River Taw Farms is home and work to our Farm and Office managers, who both live beside the farm. Charles Jones, or “Charlie” as he prefers to be called, our farm manager, has lived and worked on this land for over 30 years. Charlie, born in Kings Mountain, NC, started as a farm hand at Cedar Lake Farm, and demonstrated such a level of dedication and commitment to raising Black Angus beef, to our farm, and to our community, that he was very quickly promoted to farm manager. He is an expert in low stress animal husbandry and has worked with Black Angus his whole career. We are also proud to have Charlie’s son, Travis Jones working for us as our Head Herdsman. Travis has been a wonderful addition to the farm, with his eager attitude and parent like concern for our animals. Our Office Manager, Maria Zimmerley, is a transplant from Minnesota, and has shown great passion for raising healthy, local, pasture fed beef. She keeps our books, records, and sales in order, and serves as a liaison with our certifying agencies. Our three farm laborers are; Clint Black, a young man excited to learn about natural farming. He has taken to his role as Travis’ apprentice like a fish to water. Allen Sturgill, our groundskeeper, who has shown us that all it takes to keep our farm looking like a country club is a good attitude and a little elbow grease! Terry Smith, our all around help, is our newest addition, and has already proven himself to be a great asset. Jennifer Starnes is our horse trainer. Her patience, caring and horsemanship are helping us to rehabilitate retired Thoroughbred race horses that would have been slaughtered, but thanks to her will someday be great trail riding horses, and in the future, mothers to a generation of affordable show horses.
Our team operates the farm in an ethical and principled way and we are all really proud to work at River Taw Farms. We plan to run this farm for years to come as a humane, ecologically friendly, sustainable farm that will produce healthy, great tasting grassfed beef for sale directly to local consumers.
Our name is inspired by a river and its surrounding moorlands in Devon, England. The River Taw rises at Taw Head, a spring on the central northern flanks of The Dartmoor National Park. It reaches the Bristol Channel 45 miles away on the north coast of Devon at a joint estuary mouth which it shares with the River Torridge.