Doing Food, the Right Way By Libby Hopkins
Travis Malloy isn’t your typical farmer. He doesn’t have a farming background. He’s actually an electrical engineer, but he got very interested in farming 12 years ago and now he owns and operates TrailBale Farm in Temple Terrace. “I became interested in farming about 12 years ago because I liked the idea of making food right out of the ground and I think local food is very important,” said Malloy. TrailBale Farm is definitely a family-owned and operated local, small farm. Malloy let his son create the name of their farm. “I wasn’t coming up with anything good to name our farm, but my 5-year-old son came up with a good name, which was TrailBale,” Malloy said. “We had trails going through our woods and they had bales of hay on them, so he put the two things together and came up with the name.”
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Since people nowadays are becoming more interested in how and where their food is being grown, Malloy wanted to offer the Temple Terrace community a resource for healthy, organic food. He wanted to give them the opportunity to meet their food’s producers, all while shopping local. He created the Temple Terrace Farmers’ Market. “Keeping things local is super important and I think we should be able to find what we
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are looking for locally. I started the market because I wanted to give local producers an outlet to sell their items and for people to be able to shop locally.” With Trailbale Farm, Malloy wanted to have a place where he could do farming the right way. “We are trying very hard to do what I think is the right way to do farming,” Malloy said. “There really isn’t any redeeming qualities with the current food situation. Food is being produced in factories, which is terrible for the environment, for the people working in the factories and the animals. We are trying to do it the right way and make it good for all who are involved.” “The chickens, turkeys, sheep and pigs are put on grass and we move them around all the time, so they have fresh grass, plants and bugs,” Malloy said. “The health of the animal and the health of the soil are very important to me.” Processing is also very important to Malloy. “We have a small farm license so we can process the animals right on our farm.” Having healthy soil is one of the first steps agriculture. According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s website (www. farmers.gov/conserve/soil-health), “Healthy soil is the founWWW.INTHEFIELDMAGAZINE.COM