We started in 1988 with 5 tillable acres and a dream. A dream that people can really change the world they live in!

My wife Chris and I were two recently married city kids with children of our own about to embark on a dream I had since gardening in my parent’s tiny backyard.

Our dream was to smell the fresh country air, see the stars fill the darkened night sky, have animals of all sorts around for our kids to grow up with and more than anything else grow food ourselves. Food that we knew was grown with love and care for the soil and earth. Food that would be free of dangerous chemicals because it never made sense to us why anyone would spray poisons on the food they would eat. Food that would allow our children to grow up strong and healthy.

Having lived that dream I now dream of filling as many homes as I can with the same lovingly-grown food I raised my own family on. Come join us!

Fair Harvest

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Lady Moon Farms was the first farm to join the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) which was started to provide pickers with a little more money. This movement was viewed unfavorably by the large tomato growers despite the fact that it cost the growers nothing — it’s paid for by distributors/food service companies such as Whole Foods, Taco Bell and Burger King. It was only after the distributors & food service companies demanded it that the other holdouts joined. Simply put, the holdouts saw it as a unionized movement and one that was adversarial.

Our participation in the movement made the national wire:

“But perhaps the most important breakthrough of the 2008-2009 season came in June 2009, when Whole Foods announced that it had secured the cooperation of two of Florida’s largest organic growers — Alderman Farms and Lady Moon Farms — to implement its agreement with the CIW, effectively breaking the stalemate established nearly two seasons earlier by FTGE resistance.”

From Whole Foods Press Release:
“The Campaign for Fair Food is bearing fruit, said Lucas Benitez of the CIW. For nearly two seasons, the Campaign’ promise of fair wages for Florida’s farm workers has been held hostage by the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange. Today, however, the higher wages and fairer conditions we have fought for will begin to reach the workers who so clearly deserve them, thanks to the leadership of Whole Foods Market and the forward thinking growers at Alderman Farms and Lady Moon Farms.”

Year Round Employment

Until 1999 we were strictly a Pennsylvania-based farm and we could only employ our pickers for a limited portion of the year — there weren’t many vegetables to pick in the winter and spring.

In 1999 Lady Moon Farms began farming in Florida and transformed the lives of many of our pickers. We move our pickers from PA to FL or GA to continue with their jobs. Because of this, Lady Moon Farms has had a positive impact on their families.