Farm Choice grew from a lifetime around agricultureāand a belief that good farming should work today while caring for the land that comes next.
Early morning on the Liskey family farmPhil Liskey grew up around farming in Harrisonburg and founded Farm Choice in 1987 after years working in feed and farm supply. He built the business from the ground up around animal nutrition, practical products and personal help.
Farming has remained part of Phil's life alongside the store. On the family farm, his interests extend beyond day-to-day production to conservation, energy efficiency, wildlife habitat and the long-term care of working farmland.
That experience gives Farm Choice a perspective that is difficult to separate from Phil himself: agriculture is not an abstract product category. It is something he continues to practice, study and share with other people.
Phil with his granddaughter.
For Phil, conservation is practical farm management: protecting resources, improving efficiency and creating a farm that can keep working for future generations.
The scenes below are from the Liskey family farm, including the walking path around the farmās riparian buffer.
Sunset on the Liskey family farm.
Phil has installed solar at Farm Choice and on the farm, including solar serving the poultry operation. He also looks for practical ways to reduce energy use, including strategic tree plantings around poultry houses to help shelter them from wind.
Phil walking the path around the farmās riparian buffer.
The farm includes a riparian buffer and rotational grazing practices. Phil enjoys walking the property and showing visitors how changes in farm management can protect the land while encouraging wildlife habitat.
Cattle and the family barn on the Liskey farm.
The farm remains active, including livestock and poultry. The family barn has also been renovated and remains part of family lifeāa reminder that preserving a farm can mean keeping it useful rather than freezing it in time.
Phil also shares what he has learned with students and visitors to the farm, discussing practices such as rotational grazing, riparian buffers, poultry-house efficiency and solar energy.
He has also shared his experience with agricultural and solar audiences. In 2022, the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley and Virginia Cooperative Extension identified Phil as a farmer presenter in workshops about incorporating solar into agricultural operations. That same year, a Shenandoah County solar review committee visited both Farm Choice and Phil's poultry operation to see working solar installations firsthand.
Phil with his son-in-law and granddaughter on the family farm.
One idea ties much of Phil's work together: a family only has the opportunity to care for a piece of land for a relatively short part of its history.
The goal is not simply to use the farm today, but to hand productive land and a living agricultural story to the generations that follow. Phil and his family are also researching the history of the property and hope to document the people who farmed the land before them.
Caring for a working farm also means thinking about the generations that will come after us.
Farm Choice serves farmers, livestock owners, horse owners, pet owners and other customers looking for farm and country supplies in Harrisonburg.