Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alli Kelley. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Alli, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

The mission of Longbourn Farm has always been to help individuals making food feel confident in the kitchen and comfortable in the grocery store.

I became really passionate about helping consumers understand farming and farming practices during my undergraduate and graduate degree, both focused in Ag, and that is the backbone of my business.

When consumers understand how the food they eat is produced, they can make decisions rooted in facts, not fear. Fear within and about our food system doesn’t facilitate productive changes, it actually limits them. Misinformation creates a lot of privilege within the food system that inevitably leaves the most vulnerable populations hungry.

My firm belief is that when we understand the facts of food production, we no longer need to yell at everyone about what the “best” diet or food production system is. We can all make choices from a variety of food production systems that provide food at a variety of price points that work for everyone.

I want to feed hungry people, whether that is at my own table, in my own community, or in the world.

Alli, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

While I didn’t grow up in agriculture, I have always wanted to live on a farm. I begged to ride horses at a young age and did that obsessively until I graduated high school and had to sell my horse to pay for college tuition. I studied Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Science during my undergraduate education with a focus on Biotechnology. I worked in animal cloning labs all during my undergrad and learned a lot about how biotechnology can pair with agriculture to help feed a hungry world.

I completed a Master’s degree in ruminant nutrition and wasn’t able to go to work in the industry upon graduation. I was able to purchase a double-wide on very run-down farm on 5 acres, a dream come true. After a few years of staying home and starting a family, I felt like I was going to go crazy. I also desperately needed to be earning income. I still didn’t have the option to move so I could work in industry so I made the best of what I had – 5 very neglected acres. I started my blog as a way to share what I knew about agriculture with anyone who would listen. I was excruciatingly horrible at blogging when I started. I had no mentor and at the time, information online about it was very limited.

After a lot of failure and trial and error and working odd jobs at night while my babies slept to fund my business, I earned my first paycheck. I figured out that while not many people (at the time) were searching for small acreage management tips or information about raising chickens, they were searching for recipes. That is how the food blog aspect of my business was born – I needed to make money.

Over the years I have been able to restore more small acreage properties and that is now where my messaging focuses, along with food blogging. I am a small-farm restoration and management expert, a garden-building aficionado, and a food blogger. As more rural areas become urbanized, I want to help maintain the spirit of the West and Agriculture by providing the correct information about Ag, livestock management, and land management for the small farmer. This ties in with my main mission of inviting consumers into Ag spaces to experience it firsthand, instead of being scared by what they read online.

We can’t feed the world with victory gardens, but we can maintain strong rural communities with them. We can’t solve hunger in our communities year-round with local food, but we can meet some needs. This is what I hope to be a part of building with my business.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I first started my business, I had no extra funds. I had negative funds. Even though I had a master’s degree, there were no jobs nearby that matched my skill set and I wasn’t able to move to find work. So I took night and weekend shifts at a local feedstore as a cashier. It felt humiliating at the time. I lived in a small town and everyone knew me and my education. I felt like a complete failure. After a few months, I figured out that I could teach English online to children in China for more money, especially since I had a master’s degree. The pay was scaled by education level, regardless of the topic. So I taught English 5 or 6 days a week from 3am-6am (when my kids woke up). They were 3 years old and 6 months old.

I didn’t realize at the time I was struggling with very bad postpartum depression but I knew I was struggling. I also knew a lot of my stress came from my tight financial situation. I had no choice but to earn money with this business, my hands were tied for other options. A few months later, I earned enough with my business to quit teaching English and focus solely on my business.

That same year, I opened a credit card and started a U-Pick CSA garden at my house on the back empty acre. I built a self-watering 25-raised-bed garden pumpkin patch, and berry patch in 2 months and started enough seeds to feed 10 families. I got families in my community to sign up for a full or half share and had everyone come pick their produce and watch a cooking demo every Monday. The CSA was open from May until October. While I dug those garden boxes, I also dug myself out of my hole of depression. My business had quite literally saved me and provided not only for my kids but enough for me to pay for therapy and get the mental health help I needed.

While I’ve gotten so many things wrong with my business and it’s not nearly as successful as many others in my niche, I’m proud of what I created and fought through.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lot of the rhetoric online when I was starting my business was along the lines of “here’s how I made six figures in a month!” and I naively thought that if I followed all of that advice, I could do the same. While there were a lot of people busting out into the blogging scene with wild success, I was not one of them.

A lesson I had to unlearn was that overnight successes are rare. Most of the time, it’s a slow burn. Especially if you don’t know what you’re doing when you start out. I have never had massive spikes or moments of success. I’ve never had a viral moment. My business grows slowly. More quickly now that I have more resources and better understanding of what I need to do to be successful, but still slow and steady.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://longbournfarm.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallikelley
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/longbournfarm
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alliwindleykelley/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/theallikelley
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIx7bUN8UVADxo4gDjqhAtQ

Image Credits
All images are by me except the image with the chicken and the image with the sheep. Those are by Sherry Renee Photography.