My Mission is Simple

WHO IS SAM SHELTON?

I was raised on a cattle farm in rural Arkansas since 1990 where my parents' (you might recognize them from the front page) still operate to this day. That’s where I learned the two (2) rules every farmer knows: 

1. Hard work matters

2. Your word means everything

After receiving my Master's degree from the University of Arkansas in Poultry Nutrition and Animal Welfare, I joined the USDA as an Agricultural Commodity Grader, moving from Table Shell Egg to Red Meat Grading, and eventually into 15+ years of regulatory compliance. I’ve worked inside USDA & FDA regulated multi-species operations where I’ve been the inspector, and the producer. After years in regulatory compliance, I realized something simple:

Producers aren’t the problem. Consumers aren’t the problem.

There are two (2) missing links:

1. Connection

2. Education

So I built Indigo Agri Connections, LLC (IAC) as a place where farmers can sell direct without losing profit to middlemen and where families can finally meet the people who raise their food. 

WHAT IS IAC?

Indigo Agri Connections was created to solve a problem I saw firsthand — local producers have the product, families want real food… but the two often never meet.

Most consumers want to support local agriculture, but they don’t know where to find it, how it’s produced, or who they’re buying from. Meanwhile, many small producers don’t have the tools, time, or outreach to connect with customers directly.

So I built IAC as an educational bridge, a platform to teach families where food really comes from, empower producers with visibility, and rebuild trust through transparency and traceability. Not a middleman. Not a broker.

A connection point. A bridge. A ladder back to the land.