ATTRA - Voices from the Field

In this episode, Margo Hale and Linda Coffey, lifelong livestock producers and long-time NCAT livestock specialists, talk about getting started in livestock. What is the appeal, and what are the important considerations?

Margo is director of NCAT's Southeast Regional Office in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where she and Linda both work.

In their conversation, Margo and Linda emphasize the importance of keeping farm goals and resources in mind and stress the need to start small but plan for expansion. They mention essential infrastructure to have in place before bringing livestock home and offer many tips that will help beginners succeed with livestock.

For more information on this topic, you can contact Margo Hale and Linda Coffey directly at [email protected] and [email protected].

Related Resources
Small Scale Livestock Production
ATTRA Livestock and Pasture
Livestock as a Tool: Improving Soil Health, Boosting Crops
Integrating Livestock and Crops
Managed Grazing Tutorial
Healthy Animals, Happy Farm
Working With Your Meat Processor

Please complete a brief survey to let us know what you thought of the content presented here.

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA's website.

You also can stay in touch with NCAT at its Facebook page.

Keep up with NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm at its website.

Also check out NCAT's Regional Offices' websites and Facebook Pages!

Southwest Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Western Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Rocky Mountain West Regional Office: Facebook

Gulf States Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Southeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Northeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

In this episode, Jeff Schahczenski, NCAT agricultural and natural resource economist, and Marieke de Ruyter de Wildt discuss issues surrounding the possibly disruptive technology of blockchain as used in agriculture and food supply chain management.

Blockchain technology is often described as a system that maintains a record of transactions across several computers that are linked to a peer-to-peer network, which allows for the easy distribution of digital information.

Tanzanian-born Marieke is founder of The New Fork, a blockchain company based in Amsterdam. The New Fork builds new technologies for agri-food supply chains, specializing in blockchain.

Marieke's fascination with agri-food started while she was travelling in Africa at the age of 17. She began her career with computer science at Wageningen University and worked on farm data for more than 20 years, covering more than 50 countries. She returned to Wageningen University to fulfil several management positions, became director of a software company that digitizes compliance processes, and founded The New Fork in 2017.

For more information on this topic, you can contact Jeff Schahczenski directly at [email protected].

Related ATTRA Resources
Knowing the Real Value of Food: Blockchain in a New Sustainable Food Economy

Other Resources:
The New Fork
Blockchain and the Resurrection of Consumer Sovereignty in a Sustainable Food Economy
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall. Who's the Fairest of Them All: The Case for Public Blockchains

Please complete a brief survey to let us know what you thought of the content presented here.

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA's website.

You also can stay in touch with NCAT at its Facebook page.

Keep up with NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm at its website.

Also check out NCAT's Regional Offices' websites and Facebook Pages!

Southwest Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Western Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Rocky Mountain West Regional Office: Facebook

Gulf States Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Southeast Regional Office:

In this episode, Jeff Schahczenski, an agricultural and natural resource economist with the National Center for Appropriate Technology, discusses working-lands conservation solutions with NCAT outreach specialist Rich Myers. Both work out of NCAT's headquarters in Butte, Montana.

In the 2018 Farm Bill, significant changes were made in the two most important federal working-lands conservation programs: USDA NRCS's Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP). Jeff and Rich discuss the importance of these programs to farmers and ranchers in supporting a more sustainable agriculture, as well as the recently adopted NRCS Conservation Assessment and Ranking Tool (CART), which is used to rank applicants for limited funding available for these valuable working lands conservation resources.

For more information on this topic, you can contact Jeff Schahczenski directly at j[email protected].

Related ATTRA Resources
Conservation Assessment Ranking Took (CART) webinar series

Other Resources:
USDA National Resources Conservation Service

Please complete a brief survey to let us know what you thought of the content presented here.

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA's website.

You also can stay in touch with NCAT at its Facebook page.

Keep up with NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm at its website.

Also check out NCAT's Regional Offices' websites and Facebook Pages!

Southwest Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Western Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Rocky Mountain West Regional Office: Facebook

Gulf States Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Southeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Northeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

This week's episode is part of an occasional series from Rockiell Woods, Director of NCAT's Gulf States Regional Office in Jackson, Mississippi, and Bill Evans, Director of Horticulture at Up in Farms Food Hub in Jackson. This series is all about starting a farm.

Today's conversation is focused on water issues.

For more information on this topic, you can contact Rockiell Woods directly at [email protected].

Related ATTRA Resources
Evaluating a Farm Enterprise
Financing Your Farm: Guidance for Beginning Farmers
Planning for Profit in Sustainable Farming
Basic Accounting: Guidance for Beginning Farmers

Other Resources:
Farm Answers
Up in Farms Food Hub

Please complete a brief survey to let us know what you thought of the content presented here.

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA's website.

You also can stay in touch with NCAT at its Facebook page.

Keep up with NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm at its website.

Also check out NCAT's Regional Offices' websites and Facebook Pages!

Southwest Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Western Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Rocky Mountain West Regional Office: Facebook

Gulf States Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Southeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Northeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

In this episode, Tammy Howard, an agriculture specialist who works out of NCAT's Rocky Mountain West Regional Office in Butte, Montana, talks with two tribal food officials about their approach to sourcing food and selling it through their "mobile markets" in rural areas of Minnesota and Mississippi. They also discuss their approach to providing healthy, local food to tribal members.

Zachary Paige is the coordinator of the White Earth Food Truck and facilitates the White Earth Food Sovereignty initiative of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

Daphne Snow manages the Choctaw Fresh program's five farms on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians Reservation and helps distribute produce to multiple locations through the reservation.

For more information on this topic, contact Tammy Howard directly at [email protected].

Related ATTRA Resources
Farmers Markets
Food Hubs: A Producer Guide
Feasibility Study for Central Texas Food Hub

Other Resources:
Choctaw Fresh Produce
White Earth Food Sovereignty Traditional Food Meal Kits
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Please complete a brief survey to let us know what you thought of the content presented here.

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA's website.

You also can stay in touch with NCAT at its Facebook page.

Keep up with NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm at its website.

Also check out NCAT's Regional Offices' websites and Facebook Pages!

Southwest Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Western Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Rocky Mountain West Regional Office: Facebook

Gulf States Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Southeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Northeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

In this episode, Martin Guerena, a sustainable agriculture specialist based at NCAT's Western Regional Office in Davis, California, speaks with Alex Ellison of Castlerock Farm in Walnut Creek, California. The conversation includes a description of the Castlerock Farm operation as well as the initial results and challenges of Castlerock's trials in solarization and biosolarization. Alex also describes the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on the farm.

For more information on this topic, contact Martin Guerena directly via email at [email protected].

Related ATTRA Resources
Soil Solarization and Biosolarization
Tips for Selling at: Roadside Stands
Market Gardening: A Start-Up Guide

Other Resources:
Castlerock Farm

Please complete a brief survey to let us know what you thought of the content presented here.

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA's website.

You also can stay in touch with NCAT at its Facebook page.

Keep up with NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm at its website.

Also check out NCAT's Regional Offices' websites and Facebook Pages!

Southwest Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Western Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Rocky Mountain West Regional Office: Facebook

Gulf States Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Southeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Northeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

SIFT — or Small-Scale Intensive Farm Training program — aims to help communities increase their food security by producing their own healthy food. SIFT, with NCAT, has a working, sustainably managed, demonstration farm on five acres at our Butte office.

This farm is the center of a program that teaches farmers and future farmers, urban food producers, community leaders, and citizens how to produce high-value, nutrient-rich food on small parcels of land. And in Butte's case, in a challenging climate.

John and Andrew talk about the farm's educational capacity and what its research has shown concerning maximizing growing capacity, conserving water, hydroponics, and other issues.

For more information on this topic, contact John Wallace directly at [email protected].

Related ATTRA Resources
Episode 165: SIFT Farm's Unusual Year
NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm website
Urban and Community Agriculture
ATTRA COVID-19 Response
SIFT 2018: Lessons from a Small-Scale Urban Intensive Farm
SIFT 2019: Continuing Lessons from a Small-Scale Urban Intensive Farm
Production to Address Community Needs
Cherries and Honeyberries in a Cold Climate

Please complete a brief survey to let us know what you thought of the content presented here.

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA's website.

You also can stay in touch with NCAT at its Facebook page.

Keep up with NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm at its website.

Also check out NCAT's Regional Offices' websites and Facebook Pages!

Southwest Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Western Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Rocky Mountain West Regional Office: Facebook

Gulf States Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Southeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Northeast Regional Office: Website /

In this episode, Margo Hale, NCAT's Southeast Regional Office director and a livestock specialist with NCAT's ATTRA sustainable-agriculture program, joins livestock specialist Linda Coffey to discuss the important problem of internal parasites.

The conversation covers why internal parasites are such a force to be reckoned with, as well as ways producers can work with nature to manage their pastures and animals to minimize issues with parasites.

Related ATTRA Resources
Animal Health and Nutrition
Managed Grazing Tutorial
Publications
Adaptive Grazing: You Can Do It
Tools for Managing Internal Parasites in Sheep and Goats: Pasture Management
Tipsheet: Organic Approach to Animal Health
Grazing to Control Parasites

Tips for Managing Internal Parasites
Videos
Integrated Pest Management: Train the Trainer
FAMACHA in a Nutshell
Managing Internal Parasites in Sheep and Goats

Other Resources
American Consortium for Small Ruminant Parasite Control
ACSRPC Best Management Practices
Introduction to Goat Nutrition

Please complete a brief survey to let us know what you thought of the content presented here.

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA's website.

You also can stay in touch with NCAT at its Facebook page.

Keep up with NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm at its website.

Also check out NCAT's Regional Offices' websites and Facebook Pages!

Southwest Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Western Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Rocky Mountain West Regional Office: Facebook

Gulf S

In this episode, Colin Mitchell, a sustainable agriculture specialist based out of NCAT's Southwest Regional Office in San Antonio, Texas, is joined by Jeanne Merrill, policy director at the California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCAN). Colin and Jeanne discuss different "Climate Smart Agriculture" tools and policies in California, including the Healthy Soils Program; the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program; the Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program; the Sustainable Agriculture Lands Conservation Program; the Alternative Manure Management Program; and the Climate Adaptation Program.

They also discuss carbon markets, water quality trading, and other issues.

Related ATTRA Resources
Publications
Payments for Ecosystem Services
Agriculture, Climate Change, and Carbon Sequestration
Managing Soils for Water
Marketing Manure
Videos
Payments for Ecosystem Services Part I
Payments for Ecosystem Services Part II: Carbon Markets and Credit Stacking
Payments for Ecosystem Services Part III: Water Quality Trading
Podcasts
Water Quality Trading
Conservation Easements and Ecosystem Service Markets
Using Cover Crops to Sequester Carbon
Soil Health and the Five Soil Health Principles
Soil Health and Regenerative Agriculture
Carbonomics

Other Resources
CalCAN
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition: Climate Change and Agriculture
California Air Resources Board California Climate Investments

Please complete a brief survey to let us know what you thought of the content presented here.

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA's website.

You also can stay in touch with NCAT at its Facebook page.

Keep up with NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm at its website.

In this episode, Kara Kroeger, a sustainable agriculture specialist who works out of NCAT's Southwest Regional Office in San Antonio, Texas, talks with Bill Nieman, the owner of Native American Seed, a native seed company in Junction, Texas. Bill shares his history in the native-seed business and talks about how native seeds can help improve ecosystem health, among other benefits. He also shares success stories of folks he's worked with over the years.

We'd appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to complete a survey about the podcast. It really helps us improve our sustainable-agriculture resources. The link is in the notes below.

Related ATTRA Resources
Seed Production and Variety Development for Organic Systems
Seed Saving: What Beginners Need to Know

Other Resources
Native American Seed
Hill Country Alliance
The Land Institute

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA's website.

You also can stay in touch with NCAT at its Facebook page.

Keep up with NCAT/ATTRA's SIFT farm at its website.

Also check out NCAT's Regional Offices' websites and Facebook Pages!

Southwest Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Western Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Rocky Mountain West Regional Office: Facebook

Gulf States Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Southeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook

Northeast Regional Office: Website / Facebook