Little Farm Builds Community Around Local Food
Published 8:02 pm Thursday, October 1, 2026
For Renee Cleveland and Ryan Goolsby, Little Farm Association is about more than delivering groceries. It’s about knowing where your food comes from — and knowing the people who produced it.
Cleveland, co-owner of Little Farm Association, came to Missouri from Montana in 2018. She was looking for a place where she could grow her own food, support local agriculture and, as she puts it, get away from Montana winters.
“I was tired of winter,” Cleveland said.
Ryan had a similar story. Originally from Alaska, he and his brother moved to Missouri about 11 years ago when their family purchased a farm.
The family tried selling produce through a roadside stand and farmers market, but making a small farm work financially wasn’t easy. They eventually opened a farm-to-table restaurant and market along Highway 60.
That lasted about three years before COVID helped bring the restaurant chapter to an end.
But the idea behind it didn’t disappear.
Cleveland and Ryan started looking for another way to connect local farmers with customers without operating a restaurant. That eventually became Little Farm Store, launched in 2022.
They started small. Really small.
Ryan made the first deliveries with about 30 members and only a few thousand dollars in the business checking account.
Today, Little Farm Association has grown to more than 400 members and connects customers with locally produced meat, vegetables, baked goods, and other food.
The organization is based on the family property near Mansfield but serves a much larger part of the Ozarks. Its service area stretches from Mountain Grove to Springfield, Nixa and Ozark, along with Hartville, Marshfield and Ava.
There isn’t a traditional grocery storefront.
Instead, members shop online, choosing products from participating farmers, ranchers, bakers and other local food producers. Orders can then be delivered to homes or workplaces within participating communities or picked up at designated locations.
Cleveland said transparency is a big part of what they do.
“We want people to have the choice and know 100% where their food’s coming from,” she said.
Products remain tied to the farmer or producer who made them. Little Farm provides the online marketplace and helps get those products into customers’ hands.
That means customers can learn where their food was grown or raised, how it was produced and what went into it.
“A lot of it does end up being organic and regenerative,” Cleveland said. “We’ll work with any farm, but we’re just very clear with our members about where that comes from.”
The typical customer, she said, is someone who cares about healthy food and wants a closer connection to the people producing it.
But Cleveland said the bigger goal goes beyond groceries.
Little Farm Association also holds gatherings designed to bring members and producers together. Cleveland wants customers to know their farmers, farmers to know one another and neighbors to build relationships around local food.
That mission is especially important in smaller Ozarks communities where grocery choices can be limited.
“We really want to offer people an alternative to Walmart and Dollar General, especially in the rural spaces,” Cleveland said.
And when customers spend their grocery dollars with area farmers and food producers, she said, more of that money stays close to home.
“When you bring the dollars home to the farmers, they get to spend that money locally,” Cleveland said. “It really helps create or support a thriving local economy.”
For Cleveland, that brings Little Farm Association back to what started the whole thing — good food, local farms and stronger communities.
“It’s not just about peddling good food to people,” she said. “It’s about trying to connect the community and using food as a way to do that.”
Little Farm Association can be found online at littlefarms. store and on Facebook and Instagram under Little Farm Association. More information is also available by calling 417-929-1338.
