Greenhorns Radio (Heritage Radio Network)

Based in Kentucky and North Carolina, Sara Day Evans works through Accelerating Appalachia to advance the regenerative economy for North America's most diverse foodshed: the Appalachian region. She's a program developer, social entrepreneur, and living bridge who for over 20 years has delivered powerful impact through strong leadership, creativity, and collaboration. Launching Accelerating Appalachia was borne out of a variety of circumstances: a natural evolution of her ongoing commitment to people, place and prosperity in Appalachia; conversations with leaders in social enterprise and impact investing, the natural abundance and beauty of Appalachia; her connection to place as a 6th generation Kentuckian; her service to distressed communities in Appalachia to help rebuild the loss of their furniture, textile, and farming economies while with the NC Department of Commerce; her impactful work with Kentucky's Environmental Protection Cabinet; and the deep influence of her longtime Kentucky friends, bell hooks and Wendell Berry, and her activist, physicist parents and inspiring children. A hydrogeologist, community planner, entrepreneur, former truck driver, waitress, maid, and woodworker, Sara Day is also an accomplished musician, writer and poet.

Until his retirement last summer, Russ Cohen’s “day job” was serving as the Rivers Advocate for the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Ecological Restoration, where he had worked since 1988, and where one of his areas of expertise was riparian vegetation. Now Russ has more time to pursue his passionate avocation, which is connecting to nature via his taste buds. He is an expert forager and the author of Wild Plants I Have Known…and Eaten, published in 2004 by the Essex County Greenbelt Association and now in its sixth printing. Mr. Cohen has been teaching foraging since 1974 and conducts over three dozen foraging walks and talks each year at a wide variety of venues throughout the Northeast. In addition, since his retirement, Russ is aspiring to become a “Johnny Appleseed” of sorts for native edible plants: collecting wild edible seeds and nuts for propagating and planting, and assisting and partnering with others in this endeavor.

Robert Bauer joined Southwest Badger Resource Conservation and Development Council, Inc as the Grazing Broker on October 12, 2015. As Grazing Broker, Robert connects landowners of grasslands with livestock producers to increase acreage of well-managed grazing. He also assists in determining the fair market value of grasslands, writes grazing plans, and provides technical assistance to both producers and landowners. Robert works closely with a multi-agency team to coordinate educational events and network with landowners and grazing organizations to promote grazing and grass-based agriculture in Southwest Wisconsin.

Jacob James Marty is a young farmer from southern Wisconsin. Farming by the side of his father, Jim, he is continuing the farm's legacy into its sixth generation with Green Fire Farm. Historically, a dairy farm, Jacob is transitioning the farm into regenerative practices including grass-fed beef, pasture-raised pork and poultry, and establishing silvopasture, pollinator habitat, and wildlife habitat. The mission of Green Fire Farm is to focus on direct marketing and instill a strong sense of connection, community development, and stewardship with all partners to the farm.

This week on Greenhorns Radio, Severine welcomes musician Robin Grey.

Inspired by the timeless work of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Joanna Newsom amongst many others, Robin colours in his songs about love and life with guitar, banjo, ukulele, mandolin, piano, double bass, organ, percussion toys and any other instruments he can afford and fit into his little east London studio.

Robin devised and performs a show called Three Acres And A Cow, A History Of Land Rights And Protest In Folk Song And Story, has been undertaking musical cycling pilgrimages under the rubric of ‘Pedal Folk‘ and is starting to take a little interest in politics.

Jessika is a small business owner and food systems aficionado. As co-founder and CEO of Starvation Alley Social Purpose Corporation, a cranberry company located in Southwest Washington, Jessika spends much of her time building a new business that supports regional cranberry farmers through the organic certification process. Though she is passionate about farmers, her favorite part about her job is getting to partner with many other inspiring Pacific Northwest food producers to create collaborative value-added products. In 2012, Jessika aided in the design of Seattle's Bainbridge Graduate Institute's first Certificate program in Sustainable Food and Agriculture. Jessika's other experiences include a receiving her Master's in Business Administration, working as an urban community garden coordinator and consulting for outdoor trails expansion in her region. She lives in Ilwaco, Washington near Starvation Alley Farms with her partner Jared Oakes and two dogs.

Locky Catron graduated from Iowa State University with an Agricultural Business degree and joined the three-person Cleber, LLC, team in Alabama. Her experiences working both in Big Ag and on organic farms led her to have a passion for regional food systems and a more diversified agriculture. Cleber's business model is one that encourages local/regional manufacturing by using an open system design approach. Their first piece of equipment is the Oggun Tractor - a simple, versatile tractor inspired by the Allis Chalmers G and made using off-the-shelf components. The focus is appropriateness of scale and affordability.

Erika Rumbley is the Co-Founder and Director of The New Garden Society (TNGS). Each year The New Garden Society trains 100+ incarcerated students in the art and science of plants, building a bridge from Greater-Boston prisons and youth detention facilities to local careers in organic land care. Erika is also the Greenhouse Manager at Langwater Farm, a 50-acre, certified organic vegetable, fruit, flower and herb farm south of Boston. Her most formative experiences as an adult educator include her time with Southside Community Land Trust, The Trustees of Reservations, and growing food and flowers alongside students in prison gardens outside of Boston. A North Carolina native, Erika has farmed and found her home in southern New England for over a decade.

Jeff Conant directs Friends of the Earth's international forests program, which campaigns to protect forests and the rights of forest-dependent peoples by addressing the economic and political drivers of forest destruction. Prior to joining Friends of the Earth, Jeff ran communications and popular education efforts around climate and development justice with Global Justice Ecology Project, International Accountability Project, and other advocacy organizations, and co-authored A Community Guide to Environmental Health (Hesperian Health Guides, 2008), a comprehensive community education manual that covers issues from basic sanitation to big dams and from forestry to food sovereignty. The Community Guide has been translated into over a dozen languages.

Tristan Gooley is a natural navigator and award-winning author of three of the world's only books covering natural navigation. The best selling books are: The Natural Navigator (2010), The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs (2014) and How to Read Water (2016).

Jonny leads Kiva's work to reach financially excluded and socially impactful small business owners, artisans and farmers in the United States with 0% interest loans. He first came to Kiva in 2009 as a volunteer, and joined full-time in 2011 to lead the Kiva U.S. team. Jonny graduated with a degree in History from the University of Cambridge. He is married to Ali, who he met at Kiva, and a few weeks ago he became the proud father of Felicity Grace Price!

Mike Bologna, CEO of Green Lion Partners, is a decisive and personable leader with a comprehensive background in supply chain technology consulting, process analysis, and operational strategy. Using this experience, Mike focuses on ensuring organizational success by improving efficiencies, minimizing waste, and bringing socially conscious processes to the forefront. Green Lion Partners is a Denver, CO based business strategy firm focused on early stage development in the regulated cannabis industry.

Erica Frenay manages 35 acres of sheep, cattle, ducks, orchard, apiary, and high tunnels at Shelterbelt Farm near Ithaca, NY, with her husband and two young kids. She has also worked for the Cornell Small Farms Program for 11 years, co-founding the Northeast Beginning Farmer Project in 2006. She is a certified educator of Holistic Management and has completed permaculture design training, both of which have informed the design and management of her farm. She is passionate about connecting people to soil. And about playing the upright bass.

Becky Brand, of Brandmoore Farm, joins today's episode of Greenhorns Radio. Becky grew up in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and later attended University of New Hampshire– landing her on the New Hampshire Seacoast. After studying Environmental Horticulture at UNH, she worked in Massachusetts at Appleton Farms and New Hampshire at Meadow’s Mirth where she continued to learn about organic and sustainable farming practices. Becky and her husband Phil Brand started Brandmoore Farm in 2012. Brandmoore Farm is a diverse, organic farm with a focus on cow dairy and vegetables. Becky and Phil have a nearly one-year-old baby named Thomas, a dog called Ernie, and a cat named Mimi.

Nels Veliquette lives in Victoria, British Columbia with his wife Michelle and son Axel. Raised in Michigan in the tart cherry business, one generation removed from the dairy, he is active in business planning, policy development and education. Nels has direct experience in production, logistics, agri-tourism development, land preservation and finance. He has a Masters Degree in Administration and is a writer, educator and business consultant who does not fear the future.

Learner Limbach a committed leader in the local food and agriculture movement. He has been a farmer, an educator, a community organizer, a business professional and a consultant. Through this work Learner has grown increasingly passionate about eliminating the barriers that make it difficult for farmers to be successful. In 2013 Learner spearheaded the creation of the Orcas Food Co-op, a consumer-owned co-op that he now manages as his full-time job. With a central goal of creating a sustainable local food system with strong regional connections, the Co-op has quickly grown to over 1000 members and $2.3 million in sales in 2015. In addition to running the Co-op, Learner also serves actively on numerous agriculturally focused boards and committees, with a strong focus on increasing inter-organizational collaboration and capacity building.

Miles Teitge took his first steps in the old growth forests of Vashon Island, WA, and was transplanted to the Idaho high mountain desert in 1983. Graduating from the Community School, he took up surfing in Kauai, trekked India, and biked across the U.S. to study Anthroposophy for a year at Camphill Village in Copake, NY. This Rudolph Steiner inspired community serves those with special needs, and is also the home of Turtle Tree Seed, a producer of biodynamic seeds. He earned a Bachelor's degree in education at Antioch University, while volunteering at the Seattle Tilth Children's Garden. Miles interned at the Herb Pharm in Williams, OR, and continued his education at Seed School (with local legend Bill McDorman), and the Fungi Perfecti mushroom cultivation course (with visionary Paul Stamets). He joined The Mountain School shortly after it opened, inspired to learn and teach principles of permaculture and the gardening arts; be it cultivating vegetables, gathering medicinal herbs, grafting trees, laying out hugelkultur beds, bee-tending, greenhouse design, poultry care, humane composting, worm wrangling or the like, there is a lifetime of learning on this path! He and Sweet Clover teacher, Jessica Banks, are the proud parents of SMS student Edyn Crow Teitge. Miles is delighted to continue with the Syringa Mountain School's Sustainability Arts program and plans to share his deep reverence for the natural world, plant fruit for future generations, and grow the largest watermelon the Wood River Valley has ever seen in 2017!

Theo Wadman grew up on a small farm raising livestock and worked in conventional agricultural and food industry jobs operating equipment for local farmers, seed cleaning plants, and frozen food companies. Theo received a bachelor's degree in Engineering Physics from Oregon State University, built a small publishing company, a technical writing company, and then a successful translation and software localization company, which is now part of translations.com. Along the way, two of Theo’s sons and his wife, Kira, had serious health issues that stemmed from misinformation about diet, agriculture, and health. Theo and Kira were inspired to return to their agricultural roots four years ago, creating Helios Farms as an active response to misinformation campaigns about food, diet, agriculture, and health.

Brendon Rockey is a third generation farmer from Center, CO. He is currently managing the farm that his Grandpa started in 1938, and he is returning to the same fundamentals that the farm was founded on. His Grandpa Floyd use to preach that you must take care of the soil before the soil can take care of you. Rockey Farms has eliminated their dependency on toxic chemicals and synthetic fertilizers by managing the farm as a complete system. Rockey Farms raises high quality specialty potatoes for fresh market sales and for certified seed by investing in their soil with carbon based fertility, reduced tillage, companion crops in the potatoes, flowering border crops, and rotational cover crops. They are also bringing livestock back in to the operation to enhance to impact of the cover crops even further. This Biotic approach has allowed Rockey Farms to maintain production wile improving the quality of their potatoes, all while reducing input costs and optimizing water use efficiency.

Berkshire native Maddie Elling and her partner Abe Hunrichs run Hosta Hill, a Berkshire-based business growing and making lacto-fermented vegetables. A lover of the outdoors, food, and dynamic work, Maddie spent four years after high school WWOOFing and wandering. After meeting Abe, they both settled in the Berkshires: dabbling in odd jobs and raising various animals and crops. Inspired by the Berkshire landscape and food scene they were eager to create a business of their own. They settled on growing vegetables and making fermented vegetables and tempeh. Maddie and Abe are in their 5th year of running Hosta Hill, distributing their products from the Berkshires to Boston and beyond. When not fermenting or doing office work, you can find Maddie staying busy outside, walking in the woods with her dog Oso, swimming, and scribbling on paper.

Dorn Cox, PhD, is an agriculturist, and farmer working his 250-acre diversified organic family farm in Lee, New Hampshire. He is a co-founder of the FarmOS software platform, a founding member of the Farm Hack community, and is active in the national soil health movement to develop systems that improve global agricultural knowledge exchange and local regenerative production capacity. He has a PhD from the University of New Hampshire.

This week on Greenhorns Radio, Severine is joined by Dan Kittredge.

Dan is the Founder and Executive Director of the Bionutrient Food Association. Raised by parents who are prominent leaders in the organic food movement, Dan has been an organic farmer since childhood. His experience managing organic farms and developing sustainable agriculture techniques has connected him to farmers in Central America, Russia, India and the U.S. Dan lives in Central Massachusetts with his wife and three children on their 40 acre farm.

Ben Dobson grew up in Hillsdale, New York, on a small organic farm and started his first agricultural business in 2001. After two years on his own, he joined forces with his father Ted Dobson and managed the fields at his salad and tomato farm in Sheffield, MA, from 2003 through 2006. Since then Ben has started, managed, and overseen the sale of two agricultural businesses: One of which, Atlantic Organics, founded in 2007, was the largest organic vegetable farm in the state of Maine. The other, a company called Locally Known LLC, founded in 2008, was a salad processing company that sold pre-packaged ready to eat salads to Whole Foods Market, Hannaford Bros. and Trader Joe's supermarkets in the Northeast and Mid Atlantic regions. In 2013, Ben joined Stone House Farm as the Organic Transition Manager, and in 2016 he became their Farm Manager. He planned and oversaw the implementation of an organic transition on the 2,200-acre Stone House Farm property, and developed a non-GMO feed and grain business to sell their grain. The farm is now expanding its grain operation to include organic grain from other farms in the region. Ben also heads Hudson Carbon: a research project conducting long term research across several sites on Stone House Farm and two neighboring farms. Hudson Carbon monitors the economic impacts and ecological effects of organic farming systems regarding carbon sequestration. Collaborators in this project include the Rodale Institute, The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and Scenic Hudson. This winter Hudson Carbon will be launching a website with sections dedicated to farmers, science, and the public.

Born and raised in Chicago, Alex Pino moved to New Mexico at age 20. After years working unfulfilling jobs and seeking solutions for the industrialized food system he began farming on a rocky Piñon & juniper covered hillside near Santa Fe. Pino now farms four properties from Pecos along the river to La Cienega, growing heirloom garlic on rented, drip-irrigated land. Pino sells at Santa Fe area Farmers' Markets year round. He organizes farmers through the National Young Farmers Coalition's local chapter, the Northern NM Young Farmers Alliance, and holds workshops and trainings to help educate next generation farmers.

This week on Greenhorns Radio, Severine is joined by JennaDee Detro, Co-Founder and Head of Production of Cat Spring Tea. JennaDee has 3 years of yaupon harvesting experience and has developed the production practices. Previously, she was a professional photographer and graphic designer. She loves that Cat Spring Yaupon Tea is a return to family values and pure American goodness.

Allie grew up in Ohio on her parents' farm shoveling poop, climbing trees, and playing in the dirt. These formative years were not easy to wash off and stuck with her. She ended up studying sustainable agriculture, herbal medicine, alternative energy and sustainable architecture at The Evergreen State College. Most of Allie’s life has been spent in the out-of-doors, mountain guiding and growing food. She naturally migrated to Chickaloon, Alaska, in the heart of the Matanuska Valley at the age of 21. Striving to have more time than money, Allie focuses on off-grid living, chainsaw milling, and a "hunt-fish-gather- grow" lifestyle, where she wildcrafts plants into medicine, harvests berries, catches salmon, and hunts moose. Allie, her husband Jed, and dog Dylan, run Chugach Farm. Chugach Farm is a modern day homestead farm that focuses on growing nutrient dense, human powered, beyond organic, and off grid vegetables. Chugach Farm grows enough food to feed the family year round, sells at the farmers market and to local restaurants, runs CSA and CSF (Community Supported Ferments) programs, and sells a variety of value added products.

Jack Motter and Jeff Kramer, owners of Ellwood Canyon Farms, are life-long friends who grew up in fourth generation farming families in the small town of Brawley, located in the Imperial Valley in the desert of Southeastern California. They each attended college in Santa Barbara and have lived there for the last fifteen years. Jack established Ellwood Canyon Farms in 2009, and Jeff has been on board since 2010. They currently grow mixed organic produce on 50 acres, focusing on organic methods of farming, building healthy soil and growing healthy crops.

Greg Hart farms 1500 acres in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. He works on the property with his wife and 3 young children, as well as 3 other workers and various WWOOFers from all around the world. The Harts practise regenerative agriculture and try to raise awareness about the urgent need to transition to a food production system based on nature that heals the earth and society.

Alexandra Hudson is a holistic chef, clinical herbalist, and regenerative food system advocate. In 2013 Alexandra founded Kaleidoscope Foods, a California Bay Area-based producer of bone broth infused kale chips, to provide deep on-the-go high integrity nutrition to her community. Alexandra is committed to weaving a food system that regenerates at every step of the process, from the vibrancy of the soil to the health of her customers.

Together with his partner Johanna Davis, Adam Nordell runs Songbird Farm, an organic vegetable and grain farm in Unity, ME. The farm is built around wholesale vegetable sales to organic distributors and food cooperatives in Maine, and both wholesale and CSA marketing of heritage flint cornmeal, wheat and rye flour. Adam and Johanna also tour in the off-season as the folk music duo Sassafras Stomp, and perform high energy traditional fiddle music and original songs reflecting on farming and connection to place.

On this week's episode of Greenhorns Radio, Severine speaks with Dave Oien, a third generation farmer who continues to work his family’s land in Montana. Dave transitioned the land to organics back in the 80’s and started an organic seed and edible legumes business in 1987, along with three business partners. Dave, as well as Timeless Seeds and its other Montana-based legume growers, recently became publicly visible after being the focus of Liz Carlisle’s recent book, The Lentil Underground.

Marc Millitzer is the owner and farmer of Tree of Life Gardens in Cuba City, Wisconsin. Marc grew up in the city moving around a lot with his family until the age of ten when his family settled in eastern Iowa. Marc grew up helping on other farms. His farming experience came mostly from his extended family and neighbors. After a small career in glassblowing Marc pursued healthy living in the country and discovered organic gardening was a passion. He then traveled to Belize receiving education from a permaculture design course at Mayan Mountain Research farm. After a few years of practice in small scale gardening Marc took a course in market gardening at U.W. Madison. This spawned his current farm Tree of Life Gardens. With the help of his retired parents and his Partner Jessica Paarmann, Marc farms over ten acres of vegetables a year. He also grows many different kinds of mushrooms. He has marketed his produce in diverse ways including CSA, large wholesale accounts, local groceries, restaurants, and farmers markets. Currently Marc specializes in salad greens and mushrooms. He plans to expand his farm in the next few years and wants to explore small grain, bean, and cover crop seed production.

Marie Hoff founded Capella Grazing Project in 2013. Using rare, heritage breed Ouessant sheep, she grazes in such unlikely spots as vineyards, orchards, on cover crop at local farms, and for landowners seeking holistic lawn-mowing services. In this unconventional manner of ranching, she blends ancient shepherding with modern day integrated agricultural and economic systems, stewarding both landscape and livestock genetics.

Robert Olivier, founder of GrubTubs, Inc. invents and develops all aspects of insect based technologies, from conceptual design work to prototyping and final fabrication. Currently he is engineering a bioconversion facility in Austin, TX, to transform food waste into animal feed. Olivier holds a bachelor's degree in environmental sciences and business administration from Southern Methodist University. He received the Departmental Academic Excellence Award in Geological Sciences upon graduation.

Ildi Carlisle-Cummins is Director of the Cal Ag Roots Project at the California Institute for Rural Studies. Cal Ag Roots puts historical roots under current California food and farming change movements by telling the story of California agricultural development in innovative, useful, and relevant ways. There is deep knowledge about the structures, driving forces, and key moments that have shaped California's food system among recognized experts; and those who have participated in the creation of CA farming, but this knowledge doesn't always inform food movement work. Cal Ag Roots shares stories from this wide range of people, opening new lines of communication among them.

Amanda Swinimer completed her BSc+ at Dalhousie University with an advanced major in Marine Biology and a minor in Oceanography. Amanda furthered her education by apprenticing for two years with a wise herbal teacher, Bernice Woolham, and studying with the ‘Kelp Doctor’, Dr. Louis Druehl. Her deep love of the ocean and the rainforest brought her to the west coast of Vancouver Island where she started her own business, Dakini Tidal Wilds, in 2003. For 15 years, Amanda has been sustainably harvesting, by hand, edible seaweeds, wild herbs and crafting products from these wild gifts. For most of these years, she has been sharing her passion for the wild gifts of our coastline with many people through a variety of hands-on teaching methods and with a focus of sustainability and respect for our rare coast. She has taught at the University of Victoria, Bamfield Marine Science Center, Royal Roads University, public schools and through private venues.

Tom Baldwin is the Farm Director of Ulua Palms Farm and Nursery in Makawo, HI. A permaculture designer and nurseryman, he is currently engaged in the development of a 5-acre homestead property on Maui in addition to maintaining an 18-acre farm on Big Island. This includes the current planting of a collection of roughly 50 avocado varieties, and an extensive renovation of an old family homestead built in 1906. Tom stewards an extensive collection of plants, including a repository of rare fruit and nuts. He also has a special interest in cacti.

Graison S. Gill is the owner of Bellegarde, a commercial bakery and stone mill in New Orleans bound to local ingredients, heritage, and flavor. He has been baking professionally for eight years and was trained at the San Francisco Baking Institute under Michel Suas, Mac McConnell, Mike Zakowski, and Frank Sally.

Natalie Kilmer lives in Oakland, California where she owns and is the lead gardener for a socially minded, mini-farming and consulting business called, The Little Acre. Natalie also works with Bay Area pioneer, Greywater Action giving lectures and leading hands on workshops across Northern California. Natalie graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Religious Studies. She continued her ongoing studies through Permaculture Design at Esalen Institute, a gardening internship at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, Ayurveda at the dhyana Center and a Chinese Herbal Farming Internship at the Chinese Medicinal Herb Farm.

Cory grew up ranching on her family’s fourth-generation ranch in rural Oregon. After graduating from Stanford University and working on Capitol Hill and in Los Angeles, she returned to the ranch to try a different production model and transitioned Carman Ranch to grassfed beef production. After a decade of successfully raising and selling grassfed beef, she joined the the Pasture One team to help create a national presence. In her role as the Director of Production, she leads the growing collective of pioneering grassfed ranchers. She is passionate about the ecological and human health potential of a robust grassfed beef industry as well as the potential to create economic opportunities for ranchers, more efficiently meet a consumer demand for healthy, humane beef, and put more carbon in the soil. She lives on Carman Ranch with her husband and three children.

Born in the Central Valley of California, Nikiko Masumoto spent her childhood slurping over-ripe peaches on the Masumoto Family Farm (an 80-acre organic farm in Del Rey, CA). She has never missed a summer harvest. In 2007 she graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Gender and Women’s Studies. It was there that she realized she wanted to return to the Valley to farm. But first she completed a M.A. in Performance as Public Practice from UT Austin. Her research focused on the performance of memory and Japanese American history. Daily, she apprentices with her father on the family’s small organic farm whilst continuing work in arts and community. In 2013, she published her first book, co-authored with parents Mas and Marcy, a cookbook The Perfect Peach. She participated in the Catalyst Initiative, a civic practice cohort program of the Center for Performance & Civic Practice, Emerging Leaders of Color in the Arts program of WESTAF, and is currently a Creative Community Fellow with National Arts Strategies. She has served on various volunteer and nonprofit boards in the Central Valley (Central California Asian Pacific Women, Central Valley Community Foundation, Valley Public Radio, California State University Fresno’s College of Arts & Humanities). She currently serves on the board of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and Western States Arts Federation. On most days you can find her on a tractor, dreaming of projects yet to be born and justice yet to be won.

The Masumoto Family Farm is also the subject of the documentary film Changing Season: On the Masumoto Family Farm.

Andre Entermann grew up in Southern California surfing, skateboarding, sailing and spearfishing. After a stint in the U.S. Coast Guard as a Helicopter Rescue Swimmer, he turned to food and farming and worked on many farms abroad. Andre landed his dream of running a goat dairy here on Lopez Island with his wife Elizabeth.

Brianna Bowman lives and works in Massachusetts, where she manages the National Incubator Farm Training Initiative, which supports the development and strengthening of programs that train new farmers. She is interested in how to promote an ecosystem of success for beginning farmers which extends well beyond their time in training and touches upon how we value, access, and enjoy food. Brianna studied Peace Studies and holds a Masters in International Development and Sustainable Agriculture. She is an aspiring herbalist and active fiber artist.

This week’s featured farmer on Greenhorns Radio is **Jeremiah Vernon. ** Jeremiah is a tenth generation New Hampshire native, having grown up in New London, where his family still lives on the land his ancestors settled. After graduating from Bates College in Maine, Jeremiah started working on long-standing and accomplished farms throughout New England, collecting the skills necessary to start his own farm. In particular, his collaboration with Riverslea Farm in Epping taught him a lot. Jeremiah is happy to call the farmers of Riverslea, the Conrads, his farming mentors and family friends. Jeremiah, and his wife, Nicole, have now founded Vernon Family Farm in Newfields, NH, the culmination of these experiences and they could not be happier! Vernon Family Farm produces a wide variety of products including chickens, mushrooms, vegetables, dried flowers and Farmsicles™. Their products are currently available at regional farmers markets, restaurants and grocery stores and they are planning to open their farm store in 2016. Vernon Family Farm made significant improvements to its infrastructure in 2015 with the addition of grain silos, a cold room, walk in freezer, mushroom fruiting room, cold frame and irrigation pond. In 2016, the focus will be on opening their farm store, streamlining their production processes and continuing to produce high quality, locally produced goods. This program was brought to you by Heritage Foods USA.

This week’s featured farmer: Mark Ressl

Mark studied architecture in New York City focussing on restructuring the relationships among designers, builders, clients, and communities. He also travelled through the Midwest on foot studying historic routes and community redevelopments of post industrial America. Last year he joined the Long Spoon Collective, a group committed to making social change through mutual altruism. The LSC recognizes that the resources we need to build sustainable infrastructure and a viable society are already in our community if only we learn to share effectively.

This year, Ressl spear headed the collective’s Food Share project. The Saugerties Food Share is a bi-weekly “free farmers market” located at the collective’s model off-grid community garden. The community garden acts as a distribution center for extra produce from local gardens. Additionally it is an educational center to learn growing, foraging and processing techniques. Currently Ressl is leading the project of recruiting local residents to transform their lawns into gardens which will all contribute to the food share next year. Ultimately the goal of this work is to create active participants in a local, fossil fuel free, moneyless food infrastructure.

This week’s featured farmer is Mike Miles. Mike  started the Anathoth Community Farm in 1986 as a center for the study of nonviolence, community, and sustainable living. His love of farming came from spending summers on his grandmother’s dairy farm in Michigan. Anathoth Farm was built from the ground up and comes right out of the pages of Mother Earth News: buildings with solar heating and hot water, composting toilets, greenhouses, and a 10,000 watt photovoltaic grid tie. Produce and maple syrup have been staple crops from the beginning with animal husbandry arriving on the scene about six years ago. After becoming aware of management intensive grazing and permaculture, Mike became a soil carbon cowboy. Steers, chickens, pigs, and cover crops are the tools he uses to build soil microorganisms while producing the tastiest, healthiest meat there is. Together with his wife Barb, Anathoth sponsors educational events on the farm to promote good health,sustainability, and justice for all.

“I gotta save the world with my agriculture then I have to save the world with my activism. I’m a hopeless ‘save the world’ kind of guy.” [21:00]

 

This week’s featured farmer is Mike Sommer. Mike Sommer is an organic farmer in the Treasure Valley in Southwest Idaho. He is the production manager for his family’s farm, Purple Sage Farms, and directs the employees, plans crop production and manages sales. Mike works side by side with his father, Tim Sommer, who grew up in the same town working in agriculture since the 1960’s. Tim has been growing fresh herbs and specialty greens on the farm in Middleton since 1988 and he helped create the organic certification program in Idaho, making Purple Sage Farms one of the oldest organic farms in the state.

Tim and Mike operate twelve, 3,000 sq. ft. greenhouses, and 38,000 sq. ft. of terraced outdoor vegetable fields where they grow everything from Basil and Rosemary to Arugula, Red Russian Kale, broccoli and beets, planted directly into the ground and irrigated by a well with drip lines and sprinklers. Animals are also a small but important part of the farm. A small herd of sheep grazes on 40 acres of pasture and they provide meat for family, and the manure and bedding from their winter feeding and lambing area is turned into compost for the crops.

The majority of their products are sold to Southwest Idaho wholesale accounts like restaurants, grocery stores and produce distributors but they also do some direct sales to retail customers at the Boise Farmers Market each Saturday in Boise and through an organization called Idaho’s Bounty Cooperative which has producer and consumer members in Southwest Idaho that have come together to improve the local food system by providing sales and logistics for farmers and by improving access to local food for consumers by providing a website and pick-up locations where they can purchase it.

Mike began helping on the farm as soon as he could count and the work he did there through middle school and high school helped pay for a part of his college education. He graduated from the University of Montana in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and an emphasis in botany and brought much of what he learned back to the farm in fall of 2009. Since then he has added many new aspects to the farm such as winter crop production, vegetable production, herb drying, blended herbal teas, kombucha brewing with herbs from the farm, medicinal herb production, farmers market sales and plant pressing, and many more new value-added products like fermented vegetables and pesto will be coming soon after construction is completed on the farm’s new commercial kitchen.

Mike serves his local food community by being a founding member on the board of directors for the Boise Farmers Market, serving on the board of Idaho’s Bounty Cooperative for the past 3 years, and participating in local agricultural organizations like Idaho Preferred, Idaho Center for Sustainable Agriculture, the Treasure Valley Food Coalition and Ag in the Classroom. The farm also participates in grant programs with the Xerces Society and Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides to improve pollinator habitat and use ecology and biodiversity to decrease weeds and pests and increase fertility. Many times throughout the year Mike and Tim host tours of the farm for groups of chefs, teachers, students, other farmers and anybody else who has an interest in local, small scale, organic agriculture and food and are able to share what they have learned with many others.

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This week’s featured guest Duane Hyde. Duane Hyde has served as the Land Conservation Director at the Southeast Land Trust of New Hampshire for the last 1.5 years.  He came to the Land Trust after working for nearly 13 years at the New Hampshire Chapter of The Nature Conservancy where he served as the Chapter’s Director of Conservation Programs and the acquisition agent and grant manager for the Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership. Prior to his work in conservation Duane was a professional town planner for almost 10 years and served as the Durham, NH town planner for 3 years.  Duane holds a BS in Natural Resources Management from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning with a focus on environmental planning from Virginia Tech.  Duane serves on the Board of Directors for the New Hampshire Land Trust Coalition and is the chair of the Coalition’s Outreach and Education Committee.

This week’s featured guest is Linda Behnken has been commercial fishing off Alaska for 30 years.  She crewed on longline and troll boats for 9 years before buying her own boat in 1991.  She lives in Sitka, Alaska but has fished the waters from Sitka to the Bering Sea.  She now fishes with her husband and two sons on their 40 foot boat, Woodstock.  Linda holds a masters in environmental science from Yale and combines this schooling with the at-sea experience of fishing to inform her work in fisheries management.  Linda is the executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association and served nine years on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.  Her work is dedicated to promoting sustainable fisheries and thriving fishing communities through research, innovation and advocacy.

Today’s featured guest is Maddie O’Laire. Maddie grew up in Dallas, Texas- a far cry from the Alaska wilderness. She booked a one-way ticket to Homer, Alaska in 2010 and immediately fell in love with the landscape, do-it-yourself mentality, groovy people, and cute, scruffy fishermen. After her first winter, her feelings about permanently living in Homer solidified when she met a commercial fisherman and carpenter named Mike. They married in 2013 and built their homestead on 5 beautiful acres in Homer. In 2014, Maddie started direct marketing wild- caught Alaska sockeye salmon to her family and friends in Texas. The business grew quickly and now she ships wild-caught Alaska sockeye salmon all over the country. She ships directly to individuals and also partners with CSAs and co-ops to bring wild salmon to large groups more affordably. She hopes to grow these partnerships before this year’s salmon season, which runs from early June- late July. Maddie is passionate about healthy living, sustainable seafood, and helping other producers develop markets for their products. She graduated from Loyola University in Baltimore with a B.A. in Communications and Business.

Severine in conversation with Josh Harden of Laughingstock Farm in Arkansas. Talking points include big vs. small-scale production and the future of Arkansas farmers’ markets.

This week on Greenhorns Radio Sev spoke to Ann Larkin Hansen, author of “The Organic Farming Manual”. Hansen was frustrated that there didn’t seem to be a single “one-stop-shop” source of information for someone who wanted to grow food organically–so she wrote one. Listen to hear Ann’s journey from a kid growing up in the suburbs to a full fledged livestock and vegetable farmer, and how the Wisconsin Women’s Sustainable Farming Network was a vital friend during her journey. This episode was sponsored by Hearst Ranch: purveyors of fine grass-fed beef from the coast of CA.

This week on Greenhorns Radio Sev speaks to agro-ecologist Houston Wilson. Wilson discusses the primary goal of his science: eliminating “off farm” input. This essentially means designing your farm in a way that encourages nature to do the tasks we often leave up to chemicals or people. With enough crop diversification farmers will find that controlling pests, nutrient cycling, and dealing with diseases can all be executed internally if the farm is designed appropriately. This episode was sponsored by Hearst Ranch: purveyors of fine grass-fed beef from the coasts of CA.

Photo 1: The Altieri Lab at UC Berkeley has been conducting cutting edge research in vineyard agroecology over the past decade. Recent efforts focus on the management of non-crop vegetation to enhance the natural regulation of key insect pests in vineyards. We strive to conduct comprehensive research spanning landscape-level dynamics to specific within-field insect interactions. We also believe in the importance of collaborating with growers to conduct research in real-world settings where the system designs that we are developing will be employed.

This week on Greenhorn Radio Sev spoke to Sandor Katz from Tennesee, a internationally recognized master of fermentation. Sandor’s goal is to stress to people that fermentation should NOT be intimidating, and is a great way to not just preserve foods at times of bounty, but to bring out flavors in foods that might not otherwise be available. Learn how Sandor used daikon radishes and cabbage to ferment and create 70 gallons of “kraut chee”, plus why fermentation can be a way for people to connect to their farmers and create great value-added products with produce. This episode was sponsored by Hearst Ranch: purveyors of grass-fed beef from the California coast.

Eat them to save them: Severine talks with Jude Becker, sustainable agriculture advocate and breeder of heritage pork.

This week Severine checks in with Erin Bullock of Mud Creek Farm in Victor, NY. Tune in and hear the awesome story of how Erin became a young farmer, how she realized that you CAN make a living as a farmer, and what her day to day life is like right now. This episode was kindly sponsored by our friends at Hearst Ranch.

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Join Severine for another episode of Greenhorn Radio; chronicling the life and times of the young farmers in our country. This week she sits down with Kristin Kimball of Essex Farm. Kristin is also an author, her latest book being “This Dirty Life” – which is, as she puts it “the story of the two love affairs that interrupted the trajectory of my life: one with farming—that dirty, concupiscent art—and the other with a complicated and exasperating farmer.” This episode was brought to you by Hearst Ranch.

This week’s guest on Greenhorn radio is farmer Amber Reed. Severine met Amber at the Young Farmers Conferene @ Stone Barns, and the two get a chance to catch up on the radio! Amber explains why Colorado is such a tough state for raw dairy, how byproducts can be best utilized, and how beer is sometimes used to wash cheese. This episode was sponsored by our good friends at Hearst Ranch: the nations largest single source supplier of grassfed and grass finished beef.

to be aired

On this week’s Greenhorn Radio, Severine interviews Meg Gardner, of Pete’s Greens, about Vermont CSA’s, the burgeoning town of Hardwick, and startup land for young farmers.

Greenhorn Radio is back! Tune in this week Severine is joined by Josh Morgenthau of FishKill Farm. Fishkill Farms is an apple orchard and diversified fruit and vegetable farm in the town of East Fishkill, New York. This episode was sponsored by Hearst Ranch – the nations largest single source supplier of grassfed and grass finished beef.

Neysa King of Green Gate Farm in Austin TX.

BR Shute of Hearty Roots Farm

This week’s Greenhorn Radio features Annie Novak of the New York Botanical Gardens, who also works on a Greenpoint roof top farm profiled in New York Magazine: http://nymag.com/guides/summer/2009/57477/

Eric Herm grew up on a cotton farm near Ackerly, Texas. He left the farm to pursue other interests, traveling to various places across the world before returning to his roots. Upon arriving back on his family farm, he noticed many changes in not only the landscape but the methods of commercial agriculture that were causing more long-term problems. He began searching for answers to these problems, slowly discovering healthier organic methods which provided the inspiration for his book, Son of a Farmer, Child of the Earth.

Matthew Jose got his first taste of the farming life while tending livestock and running various educational programs at Overlook Farm in central Massachusetts. After his stint there, he moved way out west to Portland, OR to work in a fancy French bakery, making croissants and other delectables. While there, Matthew began to get involved with small-scale community garden projects. Tired of waking up at 2 a.m., Matthew made his way back east to assist community garden groups in New York City. He returned to Overlook Farm in 2005 to focus on growing vegetables, working as an assistant grower on the farm’s 3 acre veggie operation.
After all of the travelling, Matthew returned to his hometown of Indianapolis. He eventually began working for the Purdue University- Marion County Extension Service and Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, helping to organize community gardens, garden education programs, and school beautification projects. During that time, he developed the short-lived Urban Farm Project – a program that used vacant lots for vegetable production in addition to training local high school students in small-scale farming practices. At the beginning of 2009, Matthew created Big City Farms in an effort to try and meet the growing demand for fantastic-tasting, locally-grown produce. He’ll talk a good talk about wanting to change the fabric of cities and alter our society’s concepts of where food ‘should’ come from – in reality, he just likes being able to bike down the street for coffee or a drink after tending his ‘fields’ too much to quit the city life.

Karyn Williams is the owner and operator of Red Dog Farm. Karyn has been farming since 1998 and first started running her own farm in 2005. Red Dog Farm was established in 2008. Karyn is aided by a crew of awesome workers and her faithful red border collie, the farm’s namesake, Rupert Dandelion.

Scott Chichester, Production Manager at Nash’s Organic Produce, was raised in Sequim. He liked to garden and was curious about where food comes from, so it was natural for him to find a job at Sunny Farms after he graduated from high school. He worked there for three years, acquiring skills in retail sales, produce displays, and customer service. Organic agriculture was what really intrigued Scott, and he also realized that he wanted to find work that would allow him to be outdoors most of the time, so in 1996 he started working at Nash’s. Scott had an Associate of Applied Science degree from Peninsula College but still wanted to complete a bachelor’s degree. He took the 1997-98 academic year to go to Olympia and study at The Evergreen State College where he received a Bachelors of Science degree. At Evergreen, students create their own programs, and Scott took the opportunity to study fungal biology and taxonomy and soil microbial ecology—how microbes and other life forms interact in soil environments. Another of Scott’s goals is learning how to produce seed, not just for the farm’s use but to protect genetic diversity for organic agriculture in general. He says, “Farming can be hugely stressful, but amazingly rewarding. It’s incredible to do such important work outdoors in this beautiful place.”

The farm is the oldest organic farm in the state of Missouri, and possibly even west of the Mississippi. Settled in 1883, the 3rd generation is now 89 years old, with no one to carry on the farm. Surrounded by a low-income neighborhood, this 14 acre farm has resisted the surrounding development and an experienced tenant farmer on the land says that it\’s the best soil he\’s ever seen.
This week’s guest on Greenhorn Radio is Molly Rockamann of EarthDance Farms. EarthDance takes a unique approach to small-scale farming in that it fuses the celebration of art and music with organic farming education on the land. The five year plan includes an artist-in-residence program as well as a musician-in-residence program on the property. This season arts and music will be grown on the farm via an Open Space – Open Studio program, inviting local artists and musicians of all types to come on the farm to create together.

On this week’s Greenhorn Radio, Severine interviews John Clark of Applecheek Farm in Vermont about raw milk, its soaring prices and super-food attributes.

Tanya Tolchin and her husband Scott Hertzberg run a small diversified vegetable, flower, and herb farm called Jug Bay Market Garden (www.jugbaymarketgarden). The farm is located 20 miles outside Washington, DC and markets primarily through a CSA that delivers to Capitol Hill. Her first farm experience was on the Food Bank Farm in Western Massachusetts and later she worked on farms in Connecticut, England, and Israel. Tanya also worked for 10 years as an organizer and lobbyist for Sierra Club on issues ranging from protecting national forests to protecting workers and communities from toxic chemicals and forming alliances with labor unions. Now she is focused on her role as a full time mother of two young children and the farm’s bookkeeper, marketer, cheerleader and writer. Sometimes she can even be caught getting her hands dirty like the good old days, planting, weeding, picking and packing. Tanya is also trying to actualize her long time dream of being a writer, starting with freelance farm writing, blogging, and the occasional poem. You can read her blog at www.thelettuceedge.com.

Michael Tevlin grew up in Lake Oswego and worked in many varied jobs before becoming interested in agriculture, including being a bus driver, delivery driver, concierge, camp counselor, and Americorps Volunteer. In 2006, he interned at Dancing Roots Farm in Troutdale and became interested in running a small farm. He traveled through Ireland volunteering on organic farms, then came back and spent some time with other Portland urban farmers getting ideas. He found the plot for Cully Neighborhood Farm in November 2009. Michael also works as an inclusion specialist for people with disabilities.

Noah Shitama has been cultivating his knowledge of sustainable, community-based agriculture for over 8 years now, practicing on a small scale in Gainesville, and learning through visiting and volunteering on exemplary farms here and throughout the country. He is a father of two wondrous little ones, and has worked as a carpenter and builder. As a founding steering committee member of Citizens Co-op, he is committed to the creation of a local food system grounded in locality and community.

Zach Zink graduated with a bachelor’s degree in religion from Saint Olaf College in 2003. He worked at Holden Village in Chelan, WA for 2 years as a lead cook, developing a passion for cooking with fresh, local foods and wholesome ingredients. From Holden he went to Growing Things Farm in Carnation, WA for an organic farm internship, then to Bennett’s Bistro on Mercer Island where he continued to cook with pure, natural whole foods. In 2007 he was hired by Pike Place Market’s Preservation & Development Authority where for 2 years he was part of the team that coordinates the day to day crafters and farmers markets. Zach currently works for Cloudview Eco Farms as a “focalizer” of the CSA, Sales, Farmers Markets, and Cooking. He also tends a small herd of milk and meat goats and a flock of chickens. He is a former board member and continues to volunteer for the non-profit Tilth Producers of Washington, an association of several hundred organic and sustainable farms in Washington state.

This week on Greenhorn Radio, Severine talks to hunting enthusiast Jules Emory about hunting traditions, & blood lust.

Matt Volz was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Cazenovia, NY and Philadelphia. He attended Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT, where he studied philosophy and began working on farms. In his junior year of college, he connected with a crazy couple from across Lake Champlain in Essex, NY. He worked with Mark and Kristin Kimball at Essex Farm (made famous by Kristen’s book, The Dirty Life) during his last two years of college and continued to work there for another two years after graduating. In 2009, he moved back to VT and worked on a few farms there before beginning a search for his own farm. In the Spring of 2010, he was introduced to Kaye Osbourne, and a few months later he moved back to Cazenovia to start the Greyrock Farm CSA.

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Severine chats with Rusty Davis live from The Golden Gate Bridge! Rusty subverts conventional wisdom on topics ranging from permaculture, reforestation, biodiesel and veggie oil.

Renae’s interest in food began while working summers in Alaska in the commercial fishing industry. Although very different from growing and tending to crops, she discovered the importance of where and how our food gets to our plate. After her college graduation, Renae decided to take a 10 month apprenticeship on ALM Farm in Sooke on Vancouver Island, BC. She took a season off to work back in Alaska before returning to agriculture at the Sunshine Farm (made famous by the documentary film Broken Limbs) in Chelan, Washington. She is now in her 3rd season as the field manager of 6.5 acres of vegetable production providing produce to an on site market, a CSA, the Chelan Farmer’s Market and numerous restaurants and grocers. In the near future she sees herself bridging the gap between agriculture and education. This episode was sponsored by Hearst Ranch.

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Tomm Becker started farming due to his desire for adventure and loved it from the moment he began. While he studied to earn a degree in English Literature from Michigan State University, he worked at the MSU Student Organic Farm and at Owosso Organics, Pooh Stevenson’s farm in Owosso, MI. After graduation, he began working as the Production Manager at the Student Organic Farm. It was through growing in all seasons for that CSA, training and guiding the student farmers, and teaching three cohorts of students in the Organic Farming Certificate Program, that he gained the skills and confidence he felt he needed to endure as a farmer. Tomm started Sunseed Farm with his partner, Trilby, in the Fall of 2009 and started their CSA in May of 2010. They came by their land through our friends and CSA members who own it and live in the barn up the road. They are in the process of working with Ann Arbor Greenbelt to place a conservation easement on the property which would preserve it as farmland forever. They see this as an important step in conserving farmland near Ann Arbor, and it will be instrumental in enabling them to purchase the land.

Molly Nakahara founded Dinner Bell Farm in 2010 with Paul Glowaski and Cooper Funk. She is an educator, urban agriculture advocate, and as a Ninth generation Californian, she has a strong connection to the Golden State. Molly’s original Californian ancestors were the Peraltas, a Mexican Spanish ranchero family that raised cattle on the green hills of the East Bay Area from El Cerrito to San Leandro. In the 1930s and 40s, Molly’s great-grandparents, immigrants from Japan, farmed green onions and lettuce in the Salinas Valley. Their children, Molly’s grandparents, moved to Berkeley following the internment camps of World War II and built an agricultural oasis in their urban backyard. Molly spent countless hours looking for earthworms, picking green beans, and spraying cabbage moths with water in their garden on Harmon St. Prior to farming with the Dinner Bell crew, Molly worked with the Alameda County Office of Education Project EAT to bring nutrition education and food production gardens to urban public schools. Along with many dedicated students, teachers and staff members, she founded the Tennyson High School Farm at Tennyson High School in Hayward, CA. She believes that food production is a wonderful way to connect people to the land that we all live on. Sponsored by Hearst Ranch.

This week on Greenhorn Radio, Severine talks with Taryn of Sheepscot General, a general store in Maine, and who also owns Uncas Farms. They talk raspberries, renovations, and going from farming into retail. They also learn that sometimes police publicity can be the best kind of publicity. This episode is sponsored by The Hearst Ranch.

Sam Comfort is this weeks guest on Greenhorn Radio.

On this week’s Greenhorn Radio, Severine talks with Ethan Roland of Appleseed Permaculture and John Good of Quiet Creek Farm about carbon and composting.

McKenzie and her fiance Jamie have been trying to start a farm for three years, but due to troublesome landlords, Canada Thistle, ravenous deer, and lack of money, it’s taken time to realize the things they don’t know about agriculture. But they haven’t given up, and this past July they finally landed on a beautiful place in Finksburg, Maryland that they are returning a working farm. They have six sheep, two alpacas, bees, chickens, and 25 acres to transform. Things are taking shape quickly, but they’re going easy this time around because they know how much work being a farmer really is. Jamie works at a local CSA called Breezy Willow, and the family who runs it has been endlessly helpful in teaching them the ropes. McKenzie works at a Montessori preschool and gets to spend her days teaching children how to plant veggies, tend to chickens, and treat each other with empathy. It’s basically her dream job, so she has lots of energy when she comes home to play “Farmer Brown.”

Anna E. Evans-Goldstein grew up watching her father garden and her mother keep their house green with plants. She spent time in Madagascar, where she witnessed a culture transitioning away from agricultural living, and Cambodia, where farming is a fatal occupation as mines from the Khmer Rouge still litter the countryside. In Portland, OR, for college, Anna experienced what can happen in a city where everyone has a green thumb and the rain never stops. Now she is back in her home town of Baltimore working for the City Mayor’s Office on an initiative called Power In Dirt. This new program builds capacity in blighted city neighborhoods for communities and residents to adopt vacant lots and turn them into community-managed green spaces.

In August, Jeremy and Trish bought a three acre piece of land just outside of Spearfish, South Dakota. What was historically a truck farm providing veggies to the mining communities in the Black Hills, it probably hasn’t had vegetables on it for the last twenty years. Trish is currently working in New Mexico and Jeremy is learning to build utility bikes in Oregon, but they will both be moving to South Dakota in January to get things going, building bee hives, planning crops, and working out business specifics. They plan to sell from an on-site farmstand, through the Spearfish Farmers Market, and eventually through a CSA. They are also both enthusiastic about bicycles and are planning to develop and use human-powered farm equipment on site in addition to building cargo bikes in the winter to diversify income. Neither of them come from a farming background, but they started gardening in a friend’s front yard three years ago and have been getting more and more wrapped up in the food system since, especially the thought of using food to build community and land health. They are excited to get Cycle Farm off the ground and say they picked the farm’s name because it’s short, replete with double meanings, and will be easy to come up with some sort of bicycle-vegetable logo. This episode is sponsored by Hearst Ranch.

Jake has been working on farms since he was thirteen. He lives on his own family’s farm, raises beef cows for show and for meat, and has a horse farm were he and his family do every thing. Jake has been working with Brookford Farm since their beginning when they were milking only 17 cows and had just a few chickens. He’s seen amazing growth at the farm, and has been there to help out with just about all of it, from milking cows to cutting firewood. Jake is currently in high school and when he graduates, he wants to continue farming. He plans to go to the Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI) in Ohio to major in dairy sciences so that he can own and operate his own dairy farm some day. This episode was sponsored by Heritage Foods USA.

On this week’s Greenhorn Radio, Severine visits with Amy Franceschini, artist, food activist, and new media guru.

Clinton is a young farmer interested in bringing sustainable farming practices to his farm in Corvallis, Oregon. He and his family are grass-seed farmers who are transitioning to organic bean, grain, and seed crops to supply local markets.

Vinnie has been farming in the Washington, DC beltway, in Prince George’s County, for five years. He started designing and building school gardens for a number of elementary and middle schools, and co-wrote Growing Healthy Habits, a gardening and nutrition curriculum that is aligned with the Maryland State Standards for elementary education. He has been involved in designing and building a number of educational farm projects and organizations, such as the Master Peace Community Farm in 2007, a 1/2 acre farm with community plots and entrepreneurial vegetable production where hundreds of middle school students use the farm to learn nutrition, science, math, and writing.
Vinnie’s most recent project, Seed and Cycle, is an effort to push urban agriculture and composting further along to areas explored only by the most innovative or adventurous urban agriculturalists. He wants to help urban farmers to get more yield out of their land using low-cost hoop houses and is building a business assisting other farmers in quickly and cheaply constructing them on their farm.

Henry Lau is 17 years old and in Grade 12 at Windemere Secondary School in Vancouver, British Columbia. He belongs to the Windermere Organic Garden, a student-led initiative that provides food for the school cafeteria while focusing on the importance of organic practices and educating students about food and agriculture. The garden has a 16×20 foot greenhouse, 13 garden beds, an aquaponics system, and an industrial-sized composter. When senior students started the project 5 years ago, Henry knew nothing about gardening, but the plants starting to pop up in his teacher’s office caught his eye. He found that agriculture was an art, and watching something as small as a seed turn into a meal was an amazing experience that gave him a better appreciation of food. He credits his experience with the garden to a great deal of personal growth and admires that it can be an open and peaceful space for everyone at the school. Henry feels fortunate to live in a community dedicated to food security and the growing green movement, and when he graduates, he hopes to continue studies in food and nutrition while working in the local community garden and tree orchard. This episode was sponsored by Jones Family Farms.

On this week’s episode of Greenhorn Radio, Severine talks to Paula Manolo of Heart Arrow Ranch about biodynamic farming in California and her radical new winter CSA model.

Tim Biello began farming in 2006 at a vegetable CSA in the Hudson Valley of New York. For the past 3 years, he has farmed using draft horses at Essex Farm – a full-year, full-food CSA in Essex, NY. He is currently a farm manager at Greyrock Farm in Cazenovia, NY, which is also a full-year, full-food and draft-powered CSA. Tim is in the midst of an on-going search for a farm of his own in eastern NY or western MA. This program has been sponsored by Hearst Ranch.

An Idaho farm girl, Marci found her roots after meeting her partner Greg and traveling the world together. After graduating from the University of Idaho with a degree in Conservation Social Science and a certificate on Sustainable Small Acreage Farming and Ranching, as well as several apprenticeships each, they decided to venture out on their own and launched Deep Roots Farm & Design. Selling vegetables at the Tuesday Grower’s Market in Moscow, ID and directly to restaurants in the area has created a solid foundation for the future. Marci’s favorite part of farming is the satisfaction that comes from pulling weeds and thinning rows of young carrots. She also loves educating others and planning new garden designs for clients. As co-chicken wrangler, she hopes to see volunteers coming to the farm over the season to share creative ideas for innovation and help move chicken pens. This episode is sponsored by Hearst Ranch.

“[Farmers] want to stop exporting all their goods to China . . .it’s exciting with all these large farmers looking more locally”

–Marci Miller on Greenhorn Radio

Andy doesn’t think he’s a farmer in the sense that most people would recognize, but he cares about compost as much as most people care about their pets. He has been working the earth in the low country from Savannah,GA to Cumberland Island for about 5 years. He did not receive a formal education in agriculture, but grew up in the middle of rural Indiana surrounded by massive fields of corn and soybeans and studied tourism development in college. These days he spends most of his time working in urban garden plots, his back yard, local schools, and restaurants. Andy hopes to start his own business in Savannah in the near future that will allow him to provide healthy food to the local market as well as provide a substantial income. He digs what the Greenhorns are doing across the country and is proud to be a young farmer. This episode is sponsored by S. Wallace Edwards & Sons.

“There’s definitely a huge demand for small farmers, and young farmers, in Savannah . . . Georgia’s ripe and ready, the people are here and ready to do the work”

–Andy Schwartz on Greenhorn Radio

On this week’s Greenhorn Radio, Severine interviews Ambika Conroy, Australian crocheter and rabbit farmer, about creating Sports Illustrated cover bikinis, raising rabbits in upstate New York, and the future of fur co-ops.

Peteh Muhammad Haroon, affectionally known as Brotha’ P, is an inspirational Spoken Word Performance and recording artist and native of New Orleans, LA. Brotha’ P has been performing his unique style of poetry since 1995 as a member of Nommo Literary Society. After leaving Louisiana in 2005, Brotha’ P moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas, where he was reconnected to the world of agriculture–a world he was introduced to as a child. As a student of Arkansas State University, Brotha’ P, along with others who were interested in growing their own food, established a Student Garden Organization. The intentions of the organization were for the garden to grow into a place where students without an agricultural background could have a place to experience a hands-on food growing course and learn to start and maintain a home garden. After being elected and serving as the first President of the organization for a year, Brotha’ P decided to return to New Orleans to pursue his burning passion to establish gardens throughout local neighborhoods. Spending countless hours under the sun volunteering at the Village Ova da River and the Teche Street Garden, he was offered the opportunity to serve as a landscaper with Common Ground Health Care Clinic. Currently, Brotha’ P is working with New Orleans Food and Farm Network and others local organizations such as the Backyard Gardener’s Network to create sustainable green spaces throughout the city of New Orleans. For more information, Brotha’ P can be reached by email at anotherfamilyproduction@yahoo.com. This episode is sponsored The Hearst Ranch.

“I’m looking forward to getting back into [New Orleans] and helping them, I grew up with those people . . .it is my full intent to help any backyard garden in the lower 9th Ward.”

–Brotha’ P on Greenhorn Radio

Sleeping Frog Farms is an intensive 75-acre farm nestled in the Cascabel corridor of the San Pedro River Valley. Founded on permaculture design and biodynamic growing principles, Adam Valdivia, Debbie Weingarten, CJ Marks, and Clay Smith are dedicated to providing their community with seasonal heirloom fruits and vegetables through farmer’s markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), Farm to School, Food Coop, and restaurant sales. Their laying hens, dairy goats, honey bees, and earthworms are integral to pollination, soil-building, and recycling crop waste into food and fertilizer. They harvest a diverse selection of produce daily and at its peak ripeness, in order to bring the finest taste and nutrition to Southern Arizona. This episode is sponsored by White Oak Pastures.

“Our hope is that in 10-15 years that we can be doing a small scale grain operation to feed the animals.”

–Adam Valdivia on Greenhorn Radio

Bob is the director of Food for Maine’s Future and a family farmer living in Sedgwick, Maine. He serves on the boards of the National Family Farm Coalition and Family Farm Defenders. As an activist and farmer living near East Penobscot Bay, Bob identifies with peasant and indigenous people worldwide who struggle to maintain access to land on which to grow their food. In his food sovereignty advocacy he has initiated a seedsaving campaign and writes frequently on the need to oppose the patenting of seeds and other life forms. He spends much of his time these days trying to stop state and federal agencies from shutting down farms in his community. This episode is sponsored by Hearst Ranch.

“Rural communities have been feeding themselves for a long time and offering sales to neighbors and markets. . . and that is an important part of the local economy.”

–Bob St. Peter on Greenhorn Radio

Genio Bertin and Sara Faull own and operate Mandala Farm in Gouldsboro, Maine, 8 miles from the Schoodic section of Acadia National Park and 1 mile from the ocean. They have been farming there since 2002 and are committed to running a sustainable, low impact farm and providing healthy, organic food for their animals and the community. Mandala Farm is a hundred acres with about 17 acres of pasture, 20 acres recently reclaimed for pasture, a 60 acre woodlot, and a little over 3 acres cultivated. They run a 75 member organic vegetable CSA and specialize in breeding, training, and using Norwegian Fjord draft horses in cultivation. They also raise sheep, laying hens and broiler chickens, beef and dairy cows, Tamworth pigs, and cashmere goats. This episode is sponsored by White Oak Pastures.

“We only have one family cow so if I was going to turn that cow into a viable commercial option, what would that mean?”

“Since so much of our input is generated right here on the farm we have the potential for high quality compost.”

–Genio Bertin on Greenhorn Radio