Meet the Farmers
The first commercial bison farm in West Virginia, Riffle Farms was born from a love of animals and working with nature to regenerate and restore the land. Riffle Farms is run by Liz Riffle with help from her husband, Jimmie, and her brother-in-law, Jeremy, who they hired as the farm manager. Liz and Jimmie met while serving in the US Navy Nurse Corps in Bethesda, Maryland in 2010. After being stationed from coast-to-coast, they finally landed back in Jimmie’s home state of West Virginia, where they decided to embark on their shared dream of starting a regenerative and holistically-managed bison farm.
An experienced equestrian, Liz grew up riding and competing as a Hunter Jumper. Her love for horses transferred to a love of all animals, and a greater appreciation and passion for stewarding the land. Liz is now a US Navy Nurse Corps veteran while Jimmie remains on active duty with the Navy Nurse Corps stationed in eastern Virginia. Liz’s nursing background led to her interest in the role bison can play in a healthy, natural diet.
“Bison meat has less fat than beef, salmon, and chicken! It’s Mother Nature’s superfood for the carnivore. Bone broth made from bison has been noted to be possibly curative by Indigenous populations for centuries,” says Liz.
Riffle Farms is committed to promoting honest, sustainable meat beyond their bison farm. Liz also runs a sister company called The Honest Carnivore, a West Virginia Meat Collective. It operates as part of the national Good Meat Project network, which aims to increase transparency in the meat industry through butchery classes and creative marketing strategies for ranchers. Liz is also a board member of Future Harvest Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture and a regional representative for the National Bison Association (NBA). Riffle Farms regularly partners with their local Savory Hub, The Robinia Institute.
Regenerative & Sustainable Practices
Riffle Farms is committed to raising honest, transparent, and sustainable meat. Their practices are aligned with the principles of regenerative agriculture, and include:
- Only purchasing grass-fed animals and raising bison 100% grass-fed and finished without the addition of synthetic inputs. Bison roam the land and are rotated every few days to maintain soil balance across the pasture land.
- Emphasizing animal welfare and cultivating peaceful, natural conditions for their animals up until the very end of their lives, when they are field harvested.
- Sharing information on regenerative agriculture and the extensive history of how bison shaped the land ecology.
- Testing soils on a rotational basis for soil fertility and maximum nutritional quality.
- Maintaining native plants and grasses, and tracking the biodiversity of plants, birds, bees, insects, and other beneficial species in partnership with the Robinia Institute and Metamorphic Ecological Research and Consulting.
