Our Mission
Why Buy Hoosier Exists
We built Buy Hoosier on a simple belief: Indiana farmers deserve Indiana customers.
Indiana is one of the most productive agricultural states in the country. Farms here raise some of the best beef, pork, poultry, honey, and produce you'll ever eat. The problem is that most of it ends up traveling hundreds or thousands of miles before it reaches a consumer, even when that consumer lives 30 minutes away from where it was raised.
Buy Hoosier is a grassroots directory, not a government program, not a corporate platform, not another subscription service. It's a simple, searchable list of Indiana farmers who sell directly to the public. Find a farm near you. Reach out. Buy direct.
No fees to list. No commission on sales. No algorithm deciding which farms you see. Just Indiana farmers and Indiana consumers, connected.
The Problem
Most people don't know they can buy directly from a farm.
Ask most Indiana consumers where their beef comes from and they'll say “the grocery store.” Ask if they know there might be a cattle farm selling whole, half, or quarter beef shares an hour from where they live, and most have never considered it.
That's not a failure of interest. It's a failure of awareness. The infrastructure to connect farmers with consumers has historically favored large distributors and grocery chains, not the small family farm that doesn't have a marketing budget.
The result is that most Indiana consumers pay more for food that traveled farther, while Indiana farmers struggle to find the customers who are right in their backyard and would happily pay a fair price for something raised honestly.
Buy Hoosier is our attempt to fix that. A free, permanent home on the internet for Indiana farms that sell direct, so that the next time a family in Indianapolis wants grass-fed beef, they know exactly where to look.
Indiana Agriculture
Indiana feeds the world. It can feed Indiana too.
92
Indiana counties
Every one of them has farms worth knowing.
~59,000
farms in Indiana
One of the most agriculturally diverse states in the nation.
#1
in duck production
Indiana leads the nation in ducks. And it's top 10 in hogs, corn, and soybeans.
~$14B
in annual ag output
But most Indiana consumers never see a dollar of that go to a local farmer.
* Statistics are approximate. Sources: USDA NASS Indiana, Indiana State Department of Agriculture.
Part of Something Bigger
The direct-farm movement is growing.
Across the country, consumers are waking up to the idea that food doesn't have to come from a warehouse. Movements like The Beef Initiative have shown that there's real demand for direct relationships between farmers and the people who eat their food, and that those relationships, when they work, are good for everyone.
Buy Hoosier is Indiana's version of that movement. We believe Indiana has the farms, the farmers, and the consumers to make direct-to-table agriculture a normal way of eating here, not a niche practice for a small slice of the population.
If you're an Indiana farmer, we want your farm in this directory. If you're an Indiana consumer, we want to help you find your farmer. That's it. That's the whole mission.