FarmHouse

This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're talking with Christine Smart, the director of Cornell AgriTech.

Smart studies plant pathology and disease control at Cornell University's center for agriculture and food research, and she works with farmers across New York to develop disease management options.

Much of Smart's work utilizes agricultural intelligence, which blends artificial intelligence with human research.

"In many people's minds, agriculture and technology don't actually dovetail," Smart said. "In reality, you can't do ag without technology."

She also studies hemp.

This research is aided by Cornell's partnership with USDA to house the hemp germplasm repository.

"It's essentially like a giant vault where seed of all the different varieties of hemp would be stored," Smart said. "It's an incredible resource to the community."

Smart also teaches plant science courses and is a student adviser.

"The students that are entering land-grant universities, they want to be part of a solution," Smart said. "It's completely inspiring to talk to undergraduates."

She also partners with elementary schools to bring ag education to younger children.

"Having that connection to food, I think the younger we can start students, the better," she said.

Connecting the ag research community and general public is a priority for Smart, so she schedules as many speaking engagements as possible to explain her work and how it helps both the ag industry and the food supply.

Smart didn't grow up farming but she loves being part of the ag industry.

"I think that farmers are the most creative, ingenious, entrepreneurial people I know because of the breadth of the work that they do," she said.

Learn more about the article mentioned in the episode here:

Red Cat Farm's Sustainable Niche Grain Products Find a Market

View a photo of Candice's garden full of forks here.

This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're talking to Melissa Nelson Baldwin, the owner of Performance Crop Research, LLC and co-owner of South Bend Industrial Hemp.

Nelson Baldwin grew up in Kansas in a family of farmers and spent her youth participating in 4-H horse shows and advocating for agriculture in various student organizations.

Her passion for farming drove her to get into crop research and in 2018, she founded Performance Crop Research, LLC, where she and her team work with global clients to study plant pathology and the effects of insecticides and bio stimulants on crop varieties in the developmental pipeline.

Sustainability has also become a growing aspect of PCR's research as its clients listen to consumers calling for more environmentally conscious farming methods.

Nelson Baldwin acknowledged it can be difficult to strike a balance between sustainability and profitability.

"Some of the things that they're calling for aren't 100% possible," she said of the pressure from consumers to make farming more sustainable. "But you do see nitrogen reduction. You do see a lot of bio stimulants taking the place of conventional pesticides."

Nelson Baldwin farms alongside her husband and brother-in-law on their fourth-generation family farm, and together they co-own South Bend Industrial Hemp. They began growing hemp as a way to diversify their grain farming operation, but soon saw an opportunity in hemp processing.

"We had a processor back out on us and we continued to see that as a problem across the industry. And so we decided to open our own processing facility and now we work with farmers from all over the Midwest," said Nelson Baldwin. "We help them with a seed to final sale, agronomic support, really whatever they need throughout the season to be successful."

In addition to working at PCR and South Bend, Nelson also hosts a monthly radio show about farming on Eagle Radio 99.5 FM in Great Bend Kansas.

"Right now I am on the express and I have a lot of things to accomplish in a very short amount of time," Nelson Baldwin said of her busy schedule. "You never know. Every day is not given. And so I'm like, how do I maximize my day? How do I be the best that I can be? And ultimately do my job in the best way possible."

This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're talking with a familiar name to our readers, Sue Bowman.

Bowman has a cow-calf farm in Lebanon County and has been writing for Lancaster Farming for 20-plus years.

Bowman's farm has been in her family since the early 1890s, and is in a unique spot in the county, with most of the 106 acres located within the borough of Cleona.

Due to the farm's location and the threat of development, Bowman got the farm preserved in 2002.

"We actually became the 6,000th acre in Lebanon County that was preserved," she said. "It was something we wanted to do and we have never regretted it."

In addition to farming, Bowman is a Lancaster Farming correspondent and writes a weekly column, Rural Ramblings, that runs in the B section.

"Sometimes I feel like my column is about nothing, in a way, nothing special," Bowman said. "I like to take little everyday events that I think other people could identify with and write about them."

When Bowman was asked to write a weekly column years ago, she said she first had to confirm that she could also continue writing articles, something she really enjoys.

Bowman writes a lot of features for B section, often focusing on history.

"The nicest people that I've ever met are people that I've met through Lancaster Farming doing articles about them," Bowman said.

Bowman was born into farming, but she said when she was younger it wasn't a novelty to be a farm kid, and it also wasn't necessarily something to be proud of.

But as she's gotten older, her relationship to the farming industry has evolved.

"It's something I'm proud of now in my later years to say 'yeah, I live on a 106-acre preserved farm,'" Bowman said.

You can read more from the articles discussed in the episode here:

Why Farm Women Should Pay Attention to Their Own Biological Cycles [Opinion]

New Jersey Cranberry Farm Wades Through Harvest Season

Why Were Victorian Valentines Both Sweet and Sour?

Sheep and Goats are 'Garbage Gourmets'

This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're having some seasonal fun and embracing the spooky side of farming.

What is it about rural locations, including farms, that make them the perfect settings for ghost stories? Let's face it, scary stories from the city don't have quite the same effect as those that take place on an isolated piece of property where the nights are darker and the air is quieter.

In this episode, we'll be sharing four spooky stories that take place on a farm or, in one case, a farmers market.

First, we'll visit with the Reichart family of Berks County, Pennsylvania, who claim to have seen the ghostly figure of a man haunting their barn. Who is he, and why are the Reicharts' cows so frightened of a certain stall in their barn?

Next, we'll learn about a tussle with otherworldly spirits in the attic of a Carbon County, Pennsylvania, farmhouse. What is powwow magic and was it enough to keep the dark forces at bay?

Then we'll travel across the country to Ellinwood, Kansas, where the Koett family was allegedly run off their farm by strange happenings in their farmhouse and a wraith-like figure in their orchard. Was it really a ghost? Or could this have been the work of a mischievous neighbor with something to gain?

Finally, we'll swing by the Lebanon Farmers Market in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and learn about the ghosts who supposedly haunt its basement. The market sits on top of what used to be the county jail. Could some of its former condemned prisoners still be hanging around?

Join us as we try to answer these questions and have some spooky fun on the FarmHouse!

This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're talking to Amanda Bennett, an agriculture and natural resources educator with Ohio State Extension.

Bennett, who grew up on a grain farm, specializes in raised bed gardening, native plant landscaping, hydroponics as well as beekeeping.

Working as an Extension educator means Bennett gets to be a life-long learner, as you never know what kinds of questions you'll get.

"When we get together we start telling stories and think that we could write a book on all the weird questions that we get," Bennett said.

One time, Bennett said, someone even brought a live mouse into the office worried that it may have bred with a rabbit because it could jump so high.

But that's just a typical day in the life of an ag and natural resources educator for Bennett, where she has to be able to field questions from livestock to bees and from conventional farming to native plants.

The wide variety of topics is more similar than it may seem.

"I do think there are a lot more connections than people think," Bennett said. "I often say that I grew up on a grain farm, but it's really just gardening on a huge scale."

Bennett's interest in native plants grew alongside her interest in beekeeping, as a native landscape with plants that bloom in spring, summer and fall benefits pollinators.

Native plants also require fewer nutrients and pesticides, making them relatively easy to incorporate into the landscape.

"I always say I'm a lazy gardener, and they require a whole lot less work," Bennett said.

Bennett has been keeping bees for about 12 years and also teaches beekeeping courses with Ohio State Extension.

Though her life now is filled with a wide variety of agriculture, that wasn't always the plan.

Initially, Bennett wanted to be a Spanish teacher, but after starting school at Ohio State, she realized a lot of people didn't know much about agriculture, so she changed her major to go into that field instead.

"I just appreciate the opportunity to be part of an industry that has been beneficial in my life, that has been beneficial to my upbringing, that has taught me a lot of values and hard work ethic," Bennett said. "And I feel grateful to be able to represent that industry, and hopefully I'm doing that in a good way."

You can find more information on the Lancaster Farming article discussed in the beginning of this episode here:

What Is Feral Woman Fall And How Can You Embrace It? [Opinion]

This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're joined by Lindsey Shapiro, a vegetable farmer from Bally, Pennsylvania, and the Farm Bill campaign organizer for Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

Shapiro is a first-generation farmer who discovered her passion for agriculture while helping her husband's family on their urban farm in Philadelphia.

"I was just so enamored with the tangible joys of growing food," Shapiro said. "We'd harvest the food Friday morning. We had wheeled it out onto the sidewalk Friday afternoon, and it would end up in people's dinners by Friday evening."

Inspired by their experience, Shapiro and her husband started their own operation, Root Mass Farm, in 2011, where they grow a variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs using sustainable farming practices.

Root Mass Farm sells at two farmers markets and offers a Garden Stake CSA in which customers pay at the beginning of the season then deduct their purchases from their balance as they shop the farm's stand at the markets. Shapiro explained this is often appealing to customers with smaller households or those who can't commit to a weekly pick up.

Having customers come to the farmers market for their CSA shares also allows Shapiro to interact with them on a more personal level and answer questions they might have about her produce.

"I had a customer that was like, why is the celery so small? I was like, well, I had to harvest our celery a little bit earlier because it's been so dry that we haven't really been able to get it to size up very much," she said while reflecting on some recent customer interactions. "But, it's going to be delicious. It's going to have a lot of flavor. It's still going to make your potato salad or your soup just sing with celery goodness."

At her off-farm job at Pasa, Shapiro works to get farmers involved in the Farm Bill reauthorization process. She stresses the importance of making sure farmers' voices are being heard in spaces where decisions are being made that will affect agriculture.

"I get to talk to a lot of farmers in that work and learn more about what their needs are, and try to be very solution-oriented," she said, "and figure out how we can improve policies in this country so that farmers in Pasa's network have a better shot at doing the incredible work that they want to do."

Shapiro also discussed why the new Farm Bill has been so difficult to pass, touching on the competing needs of many Americans who depend on the funding tied to the bill, from nutrition funding to climate change mitigation.

"There's just not enough money to go around," she said. "So, there's some hard decisions that have to be made. And I think it's ultimately come to a matter of priorities."

You can find more information on the Lancaster Farming stories discussed in the beginning of this episode here:

Don't Clean Up Your Garden Beds Until Spring: Here's Why

Artificial Intelligence Can Reduce Farming Inputs

This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're keeping it all in the family with a roundtable episode featuring some of the women who work at Lancaster Farming.

Joining co-hosts Candice Wierzbowski and Stephanie Speicher from the editorial department are Kelly Thomas and Rebecca Schweitzer-Benner, and from the advertising department are Brittany Copenhaver and Torey Shotzberger.

While most of the guests had an ag-adjacent background prior to working for Lancaster Farming, Shotzberger grew up on her dad's hobby farm.

"I grew up helping him with hay and other crops and sitting in the tractor and combine," Shotzberger said.

Now she's working as an inside sales representative at Lancaster Farming, helping customers place ads each week selling items ranging from farm equipment to animals to hay.

Copenhaver is also an advertising sales representative focusing on auction ads.

"It's very important for them to get (the ads) in to get the exposure that they do need for their client," Copenhaver said. "I'm not just helping them. I am helping also their client reach the maximum visual of their ad and try to get their property sold, or their pieces, for the most money possible."

On the editorial side of the roundtable, Schweitzer-Benner is the special sections editor, a job she said fits nicely with her degree in professional writing.

"I go and I learn about a topic that I might not know anything about beforehand, and then I figure out how to present it to people who also might not know anything about it," Schweitzer-Benner said. "It's been a lot of fun."

Thomas, who has a background in both print and broadcast journalism, joined the team at Lancaster Farming after being out of the news industry for a number of years.

Now she edits the food and family section, the B Section.

"It's a lot of responsibility trying to put together B Section," Thomas said. "This is the first time that I get to put together and see a finished product of my work. I think there's a greater responsibility and accountability that comes along with that."

Though the advertising and editorial departments perform different jobs, there was one commonality between the departments — a focus on people.

Whether ad customers, freelance correspondents or the subjects who are interviewed, the people of the agriculture industry were a favorite of all the guests.

The FarmHouse podcast will be taking a short break from publishing. The next new episode will be out Oct. 17.

Listen to the FarmHouse episode mentioned featuring Laura Zoeller here:

Love, Loss and Livestock With Laura Zoeller

Listen to the FarmHouse episode mentioned featuring Katie Dotterer here:

Breaking Down Language Barriers on the Farm With Katie Dotterer

This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're joined by Katie Dotterer who uses her company AgvoKate to advocate for agriculture while also teaching farmers Spanish to improve on-farm communication.

Dotterer grew up on a dairy farm in Clinton County, Pennsylvania. As a young woman milking alongside Spanish-speaking farmworkers, she developed a passion for Spanish and enjoyed spending her shifts speaking to co-workers in their native language.

Dotterer continued to pursue dairy, including briefly owning her own dairy, but eventually decided to embrace her love of Spanish. Over the course of her career in dairy, she identified a language barrier that often existed between farmers and workers and decided she could do something about that.

She now offers Spanish classes with curriculum designed specifically for farmers. Her students may not need to know how to ask where the nearest library is, but learning how to talk about animals, tools and chores is useful.

"The very first vocab list, I'm just going to give you an example, in dairy, you're learning how to say cow, heifer, bucket, gate. I have specific milking parlor terminology," Dotterer says.

She teaches classes that focus on other farming operations, too. "Here's a fun fact. In swine, I learned that there are six different ways to say piglet depending on where somebody is from," she says, explaining the need to take various dialects into account while teaching.

While there are some who might argue it's the Spanish-speaking workers' responsibility to learn to speak English, Dotterer disagrees.

In her opinion, employers of Spanish-speaking workers have the responsibility to learn how to communicate effectively with their employees.

"I'm not asking you to be fluent, but you could meet them halfway," says Dotterer. "There's nothing wrong with learning how to say, 'Good morning. How is your family?' 'Hey, the cow is sick.' 'Can you grab the red bucket?'"

In addition to teaching farmers how to speak Spanish, Dotterer also gives English lessons to farm workers.

She explained that many of them want to learn English and are trying, but added that English is a difficult language to learn.

The language and cultural barriers may make things difficult at times, but Dotterer stressed that maintaining respect and positive relationships with Spanish-speaking workers is important, citing the critical role these workers play in US agriculture.

"I used to say that the US agriculture industry would be crippled without the immigrant labor force. I no longer say that. I say that we would actually be non-existent," says Dotterer.

You can find more information on the Lancaster Farming story discussed in the beginning of this episode here:

10 Women You Meet in Farm Country: Which One Are You?

This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're joined by Katie Speicher, the assistant farm manager for Poughkeepsie Farm Project, a nonprofit seeking to foster an inclusive environment for its community while improving food access and education.

PFP began as a sustainable produce farming operation in 1999. Since then it has grown from 3 to 12 acres with an over 300-member-strong CSA.

In addition to its CSA, PFP sells to local restaurants, hosts educational programming, maintains community gardens and donates around 40,000 pounds of sustainably grown produce each year to area food banks.

A highlight of PFP's operations is its community harvests — gleaning events open to the public. During these events, community members are invited to assist with the season's harvest, taking home as much produce as they need. Any remaining food is then donated to local food access partners, ensuring nothing goes to waste.

According to Speicher, these community harvests are strong examples of the farm's dedication to inclusivity.

"It's great because there's people of different cultures who recognize certain foods that we grow and are so excited," Speicher says. "We had bok choy that was flowering and we had some folks of Asian descent come and they are actually so excited to get the flowers. People who aren't familiar with that don't know how to use it. So it's great to see all the parts of our plants being eaten and used."

Speicher had always been interested in working outside, but it wasn't until she began volunteering on vegetable farms that she realized she had a passion for agriculture.

"I was like, oh, this is a really great way to spend time outdoors, get connected with my food. And I just really took an interest in it," says Speicher.

Before coming to work at PFP, Speicher spent time in Senegal, where she volunteered with the Peace Corps. While there, she worked with farmers to grow tree seedlings that could be incorporated into their farms, either as natural fencing or as crops, such as cashews and mangos.

She's happy to have landed at PFP, though, and feels empowered by its community-driven mission.

"To me, having a hand in food is like synonymous with having a hand in community," said Speicher. "Growing with compassion is just such a powerful thing."

You can find more information on the Lancaster Farming story discussed in the beginning of this episode here:

Hive Mind: Penn State Researchers Track Over 400 Native Bee Species in PA

More on FarmerJawn:

Agriculture is the Culture With FarmerJawn's Christa Barfield

This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're joined by Jennifer Anderson, executive director for Trellis For Tomorrow.

Trellis For Tomorrow is a nonprofit organization in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, that works toward building sustainable communities with a focus on food justice and teaching community members how to garden and grow their own produce.

"The work that we do is really about helping people to lead and feed themselves," said Anderson. "So, it's about how we can help communities to be more self-sustainable, particularly around growing food and eating healthy and more nutritiously."

The organization accomplishes this work through several programs, all of which are designed around growing and donating food.

Its SEED Skills program, for ages 12-18, centers on teaching youths how to manage a garden and grow and harvest organic produce. Program participants are paid for the work in multiple community gardens, and their harvest is distributed within the surrounding communities.

While the kids leave the program with gardening skills, they also come away with leadership and communication skills, which Trellis For Tomorrow emphasizes in each of its programs.

"Using agriculture as both a medium for life skills, building life skills, you know, you're there literally showing up every day and getting to work," said Anderson.

Many of the SEED Skills participants then go on to Trellis For Tomorrow's GROW Careers program for ages 18-26. GROW participants are placed in paid internships at local nonprofits and social impact businesses where they can further develop their skills and build their resumes.

Trellis For Tomorrow also provides nearby communities with locally and sustainably grown produce through its Food For All program.

The organization works with community members and partner organizations to start up and maintain gardens that are tended by volunteers.

The program has 27 grow sites across five counties and donates at least 50% of its harvest to area food banks, though for many of the grow sites, that number is closer to 95% or 98%. Anderson estimates that 35,000-45,000 pounds of produce is donated every year through the program.

There's something about gardening and providing food to one's community that people find rewarding and enjoyable, Anderson said.

"There's a big part of that program that is community building," she said. "These are all different types of gardens, but when you have groups of people coming together and meeting in the garden, it's an equalizer, right? Everybody's excited about being there."

You can find more information on the Lancaster Farming story discussed in the beginning of this episode here:

Majority of Farm Families Struggle With Access to Child Care, According to Survey