Jim and Nancy Gardiner

Chenango County, New York

Sparks and manure flew when Jim Gardiner met Nancy at the Rhode Island State Fair. They were 16 years old, and she was showing horses, while he had a steer in the championship class. They've come a long way since then to their 300 acre grass-based dairy in the New York State's Leatherstocking region, where rolling hills blanket a healthy mix of grasses and legumes.

"We really came into organics from the top down," says Nancy Gardiner. "We were top New England producers in the conventional market for years and had a lot of dusty plaques and an empty check book to show for it. They keep preaching to you in all the magazines that it's all about production, production, production. When we ran out of money for all the fertilizer we were putting on the crops and all the medicine for the cows, we started questioning that formula."

They had a lot of health problems, too, including three miscarriages—and affording health insurance was out of the question. When a friend from church suggested they check out alternative health care options, Nancy jumped on the opportunity. "Within a few months, we felt better than we had in years."

"Then it dawned on me: if these things work on us, wouldn't they work on the cows?"

They did.

"We realized that there had to be a connection between what we were doing, and how it was affecting our health. Before Jim's Dad (who also farmed conventionally) died of cancer at age 45, he kept saying there's got to be a better way."