“Enter the world of sun, soil, rain and feed to find out where food comes from.” These words introduced Gold Medal’s Classroom’s Meet the Growers column, which celebrates its two-year anniversary this month.

In the intervening years, Meet the Growers has featured farmers, ranchers and growers of products from fruits to proteins to bees. Understanding the beginning of the food cycle and educating culinary instructors about the knowledge and care taken to grow food has been the column’s goal since its inception.

As the main writer of these articles, one thing has become increasingly clear to me with each new farmer I interview. Farmers and chefs are very similar. Both groups work very hard and long hours to produce food that tastes very good, is beautiful and can be enjoyed by as many people as possible. Feeding the world is the shared goal of a chef and farmer.

Take a look back at the first farmers who began this endeavor of understanding the complete food cycle. Click here to read stories about raspberry farmer Rob Dhaliwal, avocado producer Rick Shade, pear farmer Ray Schmitten, and prune producer Ray Schmitten.