Podcasts about young farmers conference

AFB President Zippy Duvall joins us on the AgCast discussing his trip to Alabama during the recent Young Farmers Conference held in Birmingham.Be sure to check out Alabama Ag Credit and Alabama Farmers Federation.

HRN’s Katy Keiffer and Lisa Held are joined by food media all stars Kate Cox of The New Food Economy and Tom Philpott and Maddie Oatman of Mother Jones. They talked about their highlights from the Young Farmers Conference and share stories from the heart of the food world.The holiday season is all about food and community. There’s no better time to show your support for food radio by becoming a member! Lend your voice and help HRN continue to spreading the message of equitable, sustainable, and delicious food – together, we can change minds and build a better food system. Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate  today to become a crucial part of the HRN community.HRN On Tour is powered by Simplecast.

Lisa Held spoke with three farmers from three different parts of the country about forging your own path and experimenting with crops. David Bohlen is the owner of Bohlen Family Farms in Florissant, Missouri. He is working with seed savers to and plant breeders to cultivate the best produce his region has to offer. Jovan Sage is the founder of Sage’s Larder, where she uses edible plants for medicinal purposes, she and is also a part of the team at Gilliard Farms which is an African American Georgia Centennially organic farm. She shared stories about growing in a tropical climate and building community through food. Germaine Jenkins is the Chief Farm Officer at Fresh Future Farm in North Charleston, South Carolina. Her community farm makes delicious produce once plentiful in the region, like bananas, available to city dwellers. She spoke about the importance of urban farms to supplying fresh nutritious produce to residents of urban food deserts.The holiday season is all about food and community. There’s no better time to show your support for food radio by becoming a member! Lend your voice and help HRN continue to spreading the message of equitable, sustainable, and delicious food – together, we can change minds and build a better food system. Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate  today to become a crucial part of the HRN community.HRN On Tour is powered by Simplecast.

In this episode, Katy Keiffer sat down with Caitlin Arnold who is the National Chapter Manager at the Young Farmers Coalition. They spoke about the work that the Coalition does to empower farmers and connect them with useful resources to strengthen their businesses and ease the burden that Student Loan debt can have on the new generation of American farmers.The holiday season is all about food and community. There’s no better time to show your support for food radio by becoming a member! Lend your voice and help HRN continue to spreading the message of equitable, sustainable, and delicious food – together, we can change minds and build a better food system. Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate  today to become a crucial part of the HRN community.HRN On Tour is powered by Simplecast.

Lisa Held spoke with Ariana Taylor-Stanley is the co-owner of Here We Are Farm in Trumansburg, NY. Their conversation focused on the resources available to young farmers through advocacy groups like the National Association of Sustainable Agriculture and the young Farmers Coalition.The holiday season is all about food and community. There’s no better time to show your support for food radio by becoming a member! Lend your voice and help HRN continue to spreading the message of equitable, sustainable, and delicious food – together, we can change minds and build a better food system. Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate  today to become a crucial part of the HRN community.HRN On Tour is powered by Simplecast.

Katy Keiffer sits down with Anthony Myint, food industry veteran and founder of ZeroFoodprint about that organizations work with restaurants and their diners to invest in soil health in an effort to take powerful climate solution. Together with the state of California, ZeroFoodprint is enlisting those who eat to help revitalize our soil by contributing one percent of the cost of their meal to support carbon farming.The holiday season is all about food and community. There’s no better time to show your support for food radio by becoming a member! Lend your voice and help HRN continue to spreading the message of equitable, sustainable, and delicious food – together, we can change minds and build a better food system. Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate  today to become a crucial part of the HRN community.HRN On Tour is powered by Simplecast.

In this episode, Lisa Held speaks with Connor Stedman and Christine Su. Stedman is an ecological designer at the regenerative design consultancy, Terra Genesis International. His areas of expertise include agroecology and carbon farming. Su is similarly rooted in the worlds of carbon farming and regenerative agriculture. As the CEO and co-founder of PastureMap, she is the brains behind the company’s regenerative grazing practices. The three discuss climate change issues and the impact that data and agro economics will have on the future of carbon farming.The holiday season is all about food and community. There’s no better time to show your support for food radio by becoming a member! Lend your voice and help HRN continue to spreading the message of equitable, sustainable, and delicious food – together, we can change minds and build a better food system. Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate  today to become a crucial part of the HRN community.HRN On Tour is powered by Simplecast.

Dr. Karin Schutz talks on milk production possibly being affected by the heat, Michael Kneebone wraps the Karaka sales, Sean Plunket discusses a possible 'red meat tax' and we look at the well-being of young farmers as the Young Farmers Conference is on in Riccarton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At a time when the average age of the American farmer is approaching 60, the future of the food system depends on growing and supporting the next generation of growers. In this special season finale episode of the Farm Report, host Lisa Held sits down with four young farmers during the 2018 Young Farmers Conference at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. From Davon Goodwin, a United States Army veteran who was wounded in action and turned to farming in North Carolina for healing, to Ana Elisa Perez, who practices agroecology to restore soil and build food sovereignty on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, they share their unique experiences as young farmers and the knowledge they want to pass on to other young people considering taking up farming as a profession. The Farm Report is powered by Simplecast Photo Credit: Katrin Björk

CLASSES & RESOURCES IN NYC GrowNYC’s Farm Beginnings — a comprehensive agricultural training program developed for new farmers by the people who run the Greenmarket. Designed for a people looking to start farm enterprises, including urban farmers looking to scale-up and second career farm entrepreneurs.   Brooklyn Grange hosts a whole range of workshops and classes for rooftop farmers. If a full roof installation process is more than you want to take on, their Design and Installation arm will build you your very own backyard or terrace garden, rooftop farm, or green wall.  Just Food’s Farm School NYC  — urban agriculture training through a certificate program and a wide range of individual courses from social justice to urban farming to grassroots community organizing. Mission: to build self-reliant communities and inspire positive local action around food access and social, economic, and racial justice issues.  Green Roofs for Healthy Cities  — training towards certification in green roof and wall installation. Eagle Street Farm — Greenpoint. This rooftop farm welcomes visitors from second graders to graduate students to learn about sky-high agriculture.  Cornell Cooperative Extension  — free gardening and farming support run by NYS with offices in every single county – including Manhattan. Offering everything from soil testing to 20c processing licenses.  HUDSON VALLEY INTERNSHIPS AND INCUBATORS Stone Barns’ Growing Farmers Initiative  — Westchester. Comprehensive program to help beginning farmers get the training, resources and guidance to create economically and ecologically resilient farm enterprises. Offers apprenticeships, a virtual grange, workshops on everything from beekeeping to seed saving, and an annual Young Farmers Conference which draws hundreds of beginning farmers from across the country and beyond.  Glynwood’s Farm Incubator  — Cold Spring. Provides the tools and resources aspiring agricultural entrepreneurs need to develop and manage viable farm enterprises in the Hudson Valley. Provides access to land, housing, shared equipment, infrastructure, low-interest capital, business mentoring and training in sustainable farming practices. RESOURCES & NON-PROFITS SUPPORTING NEW FARMERS Cornell’s Beginning Farmers Program  — a comprehensive clearing house of resources, internships, job postings and land opportunities. Northeast Organic Farming Association  — This seven-state non-profit teaches, certifies and supports organic farms. Their semi-annual conferences offer sessions on everything from raw milk to fermentation to homesteading, complete with contra dancing and camping.  The Greenhorns  — A unique resource helping young people make the transition into a career of farming. Provides information about everything from where to find an apprenticeship to how to repair a tractor. Complete with mentor matchmaker.   National Young Farmers Coalition  — represents, mobilizes, and engages young farmers. Supports practices and policies to sustain young, independent and prosperous farmers now and in the future. Co-founded by an ex-Manhattanite who now grows organic vegetables in the Hudson.  Richard Wiswall’s The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook  — widely-prized bible on the business end of running a farm. Expert advice on how to make your vegetable production more efficient and how to better manage your employees and finances. The USDA’s (great) new website for new farmers  — Yes, even the USDA is focusing on new farmers. This site offers in-depth information on how to increase access to land and capital, build new market opportunities, participate in conservation opportunities, select and use risk management tools, and access USDA education and technical-support  American Farmland Trust: Transitioning Farmland to a New Generation  — This longtime, stalwart non-profit is bringing its forces to bear for new farmers, offering everything from training to land links as well as targeted offerings for women landowners and conservation.

New Yorkers' interest in where their food comes from and how it is raised has led to a robust farmers' market system, a growing interest in communty gardens and backyard enterprises like raising chickens and keeping bees, and a surprising number of urbanites who are ditching their pots of basil on their fire escape to become farmers. While there’s not what you’d call a mass exodus from New York City, there is a perceptible upward trend in the number of people wanting to learn more about agriculture.  With the number of farmers nationwide in decline, support programs are cropping up to help in that transition: Just Food runs Farm School NYC, the Stone Barns Center in Westchester County runs farmer training programs and hosts an annual sold-out Young Farmers Conference, and a growing number of other non-profits help new farmers find everything they need to take root — from land to capital to customers.  Closer to home, Chris Wayne runs FARMroots, the new farmer development program at GrowNYC, the non-profit that manages New York City's Greenmarkets program. In their offices on Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan, they offer a USDA-funded, 10-week training class that Wayne said begins with a reality check: “Can you spend 16 hours in 95 degree heat, working your tail off, for very little money?  That's the first question.”   The question is intended to knock the stars out of people's eyes and get them to start thinking more realistically about farming.  But Wayne said dreaming is still necessary, and is encouraged. "One of the first things we have [students] do," said Wayne, "is look deep into their own values: Why are they interested in starting a farm business, and what's going to be that core, central piece that they can look back on at Hour 15 on their farm, and say  'This is why I'm doing this, this is why this is important to me.'" Once you figure the why, Wayne said it's time to consider the what, the produce or product sector that you want to get into. What are you interested in growing, or raising? Wayne said people often come to the class already inspired by a vegetable or fruit that they had success with in their community or backyard gardens.   What skills do you already have that you could utilize?  Wayne explained that farming requires "an incredibly wide range of skills," from welding to marketing plans to graphic design work for that perfect label that's going to sell your pickled green beans.  "You may not be coming to agriculture with a production skill, but there's probably a lot of other things that you don't realize, other skills and experiences that you already have, that are going to play into a successful farm business."  Is there a niche you can fill with your farm product?  Wayne said beginning farmers can do their own market research.  "What do you see when you walk through a farmer's market?  Are there some products there that are lacking? What's one of the things that you can't seem to find?" This Farm Beginnings course takes beginning farmers from mission statement to financial plan to marketing plan.  But it’s not all Excel spreadsheets. Wayne said it's also important for aspiring farmers to get out of the classroom and into the field.  He said farmers in the Northeast are increasingly accepting interns and apprentices who can earn a small stipend and learn on the job.  He said he believes that kind of experience, under the tutelage of an experience farmer, is essential in learning the "true art of agriculture." "I always say, if I decided tomorrow that i wanted to be an electrician, would I walk into a house the next day, after reading a couple books, and try to set up a house with electricity? Of course not.  The same is true with agriculture."  Wayne said that at the end of the course, if participants decide they want to keep their office day job after all, he considers that as much of a success as helping to launch a Future Farmer.  "We really want folks who are devoted to this to get out into farms," he said. Check out our Farm School Resources Page for more farming classes, literature about starting a farm and organizations that connect aspiring farmers with internship opportunities.

On this week’s episode of Greenhorn Radio, Severine interviews Tom Stearns of High Mowing Organic Seeds in the field from the 2009 Young Farmers’ Conference.