Having had learned a great deal about commercial farming while pursuing my BS in Animal Sciences at Virginia Tech, I was exposed to how many large scale ag industries operated. I’ve visited huge factories, slaughter facilities, and many production farms. I have to admit, by the time I earned my degree, I was rather put-off by the agriculture industry. I pursued my biotech goals while working at th
e USDA in Beltsville, MD. Yes, I have Genetically Modified MANY organisms! I continued into a Masters program at Johns Hopkins in Bioinformatics, but it drew me further away from the animal sciences. At that time, I was newly married to my husband Tony who was starting up his construction company, AJ DeLuca Contractors. I was pregnant with my first son, and decided to leave the biotech world to raise our little boy and help with my husband’s business. As time marched on, we found ourselves with some land where we could operate the construction business and have a small farm. We started out with some vegetables and chickens, and then came baby #2! After that, I became very, very ill. It took years, but I was finally diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Once diagnosed, I hit the books and the internet to find out how this disease works. Upon my findings were research papers from France & Canada on GMO’s (can’t research them here in the USA). The more I investigated, the madder I got. That was it for us. We focused all our attention on growing and running our small farm to raise food naturally for us and our community. That was the start of Dorsey Crossroads! It is my personal belief that GMO’s are pushing nature and our economy out of equilibrium. It is taking its toll on essential biodiversity, our soils, and our health. Animals don’t grow in a day, and rarely need antibiotics if you haven’t asked them to do something they weren’t meant to do. Yes, it’s a lot more work, time, and money to raise slow food, but in the midst of all that is wrong with our food industry, we know it’s the right thing to do.
