Our Mission Statement:
We are dedicated to the promotion, preservation and production to the American Buffalo.
~ ~ ~
Brush Creek Farm is located in rural southwest Virginia near the foothills of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Purchased in 1990 by Jim & Jan Politis from Jan's great aunt, the farm has been in the family for over 100 years. The land borders Brush Creek where the Native Americans once hunted and camped, evidenced by the arrowheads found along the banks. We have black bear, beavers, bobcats, and occasional eagles, hawks, blue heron and many other wild birds that inhabit the land. We wanted to preserve this beauty, so in 1999 we put our land into conservation easement. We are also listed on the Virginia Wildlife and Birding Trail. www.dgif.state.va.us/vbwt, trail name: Sweet Mountain Laurel
Brush Creek Farm was established in 1992. We bought chickens, some pigs and bottle fed Holstein calves and started a vegetable garden. We needed something to generate an income for the farm. We kept the chickens and the garden.
In 1993 organic farming was just beginning to catch on in agriculture. We wanted to try to find an animal or crop that would grow on our very hilly land. The idea of American buffalo came from an article about the healthy benefits of the meat. Buffalo were also raised naturally?no hormones, antibiotics or steroids. Because they were not yet "domesticated", buffalo did not have to be vaccinated for the usual cattle diseases. At the time we bought our first animals, there were about 150,000 buffalo in North American, now there are over 500,000. Most of these are on private farms like ours. We started with 10 cows and one bull in October, 1993.
Our mission statement says it all. We are raising buffalo to promote the health benefits of the meat, educate our community about the history and connection to the Native Americans and preserving the only bovine native to North America. Over the years we have hosted powwows, local school students, girl scouts, agriculture classes and VA Tech veterinary students to teach them about this amazing animal.
We opened a store in "downtown Riner" in March,1995 to sell the buffalo meat. We also had a small grill to cook the meat so that people could taste it before they bought it. The store soon evolved into a restaurant that also sold the buffalo meat. Our only red meat on the menu was buffalo, but we also served some chicken for those too "chicken" to try it.
In June, 2007 we sold the restaurant. We wanted to take our focus back to raising the buffalo and expanding our meat market and bringing visitors back to the farm. We are working on converting part of a building on the farm into a store to retail our meat.
