(NPR) - In a big grass pasture in the shadow of Mount Rainier in Washington state, hundreds of chickens crowd around a little house where they can get water and shelter from the bald eagles circling overhead. This is the original location of Wilcox Family Farms, an egg farm that also has locations in Oregon and Montana.

Jim Wilcox says his farm didn't always look like this, but over the past 20 years, his customers both at small, upscale grocery stores and at big chains like Costco started asking a lot of questions. They wanted to know whether Wilcox farms were good stewards of the land. Whether they had a good carbon footprint.