Just 15 minutes from Columbia lies the Cedar Creek Community in Blythewood. Here, Ben and his wife Kristen, along with their two girls, are working to make buying local much easier for you and me. You see, Ben is a thinker and a planner. He has spent over ten years working with sustainable agriculture and local food retail, and when he moved onto a plot of land that his family had lived and farmed on for over 200 years, he decided to put all his ideas into action. Five Leaves Farm is a working CSA which produces fruits and vegetables in season for share holders. And while that may sound like some kind of corporate venture, the CSA system allows for consumers to actually better their own stake in the food chain by granting the farmer the economic stability to produce more quality crops.

Recently Ben and Kristen have been working to conduct their farming practices based on the idea of permaculture. It sounds progressive, but permaculture dates way back to the days before single-crop subsidies, monoculture and factory farms. Permaculture is the use of the land for a variety of crops and animals that functions as its own regulatory cycle. Permaculture also allows the farmer to use little to no inputs, such as hard labor, pesticides and fertillizers. The crops and the animals do it for them! And, of course this method is environmentally friendly. In fact, one of the ways that Ben and Kristen keep the soil fertilized is through the use of compost and a cover crop (clover) as natural fertilizers and barriers to erosion. The DuBards also practice terrace farming which utilizes the slope and curve of the land in such a way that crops can prosper without degrading and eroding the soil.

Five Leaves Farm is owned and run by Ben and Kristen DuBard, as well as their daughters Rose and Ella.