American Family Farmer
383 episodes - English - Latest episode: 17 days ago - ★★★★ - 13 ratingsA weekly look at trends in Family Farming and Healthy Eating.
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Episodes
John Crooke and Stefan Streit talk about their work with Tinicum CSA
July 26, 2017 13:00 - 49 minutes - 45.1 MBTinicum CSA is a partnership between Bucks County native John Crooke and Minnesota native Stefan Streit, who met each other in 2012, while they were both working as CSA apprentices at Sisters Hill Farm in Stanfordville, NY. John grew up sharing the chores with his brothers on his parents’ dairy farm. His interest in vegetable farming began at Cornell University, where he co-managed the student farm at Dilmun Hill. He is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Paraguay, where he worked for th...
NFU's Rob Larew on Biofuels
July 23, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBRob Larew, VP of Public Policy and Communications at the National Farmers Union, talks about NFU’s position on biofuels and Renewable Fuel Standards, as well as the farm economy, rural development, and health care. The National Farmers Union has been working since 1902 to protect and enhance the economic well-being and quality of life for family farmers, ranchers and rural communities through advocating grassroots-driven policy positions adopted by its membership. The U.S. Environmental Prot...
John Wesley Boyd Jr. on the Bayer/Monsanto Merger
July 16, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 48.4 MBJOHN WESLEY BOYD, JR. is the founder and President of the National Black Farmers Association, which he started in 1995. He is a fourth-generation black farmer from Baskerville, Virginia near the town of South Hill, Virginia. He has been chronicled by national media organizations including a Person of the Week profile on ABC World News Tonight, The Washington Post, and Roll Call newspaper which is influential on Capitol Hill. He owns and operates a 300-acre farm where he grows soybean, corn an...
Scott Henry on Millennials in Farming
July 09, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBScott Henry is the Business Development Manager for LongView Farms and is responsible for business growth, process management, and the implementation of precision technology. He is a 27 year old, 4th generation farmer, currently working alongside his parents and the rest of the crew at LongView Farms. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Business, International Agriculture, and Finance from Iowa State University. Prior to joining the LongView Farms team, Scott worked for Summ...
Bob Garver talks WICKED JOE Organic Coffee
July 02, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBBOB GARVER is the founder of Wicked Joe Organic Coffees and is a globally recognized coffee expert and barista Judge. It was while in the service, based in Turkey, that he learned the power of flavorful coffee as the bridge to conversations. He brought his new-found admiration for the powerful bean back to America. On leaving the service he started a coffee shop in Santa Cruz, California. Moving his family to Maine, with his coffee – Wicked Joe was born. WICKED JOE COFFEE is Located in Topsh...
Jim Goodman on replacing NAFTA, not Just Renegotiating it
June 25, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBJIM GOODMAN and his wife Rebecca operate Northwood Farm, a certified organic dairy farm that provides fresh milk to a local cheese producer. They also market beef directly from the farm and at the Dane County Farmers' Market in Madison, WI. Their cows are raised according to organic standards and are predomiantly grass-fed. Jim is also a frequent contributor to National Family Farm Coalition. On april 30th, he wrote: The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) must be replaced with a tr...
Gay Gordon-Byrne talks about the uphill Battle to Repair Tractors
June 18, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBGAY GORDON-BYREN is Executive Director of The Repair Association at repair.org. She was born into a computer geek household and grew up around computer parts and designs. She wanted nothing to do with computers as a kid, but wanted to be a figure skater like Peggy Fleming or an opera singer, but didn’t have the right stuff. REPAIR.ORG believes that every time a farm equipment manufacturer inserts a computerized part into their product – they seem to take that as an opportunity to monopolize ...
Emily Meredith on National Milk Producers Federation
June 11, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBEMILY MEREDITH is the Chief of Staff at the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) in Arlington, VA. Her primary responsibilities lie in the areas of strategic planning, organizational oversight and stakeholder outreach. She also oversees the National Dairy FARM ProgramTM, which assures consumers that milk and other products from American dairy farms are the end result of responsible animal care practices. In supervising the exceptional FARM Program team, she focuses on other education a...
Kevin Skunes on The Crop That Ate America
June 04, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBKEVIN SKUNES is a vice president at the National Corn Growers Association and a fourth-generation farmer outside Arthur, North Dakota. On his 6,000 acres, he currently raises about 55 percent corn, 45 percent soybeans. This constitutes a big change since Skunes was a child in the 1960s. Back then, the farm was about 2,000 acres of wheat, barley, sunflowers and soybeans, with no corn. Farmers who had long rotated plantings among a diverse group of grains are increasingly turning to a single o...
Dannele Peck on how Climate Change Research affects Farmers
May 28, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBDANNELE PECK is Director and Agricultural Economist, USDA ARS Rangeland Resources and Systems Research Unit. Previously, she was an Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Wyoming, where she conducted research, extension, and teaching for 10 years. Her area of expertise is decision-making under risk and uncertainty. Raised on a dairy farm in upstate New York, Dannele is a first-generation college graduate. Her region, which includes Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, N...
Chris Holman on "Full Throttle Agriculture"
May 21, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBCHRIS HOLMAN was born in Oceanside, CA. In 1989, his family moved to the middle of the Navajo Indian Reservation. After high school, he joined the US Army, where he served as an Arabic Linguist. He went on to teach Arabic at the University of Oregon, and eventually left for Wisconsin to work on the farm that he and his wife Maria purchased. Neither of them had ever farmed before 2009. In addition, he has taught at UW-Madison, Madison College and he is currently finishing a two-year contract a...
Michele Payn on her book "Food Truths: From Farm To Table"
May 14, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBMICHELE PAYN is known as one of North America's leading experts in connecting farm and food. Her lifelong passion for agriculture stems from childhood and she has been breeding and judging dairy cattle as a registered Holstein breeder since the age of nine. She now resides on a small central Indiana farm, where she enjoys working on the farm with her daughter. She knows agriculture because she lives agriculture. Payn holds degrees in Agricultural Communications and Animal Science from Michig...
Jolene Brown's Top Ten Mistakes That Break Up A Family Business
May 07, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBJOLENE BROWN, CSP is a real live “FARMER BROWN.” Her corn and soybean farm is in east central Iowa, 40 minutes west of the Mississippi River, on a non-flood year. She also can hypnotize a chicken, plug grain augers and entertain the folks behind the equipment parts counter She has been authoring books and speaking professionally for 25+ years, primarily to agricultural audiences including grass roots farmers & ranchers, their Associations and Corporations. This includes those who produce in ...
Dino Giacomazzi on Dairy Farming in California
April 30, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBDINO GIACOMAZZI is a fourth-generation California dairy farmer, who embodies what it means to have farm responsibly and sustainably, on his 900-acre farm, with 900 dairy cows. He and his family live on the dairy property and oversee all aspects of its operations. And now, their newest crop is almonds. He has become a leader in the community, advocating the benefits of conservation tillage to other dairy farmers. He uses social media channels and hosts demonstrations and field days at his fa...
Pete Kennedy on how the Trans Pacific Partnership will affect farmers
April 23, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBPETE KENNEDY is an attorney in Sarasota, Florida and serves as the president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and vice president of the Farm-to-Consumer Foundation. Pete has worked on raw dairy issues in various States as well as other food distribution aspects including extensive reviews of legislation, particularly food safety and raw milk bills. On April 14, Governor Doug Burgum signed House Bill 1433 (HB 1433), referred to as the North Dakota Food Freedom Act, into law. On ...
Celeste Longacre on growing and storing fresh produce, no matter where you live!
April 16, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBCELESTE LONGACRE lives in Nashua, NH and is a radio personality, author, professional speaker and astrologer for The Old Farmer's Almanac. She is also author of “Visitor’s Guide to The Planet Earth, an Astrological Primer.” Celeste will also be doing gardening, canning, freezing, etc. workshops at her home this summer. Her charts in The Old Farmer’s Almanac are based on the Moon’s sign and shows the best days each month for certain activities, such as: planting crops, pruning, cutting hay, b...
Sally Fallon Morrell on why We Need Animal Fats For Health & Happiness
April 09, 2017 13:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBSALLY FALLON MORELL is someone that I met, several years back, at the “Raw Milk Symposium” in Wisconsin. Her lifelong interest in the subject of nutrition began in the early 1970s when she read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price traveled the world over studying healthy primitive populations and their diets. Sally applied the principles of Dr. Price’s research to the feeding of her own children, and proved for herself that a diet rich in animal fats, and containing the prot...
Food Writer Julie Kelly Talks GMOs
March 22, 2017 13:00 - 53 minutes - 49 MBJULIE KELLY is a cooking instructor, food writer, blogger and a Mom who lives in the Chicago area. In 2015, she got passionate about GMOs. Kelly is a contributing writer to the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Huffington Post, The Hill and other media outlets. While science and farming communicators struggle with how to best educate consumers and the media, organic executives and celebrities are defining the narrative on GMOs. This is not without serious ramifications if we turn away fr...
Mitch Hunter talks about doubling food production by 2050
March 12, 2017 13:00 - 53 minutes - 49 MBMITCH HUNTER is a PhD candidate at Penn State, in agronomy working with Dr. David Mortensen to develop ecologically sound farming systems that are productive, economical, and workable for farmers. He is also pursuing a minor in ecology. His current research focuses on using cover crops to improve cropping system productivity, sustainability, and resilience in the face of challenging climatic conditions. Food production must double by 2050 to feed the world's growing population. This trui...
Eileen Gordon talks about founding BarnRaiser
February 15, 2017 14:00 - 53 minutes - 49 MBEILEEN GORDON is an entrepreneur, farmer and the founder of BARNRAISER, along with business partner and husband, Chef Michael Chiarello. Her journey to sustainable food and farming, as well as passion for kids education, came from her farming family in Northern California, long-time swiss dairy ranchers and now cheesemakers. An indirect path from Apple's education group to the Napa Valley leads to her current obsession with the makers in clean, good food movement, and with giving the next gen...
Barb Shatto talks about the Shatto Milk Company
February 08, 2017 14:00 - 55 minutes - 51.2 MBBARB SHATTO runs the Shatto Milk Company with her husband, Leroy. She grew up on a family farm, and even though she has a Master’s degree in Health Services Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, she always knew that the farm was the place for her. SHATTO MILK COMPANY is a small family-owned and operated dairy farm, with 350 Holstein cows, located just north of the Kansas City metropolitan area. Their family has been farming there for more than 100 years and began a dairy farm ...
Dr. Dickson Despommier on Vertical Farming
February 05, 2017 14:00 - 45 minutes - 41.3 MBDR. DICKSON D. DESPOMMIER is an emeritus professor of microbiology and Public Health at Columbia University. From 1971-2009, he conducted research on intracellular parasitism and taught courses on parasitic diseases, medical ecology and ecology. In recent years, he has received considerable media coverage for his ideas on vertical farming. He developed the concept over a 10-year period with graduate students in a medical ecology class. Despommier is also co-host of three popular podcasts alo...
Robin Way on Organic Farming at Rumbleway Farm
January 29, 2017 14:00 - 45 minutes - 41.2 MBROBIN AND MARK WAY own and operate Rumbleway Farm, a 62 acre certified organic farm located in Cecil County, Maryland. Robin has a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology, and formerly worked in the DuPont Pharaceutical-lab. Mark has a Bachelor of Science, in Biology, and formerly worked for DuPont Pharmaceutical’s - lab research on inflammatory diseases and safety. They have become active and enterprising in diverse agriculture to include aggressive marketing o...
Audra Mulkern on the Female Farmer Project
January 22, 2017 14:00 - 45 minutes - 41.3 MBAUDRA MULKERN is a cook, writer, photographer and a podcaster, who lives in a farming community. She noticed the face of the farmers in her own community was starting to change as more and more women were applying to become interns.Today, she is putting good food in the spotlight and changing the way you look at farming and the food on your plate. THE FEMALE FARMER PROJECT documents the rise of women in agriculture. It is a chronicle of images and stories of female farmers who are tasked wit...
Allen Lash talks AgriSolutions and the FamilyFarms Group
January 15, 2017 14:00 - 45 minutes - 41.2 MBALLEN LASH is President and CEO of AgriSolutions, Inc. and CEO of FamilyFarms Group. He is a widely recognized leader in the area of future agriculture direction, business and management structures, and financial management for agriculture. Mr. Lash was an early leader in the Farm Financial Standards Council, with commodity associations such as the National Pork Producers Council and the Corn and Soybean Association. He was also an early leader of the Northeast Dairy Standards Council group...
Roger Johnson on the National Farmers Union
January 08, 2017 14:00 - 45 minutes - 41.3 MBROGER JOHNSON has been President of The National Farmers Union since 2009. Prior, he was a third-generation family farmer from Turtle Lake, ND, where he also served as North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner since 1996. SOME TALKING POINTS: 1. U.S. farm policy already favors Big Business. Will it get worse under Trump? 2. Ten food trends that will shape 2017 Trend 1: Silicon Valley & Food Trend 2: The Wild West Trend 3: Enhanced Foods: Beyond Brownies Trend 4: Generation Z Trend 5: ...
Meghan Nichols talks High Hopes Farm
December 18, 2016 14:00 - 45 minutes - 41.4 MBMeghan and Ross Nichols are an energetic, hardworking couple who own and operate High Hopes Farm on a beautiful 120ish-acre piece of land in Bristol, Maine. The couple purchased the farm earlier this summer, and already have a small, thriving operation. They both grew up in the area, and didn’t even consider looking at other farms because they knew they wanted to stay in their community. When they bought the farm, Maine Farmland Trust purchased an easement on the property, lowering the cost...
Johnny Fonteyn on Rio Gozo Farm
December 11, 2016 14:00 - 43 minutes - 39.4 MBJohnny Fonteyn is a former chef, and his wife Elizabeth Del Negro, a former educator. They are in their 30’s, and now are full-fime farmers. They started with an 8-acre farm, just north of Los Angeles, in Ojai (PM: O-HI), California, which was formerly a minimum-security prison. Today, they grow vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers on three different farms. The farm is known as Rio Gozo. "Gozo" is Spanish for Joy. The majority of the food they grow supplies Rio Gozo Farm's CSA program; any e...
Tom Hanson talks Hansons Farm
December 07, 2016 17:01 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBHanson's Farm has been a working farm since 1715, farmed for almost 200 years. In 1908, Matthew Hanson got the opportunity to rent the fifty acre farm and loved it, finally purchasing it in 1913 after which it officially became Hanson 19s farm. His grandson Tom eventually took over, and began concentrating on the farm stand and adding things such as upick, hayrides and other things. To bring families to the farm, diversifying has helped to keep the farm going and such things as a horse boardi...
Jana Linderman on the Iowa Farmer's Union
November 07, 2016 15:59 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBJana Linderman is President of The Iowa Farmers Union. She grew up on a family farm in North Dakota and is the 4th generation to work in her family 19s farming operation. As a beginning farmer, she works with her parents raising spring wheat, small grains and non-GMO food-grade soybeans that are direct marketed to processors in Japan. Her long-term goal for the farm is to transition to organic production and start a farm-to-table craft distillery using grains grown on the farm. Since 1915, ...
Sharon Caswell on Pony Up Technologies
November 07, 2016 15:55 - 37 minutes - 34.2 MBSharon Caswell is the founder and CEO of PonyUP Technologies, and has been a life-long horse owner. She currently has two horses and rides as often as possible. Pony Up Technologies was founded on the simple desire to make life better for horses and their handlers. Their products give equine professionals a better way to manage the health and conditioning of their horses. The objective is to bring products to market that are simple to use and yet have a profound and game-changing impact on ...
Kriss Marion on Circle M Market Farm
October 04, 2016 16:39 - 22 minutes - 20.2 MBKriss Marion is a former Easterner and Journalist from Chicago. Kriss and her husband Shannon, own the Circle M Market Farm and B&B, in Lafayette County. She is the founder of her local farmers 19 market in Blanchardville, Wisconsin. Even though Kriss is a first-generation 1cniche 1d farmers, she always vowed she 19d never do a farmers 19 market. She got into farming because she liked playing in the dirt. Her dream revolved around shepherding animals, growing plants, shaping the landscape an...
Marc Santucci on Saving the Cherry Crop
October 04, 2016 16:37 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBMarc Santucci is the owner of Santucci Farm, in Travers City, MI. He says a Federal Regulation has forced him to let 40-thousand perfectly-good tart cherries go to waste. There is nothing wrong with the cherries, but the regulation requires him to dump them, to allow the import of 200-million pounds of cherries from overseas. Santucci said that tart cherries imported from Turkey and Eastern Europe have made up increasingly larger portions of the market, and limiting the amount of domestic che...
Ethan Farrell talks Sunset Farm
October 04, 2016 16:35 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBThe Farrell Family has transformed Sunset Farm into a local icon in Narragansett. It is the last of its kind in the south-end of Narragansett, being the last working farm in the area. The Farrell Family works pasturing a herd of 100 head of Black Angus beef cattle, born and raised right on the farm. Sunset Farm prides itself on the fact that their beef cattle never leave the state of Rhode Island. Sunset Farm also grows a wide variety of produce in their fields located behind the Historic Kin...
Mark Schneider on Living Water Farms
August 17, 2016 17:21 - 37 minutes - 34.3 MBMark Schneider is a former firefighter who turned full-time grower after he helped his in-laws, Kevin and Denise Kilgus, convert their truck farming operation into Living Water Farms. He is now President and CEO of the farm. LIVING WATER FARMS is owned and operated by the Kilgus/Schneider families. It is a small sustainable family farm, focused on growing the highest quality specialty greens and micro greens year round for top chefs, select distributors, and local retail throughout the Midwe...
Vernon Seipt on Freddy Hill Farms
August 17, 2016 17:18 - 36 minutes - 33.2 MBFreddy Hill Farms began as a dairy store in 1972. The milk is processed and packaged right on the farm, and then sold in the dairy store. To complement the dairy sales, dipped ice cream is also offered to customers. After learning how to make their own ice cream at Penn State University's creamery, the Seipts expanded their ice cream offerings and began making ice cream cakes. The ice cream sales soon outgrew the small space and a full, sit down ice cream parlor was built in 1988. The partne...
Stacy and Tenzin Botsford on the 5-State Family Farm Leadership Program
July 29, 2016 17:07 - 36 minutes - 33.5 MBStacy and Tenzin Botsford are first generation farmers who are dedicated to the idea that caring for the land and growing high quality organic food can be mutually beneficial for the farm, the farmer, and the community. Their goal was to regain their relationship to the land and to the food that we eat, while helping to revitalize small farms in Central Wisconsin. This summer, they are embarking on a new adventure as they represent Wisconsin Farmers Union in the Farmers Union Enterprises (FU...
Roger Allison on the Missouri Rural Crisis Center
July 18, 2016 14:59 - 37 minutes - 33.9 MBRoger Allison and Rhonda Perry raise cattle and grain on his farm in rural Missouri. He is also the founder and Executive Director of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center and Patchwork Family Farms. The Missouri Rural Crisis Center (MRCC) is a statewide farm and rural membership organization founded in 1985 with over 5600 member families. Their mission is to preserve family farms, promote stewardship of the land and environmental integrity and strive for economic and social justice by building u...
Jesus Cuezzi on Mentoring Young Farmers
July 18, 2016 14:57 - 16 minutes - 14.9 MBJesus Cuezzi grew up in Waukegan, IL and was introduced to farming after his junior year in high school. He applied for a summer job with the Green Youth Farm, in Lake County, and worked with 25 other teenagers, planting, maintaining and harvesting the produce in this 1.5 acre plot. He returned to the farm for a second season, but this time as a crew leader. This is when his aptitude for farming skills and teaching others really took off. Through his work at the farm he was able to come out o...
Andrea Hazzard and the Hazzard Free Farm
July 18, 2016 14:55 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBAndrea Hazzard grew up on the family farm. She remembered as a child, the wooden bins of grain in the barn and in the loft of the corn crib, the heavy, silken feeling of them as you thrust your arm in, the dust in the air as the sun streamed through the window. She would go to the corn crib with her grandfather Earl Hazzard and choose a few ears of corn, shell them in the sunshine then trundle across the yard and down to the basement. Grandpa would get the hand crank grinder out and they woul...
Timothy Gertson on growing Organic Corn
July 18, 2016 14:54 - 34 minutes - 31.3 MBTimothy Gertson is a farmer, on the Gulf Coast of Texas,with five generations of rice farming in his family. His 2,000 acres at G5 Farms are dictated by dollars, and in 2016, he 19s found a profit window in organic corn. Agriculture is in his blood. Yet even for a man with years of experience under his belt, the shift from conventional to organic agriculture was a veritable obstacle course. And he 19s only growing one crop. G5 Farms has gained full organic certification, but Gertson says the...
Linley Dixon talks organics and Adobe House Farm
June 22, 2016 15:50 - 36 minutes - 33.2 MBIn August of 2010, Peter and Linley Dixon moved to Durango with their daughter Raina to start an organic farm, Adobe House Farm, with the mission of providing year-round, pesticide free fruits and vegetables. With help from friends and family, they built a four-season greenhouse, installed fencing, irrigation, and two hoop houses. They sold produce at the Durango Farmers Market, wholesale, and offered a 13-member CSA. Throughout the 2011-2012 winter they grew greens in the greenhouse and tu...
Michael Harrison on creating the American Family Farmer
June 22, 2016 15:47 - 35 minutes - 32.8 MBMichael Harrison is the owner and publisher of Talkers Magazine, which was launched in Summer 1990. It 19 s headquarters is in Springfield, Massachusetts. He has been called a maverick in the world of radio broadcasting, in addition to being a weathered trade journalist, Michael has been at the center of many of radio 19s most exciting revolutions. Doug and Michael talk about creating the show together and discuss the importance of having a voice for farmers on the radio.
Melissa Tashjain on Composting
June 14, 2016 13:10 - 34 minutes - 31.1 MBMelissa Tashjain is an 1cOrganics Diversion Enthusiast. 1d When she was young, she would travel from Chicago to her parent 19s house in the suburbs, so that she could recycle cans and bottles. Today, with her diplomas from high school and 1cThe School of Hard Knocks, 1d she is the owner of Compost Crusader, LLC, in Milwaukee, WI She used funds from a planned kitchen rebuild to purchase a front-loading dump truck to expand the business. COMPOST CRUSADER, LLC BEGAN IN 2009, WITH THE GOAL OF ...
Brett Tolley on the connections between Family Fisherpeople and Family Farmers
June 14, 2016 13:07 - 37 minutes - 34.2 MBBrett Tolley is the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance 19s community organizer. He comes from a four-generation commercial fishing family out of Cape Cod, MA. He has worked in the fishing industry hanging nets, crewing boats of various gear-types, and commercially shellfishing. Bret says that 1cLocal fishermen and fishing communities are disproportionately left out of the policy decisions that impact their lives. This undermines our coastal communities, the health of the ocean, access to hea...
Ken Dunn talks Urban Composting, Recycling and Urban Farming in Chicago
June 14, 2016 13:04 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBSince 1972, Ken Dunn has run a nonprofit organization called the Resource Center, and for 17 years one branch of the center held the contract for removing manure from the stables used by the Chicago Police Department. Dunn kept the contract for so long not because it paid off particularly well but because it helped bolster another of the Resource Center 19s main activities, making compost. The center uses restaurant kitchen trimmings, waste materials from landscaping companies, and other natu...
Tom Driscoll on Conservation and Climate Change
June 10, 2016 13:49 - 36 minutes - 33.3 MBTom Driscoll is the National Farmer 19s Union 19s director of conservation policy and education. He started with NFU as a government relations representative in August 2014, and assumed the role of director of conservation policy and education in April 2016. He works to ensure family farmers, beginning farmers and youth involved in the organization have the educational resources they need to succeed through market and environmental changes. He also represents their interests on energy, climat...
Renee Randall talks Willow Ridge Organic Farm
June 10, 2016 13:47 - 37 minutes - 34.7 MBRenee Randall visited with us last year. She is a woman farmer (farmess is not a word). The earliest agriculturalists were women, and even now, in many parts of the world, women are the ones who plant, tend and harvest. She started out studying nutrition, and 1974, with three children in tow and help from her friends, she moved from the heart of Chicago and became Farmer Renee, farming organically for the past 41 years. Willow Ridge Organic Farm sits on top of a ridge, a thousand feet above...
Lindsey Lusher Shute on the National Young Farmers Coalition
May 23, 2016 17:09 - 38 minutes - 35 MBLindsey Lusher Shute is Executive Director of the National Young Farmers Coalition. She is a leading advocate for independent and sustainable farms. As a young farmer herself, she is acutely aware of the challenges that young and beginning farmers face. With a background in organizing and state policy, Lindsey co-founded NYFC. In its first five years, NYFC has engaged tens of thousands of farmers in policy action; galvanized the land trust community around farmland affordability; and organize...
Terry Spence on the Socially Responsible Agricultural Project
May 23, 2016 17:07 - 38 minutes - 34.9 MBTerry Spence is the second-generation owner and operator of the 400 acre family farm where he was born, raised, and then raised his own family. Since its inception, this northeast Missouri farm has been involved in poultry, swine, sheep, cattle, and dairy cow operations. These days, Terry and his family concentrate solely on beef cattle, a cow- calf operation. For the past 20 years, Terry has dedicated his free time to issues of importance to all family farmers. At the local level, Terry co...