-round, a collective farm stop, and exploring monthly subscriptions beyond the egg route. For more information on the programs and products coming from Remedy Farm in the new year, visit remedyfarmindiana.com