Comment by fellowniusmonk

I have a buddy who runs a very large and super crunchy co-op.

He's been doing it decades now, after the first 4-5 years he dropped all his small holding farmers are good and honest talk.

Verify, always verify. It's easy to tell simple and wrong stories if you neglect verification. You want someone to be honest, have a track record of verification and contracts to back it up.