From the first, Rick Hood operated a vegetable farm on his 27 acres. As time went on, he worked to integrate new enterprises, capturing synergy with each additional endeavor. Hood added grain crops and began raising 15 acres of barley, wheat and soybeans. The new cash crops also provided straw to mulch the vegetables - about 6 acres of potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli and asparagus. Then he began raising laying chickens, which provided a new commodity - eggs - while consuming vegetable scraps and providing fertilizer. Bees provided better pollination of the vegetables and yet another commodity in honey.

A certified organic farmer, Hood employs cover crops and windbreaks and provides habitat for beneficial insects. His chickens move across pasture in a "tractor," and many of his vegetables start earlier or end later thanks to two high tunnel structures. A regular contributor to his local natural foods cooperative, Hood served as a long-time board member of the Maryland Food and Farming Association, a state organic growers cooperative and as president of his county's farmers markets.