Posts Tagged ‘farms’

Farmer Don: Sunflower Seeds Forever (video)

A field of shimmering sunflowers; a flock of hungry birds feeding , and a farmer who shares some of his stories about his sunflower fields. I have a soft spot for flowers. Years ago I took some painting classes from a great watercolorist, Susan St. Thomas. The subject I always picked to paint was flowers. [...]

Community Digs in to Help Local Farm and Eatery

June 03, 2011 Dava Parr, owner of Fresh & Wyld Farmhouse Inn, a small local business in Paonia, Colorado, was facing a balloon payment she could not make and recently reached out to the community for support, and found it. One such person who stepped forward to help out was High Country News managing editor, [...]

National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service—ATTRA

Congress has terminated funding in this year’s (2011) federal budget for the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, commonly known as ATTRA. For those who may not be aware, this program provides a wealth of online sustainability information to farmers, educators, and the public. Without obtaining additional financial support, their databases, publications, and technical services may [...]

To Eat Local, We Must Help Save Local Farmland

March 30, 2010 This has been a hot topic in my community (Portland, OR) lately, and I see it is being discussed in Sacramento too. If you want to eat locally, it’s important to support local farmers and to plan (smartly) for the future: save farmland for farming and not necessarily to be developed. And [...]

A Mid-Atlantic Farmer’s Perspective

My name is Joya and welcome to my little farm. I run a small, sustainable market garden in Sussex County, Delaware. Here in the center of the Delmarva Peninsula, we are two hours from any major metropolitan area and we are right in the midst of our region’s agricultural center. Chickens, corn and soy are [...]

Raised On Grass: Pastured Fed Animals (video)

New to the life of farming, a middle-aged couple make a career change to becoming sustainable farmers. First mentoring under Joel Salatin, they now raise pasture fed cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, lambs, and sheep. I started to really think about the food the animals I ate were fed, after I saw “King Corn” and talked [...]

Ken Meter: Building A Local Food Economy: 2

Building a local food economy also depends upon retaining local farms, and encouraging the development of new ones. In part 2, Ken Meter outlines the problem with the diminishing availability of affordable farmland. He also shares a couple of stories about two enterprising community efforts: one that makes land more accessible for farming; the other, [...]