our story
Research has shown that we are losing about 175 acres per hour of agricultural land to developments, which is a scary 3 acres per minute (according to modernfarmer.com). And once these precious lands are bulldozed and paved that agricultural land is gone forever. This is sadly causing family farms to be wiped out of existence in America and our access to local healthy food to be more scarce. Our local family farms are being replaced or losing business to large agribusinesses that are raising food in unnatural conditions with pesticides, antibiotics, GMOs, preservatives and more. And unfortunately these were the foods that were easily accessable and that we were buying at our local grocery store. And after much research we began to learn and believe these foods were linked to many health diseases and cancers.
We especially learned this in 2010 when one of our closest friends was diagnosed with cancer at a very young age of 25. Through his two-year battle we became educated about our current food system. We quickly changed our lifestyle to a more clean and organic diet and being more aware of what was in our food. But we wanted to be even more in control in knowing how our food is raised and more transparent with what were consuming so Josh started raising chickens in our backyard and he started working on farms part time. The passion for raising animals grew and that is where Josh’s passion really was. And once we learned we were going to be parents we really evaluated our life and we wanted to adjust our lifestyle so our kids would grown up in a more traditional farm setting and learning the importance of where food comes from. Josh’s passion for raising animals along with Felicia’s business background and our drive to want a different lifestyle for our health and kids is what drove us to establish DaSilva Farm in 2015. We wanted to make a difference, even if it small, in our family and our community and we haven’t looked back since!