Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good

Cambodian agroecology educator Panha Suon talks with Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good podcast host Lisa Munniksma about farming in Cambodia, from climate to crops and the challenges that farmers are facing there. Listen to how Panha became involved in agroecology and why he’s dedicated to educating others about the impact human activities have on the environment, particularly in a less-industrialized country like Cambodia.

Hear about Dassatek—meaning to awaken in Khmer—the project that Panha is developing to train Cambodian youth in agroecology. He talks about what motivates young people in his country and how he sees Dassatek appealing to them, including through an apprenticeship and a small seed fund to start their own agroecology project. Panha also talks about the social business enterprise model, as opposed to structuring Dassotek as a nonprofit or for-profit entity.

Learn about Panha’s 3-year homestead-building plan using natural building methods and how this suits Cambodia’s climate. He offers his advice for building your own earthen structure, focusing on using what you have on hand.

Listen to the very end to hear about Panha’s favorite traditional Cambodian farm meal!

Links from this episode:

Dassatek on Facebook

Dassatek on LinkedIn

Lewis Hughes, land steward and local-food distribution pro

Hear about Lewis Hughes’s journey into farming, from conventional pig and corn farms to international agricultural research to organic farming and cooperative farming. His vast experience in the farming world set him up to be able to work with small-scale farmers in distributing their products to wider markets.

Learn about the What Chefs Want (formerly called Creation Gardens) food distributor and its local-foods procurement arm, Local Food Connection. Lewis explains how a small-scale grower in Northeast Ohio might typically only be able to distribute their food to a farmers market or local food hub and how What Chefs Want can now help them sell throughout the Midwest and beyond. He talks about the grant funding (USDA Local Food Purchase Assistance, USDA Local Food for Schools and others) that has helped rapidly build capacity and infrastructure in the local food system and positively impact farmers and consumers.

Take Lewis’s best advice for how you, as a small-scale farmer, can make the step from selling at a farmers market to selling to a food hub, with the potential to bring your full-time-farming dream into reality.

Finally, Lewis talks about his new 13-acre property in Michigan and his plans to develop a “micro-farm” that relies on season extension and a focused crop plan.

Links from this episode:

Local Food Connection website

Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good episode # 67 with Ben Hartman

Small-scale farmer and entrepreneur Nasuha Lenuh — nicknamed R — talks about the tree crops grown in her region, the southern part of Thailand. Hear about her family’s tree crops, from rubber to durian fruit, and how R has chosen her own path in developing Rganic Farm, including herbs, salad greens and edible flowers. R shares this journey, being honest about her family’s and community’s feelings about her attempt at growing crops that others just aren’t attempting in this area.

R talks about her elevated raised beds, which she said go together like Legos so she can move them as the durian tree crops around them grow tall. She also talks about her experience as a woman farmer in Thailand and why this profession is important to her. 

Based on her experience of growing temperate-climate crops in a tropical climate, R explains a secret of her success: patience in soil building.

Hear about the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, hosted by the US State Department, which awarded R a fellowship that brought her to the US to study food systems (and then allowed the Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good host Lisa Munniksma to visit Thailand through a reciprocal fellowship). R explains Kotatuera Basar Kita, the YSEALI project she’s working on now, to develop farmers and bring an American-style farmers market to her community in Yala, Thailand. R and Lisa also talk about what it’s been like to work together on this project both in the U.S. and in Thailand.

Links from this episode:

Rganic Farm on Facebook

Rganic Farm on Instagram

Military service members and veterans farming program and aeroponic gardening with Melissa Stewart

Listen to Melissa Stewart’s story about the West Virginia National Guard’s Patriot Guardens program — the only agricultural unit embedded in a National Guard unit — and how it grew from an educational program to what it has become in 7 years: an urban farm in Charleston, a flock of laying hens, farmers markets, an orchard on reclaimed coal-mine land in Central West Virginia, a robust beekeeping program, business and marketing support, a composting project, family programming, and mental-health services. All grant-funded, Patriot Guardens is ever-evolving.

Melissa talks about the ways this program is benefiting their military service people and veterans, with some seeing agriculture as a possible retirement plan, giving them an opportunity to continue to give back to their community after their military service. Hear about a success story of one participant who’s turned what he’s learned in the program into a thriving plant business. And Melissa gets emotional talking about why Patriot Guardens is important to her and the impact it has on their service members.

Melissa shares her story of her own home garden. As a greenhouse production grower before becoming an Extension agent (and now working with Patriot Guardens), Melissa has a ton of experience using a range of gardening techniques. Listen to the end for Melissa’s advice on getting starting with aeroponics at home.

Links

Patriot Guardens on Facebook

Patriot Guardens website

Flexibility in farming, connecting with the natural world, and the Organic Association of Kentucky with Jenny Howard Owen

In this episode of Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good, listen to Jenny’s story of her love of farming rooted in childhood. You might identify with her vivid childhood memories of digging potatoes, setting off with the family dogs through the woods and fields, and living a life outdoors. She talks about being in the Peace Corps in Gabon as her first experience with environmental education and the start to her work in sharing the outdoors with others. During her time in Gabon, she learned about gardening in the tropics and started teaching the concepts of ecology through school gardens.

Hear about how, when Jenny left Kentucky after college, she had no interest in living in her home state again but has since come back to Kentucky and built a farm. Being flexible is the lesson here. Jenny talks about the time she spent as a market farmer when her son was young and how she’s transitioned their 8 acres to more of a homesteading space for the time being.

Jenny tells us about her work as a farmer educator with the Organic Association of Kentucky, a nonprofit promoting and supporting organic farmers in the state. An annual conference, regular farmer field days, assistance for farmers transitioning to organic certification, and consumer education are all part of OAK programming. Additionally, the organization hosts the Kentucky Farm Share Coalition, which arranges employer-sponsored CSA programs with local farmers.

Finally, Jenny offers advice for getting started on your own land, sharing what she wished she knew when she and her husband were setting up their farm 10 years ago. And we hear about why this work is important to Jenny.

Diggin It Farm on Facebook

Organic Association of Kentucky website

OAK conference

Kentucky Farm Share Coalition

Research on employee-sponsored organic CSA programs

The hazards of grants, letting vegetable plants go to seed and lessons in water rights with Robert Frew and Juan Carlos Arango 

Robert and Juan Carlos practice permaculture and a culture of sharing at Sobremesa Farm, just outside Bloomington, Indiana. In this episode, Robert talks about taking the time to observe the land before jumping into farming and waiting one more year before putting any pressure on selling anything from the land. Juan Carlos points out that neither of them knew much about farming but came into this work through their interest in nature and wildlife and, eventually, the relationships they built at a Bioneers Conference. That permaculture mimics nature made it a natural fit for their land-management philosophy. 

Hear about the steps they took to bring municipal water to a property that isn’t suited for a well but didn’t have a municipal-water meter. (Listeners: Most of us would have walked away from this property. You have to hear about their journey!) Robert also talks about how they collect and keep rainwater on the land, plus two springs that have come to the surface since they purchased the property. 

Juan Carlos talks about the concept of “volunteers”--particularly plant volunteers as a means to reduce dependence on off-farm seed resources. He also talks about the various animals they keep and the rolls each fills on the farm, plus some of the more untypical tropical crops they grow in greenhouses and the fields. You won’t find soursop, bananas or pittaya growing too many other places in the Midwest! 

Hear, too, about their fellowship with Midwest Grains, the milpas they’re experimenting with, and their interest in finding and learning from other small-scale grain growers in the region. 

From CSA to an on-farm market, Sobremesa Farm attempts to connect their customers with how their food is grown. Robert talks about getting grant money to expand production via mini production contracts for a local food pantry in 2023. He gets real about the growing pains for farms as small as theirs when engaging with grants. 

Finally, Juan Carlos talks about their approach to educating their customers and school groups, as well as multicultural farming workshops they host on the farm. Hear, too, about the fertility methods they’ve used to supercharge the soil organic matter on their farm.  

If you’re curious about the name Sobremesa Farm, listen to the very end to hear Juan Carlos’s explanation of the Latin American concept of sobremesa. 

Note from the host: 

One thing we did not get to talk about in this episode was Sobremesa Farm’s feature during the 2023 Farm Aid benefit concert. Be sure to watch the video, linked below.  

Links from this episode 

Sobremesa Farm website 

Sobremesa Farm Instagram 

The ABC of Organic Agriculture, Chromatography and Sustainable Livestock Management workshop with Jairo Restrepo, September 3-6, 2024 

Farm Aid video 

Sara Wittenberg on Pollinators and How to Build a Pollinator Garden

Pollinator Week is June 17-23, 2024. Without pollinators, we wouldn’t have food, making pollinators an essential link in the food system. You, as a gardener or farmer, have a role to play here. Gardener and biologist Sara Wittenberg talks with podcast host Lisa Munniksma about how and why we should be caring for our pollinators, including how to build a pollinator garden.

Learn about the Pollinator Partnership nonprofit and the work they’re doing to protect pollinators and prevent habitat loss, from educating gardeners and farmers to working on policies and supplying research grants. Sara may surprise you as she reveals who all of our pollinators are—not only honey bees, for sure! 

More than 85% of U.S. households have outdoor living space, and Sara points out that even container gardens planted with pollinator habitat can make a difference! Hear about various pollinator initiatives happening in Arkansas and beyond that you can become involved in: the Project Wingspan effort to make native ecotype seeds more available to land stewards, NRCS programs to connect biologists with landowners for free advice and potential funding assistance, and all that the Pollinator Partnership offers. Sara explains the Bee Friendly Gardening program that she manages, which includes helping people learn how to build a pollinator garden. You can join the program to help them reach their goal of 1,000 Bee Friendly Gardeners by the end of 2024!

Sara lets us in on a new program—the first time she’s mentioned it to the public—the Bee Friendly Gardening badge system. Harkening back to your scout days, you can earn up to six badges to show your pollinator prowess.

For listeners growing on a commercial level, Bee Friendly Farming is an actual certification program that allows Bee Friendly Farmers to use the logo on their packaging.

Keep listening to learn about Sara’s own native-plant garden in her suburban Arkansas backyard. Milkweed, asters, black-eyed Susans, phlox and more turn her small outdoor space into a palette of colors throughout the seasons.

Keep listening for Sara’s best advice for how to build a pollinator garden on your own land, backyard or balcony. (Hint: The Pollinator Partnership’s garden recipe cards can help get you started.)

Links from this episode:

Bee Friendly Gardening website

Pollinator Partnership website

Native plants in your region

Pattie Baker talks about WWOOFing — traveling to work on farms — gardening and finding hope.

Hear about how 9/11 spurred Pattie on to start gardening, from zero interest to a need to plant a seed in the name of hope. She tells her story about how she went from growing food for her family to now traveling to learn about farming and to share her knowledge with others.

In 2008, the city Pattie lived in became the newest city in the US: Dunwoody, Georgia. From here, Pattie started following this burgeoning city’s development and was quickly named the Sustainability Commission Chairperson to help pursue Atlanta’s Green Community Certification, which included developing a community garden. (It’s now the largest volunteer-run community garden in Georgia!) 

Pattie tells us about growing nearly $2,500 worth of vegetables per year from her suburban property. She talks about having witnessed the loss of the majority of her pollinators over the past 10 years and what she’s doing to educate others about this. With her daughters now out of the household, Pattie decided it was time to travel, and at 56 years old was scheduled to go to Uganda with the Peace Corps. COVID changed those plans — you have to hear about the drama of this situation — and left Pattie with a new travel plan.

If you’ve never planned to leave your garden behind for two years, Pattie talks about this process and then reversing the process when she realized she wasn’t going to Uganda after all.

Listen to Pattie’s tales of traveling around the U.S. for five months in 2023, working on farms and riding bus, bike and train. She explains the WWOOF concept — sometimes called Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms or Working Worldwide on Organic Farms — and how this educational exchange operates. Pattie talks about her $20 per day budget, traveling 10,000 car-free in the U.S.. Her book, Round America with a Duck, outlines all of this in a colorful and engaging way.

If WWOOFing has ever interested you, Pattie offers her advice for valuing your time and expertise while outlining your goals to get the best experience. She talks, too, about preparing yourself for a WWOOFing experience, whether you’re 60 years old (like her) or a college-age explorer.

Links from this episode:

Round America with a Duck website

Round America with a Duck on Instagram

All of Pattie Baker’s books

WWOOF USA

How to find your dream farm, with Bonnie Warndahl!

If you are searching for your dream farm, this podcast episode with Bonnie Warndahl has you covered. Bonnie searched for years to find the property that is now her Winnowburrow Farm and Florals, in Colfax, Wisconsin. Listen to Bonnie’s story about how she came to be interested in gardening and stewarding land. (Thanks, Barbara Kingsolver!) Follow her journey through various programs to learn about farm business, renting farmland as a beginning farmer, losing a farmland deal, and finally finding and purchasing her dream farm. 

Warndahl talks about the Renewing the Countryside nonprofit that she works with as a farmland access specialist. From food hubs to farm-to-childcare and connecting farmers with farmland, the organization is building a regional network to prop up farmers of all kinds. The Farmland Access Hub helps assess farmers’ readiness for land access, guides farmers in their loan applications, and provides resources to help farmers with their land search and purchase.

Dive into the facts about why farmland access is so hard as well as why it’s so vital. “It’s important for people to understand how dire of a situation we are in, unbeknownst to so many people,” Warndahl says. She continues, talking about an impending food crisis facing the US, given the confluence of the advancing age of farmers, farmland real estate prices and fewer new farmers coming in to replace those who are retiring. Hear about federal and state policy solutions that may help ease some of the issues complicating the current farmland-access crisis.

Get Warndahl's best advice for your farmland search, from her lived experience as a beginning farmer trying to purchase land as well as her professional experience as a farmland access specialist. Start by preparing yourself, knowing how and why you’re farming, and exploring all manner of outlets to search for land. Best of all, find out how you can get connected to farmland access assistance! 

Finally, hear about Warndahl’s Winnowburrow Farm and Florals. While Bonnie is currently focusing on her farmland access specialist work, she has big plans for this farm and retreat space.

Renewing the Countryside

Farmland Access Hub

Women, Food and Agriculture Network

Episode 23 with WFAN executive director Jules Salinas

Community Farm Alliance

In this podcast episode, Arkansas rancher Lauren Manning talks about responsible grazing, lessons learned from starting a grazing operation from scratch and financing to support a regenerative food system.

Learn how CrossFit — the popular fitness and lifestyle program — helped shape the focus of Lauren’s legal career, from civil litigation in California to agricultural law in Arkansas. An internship at an agri-food-tech venture capital investing firm further turned her career on its head, drawing her attention toward farming and ranching. After interning with Ozark Grassfed Beef, Lauren realized how rewarding it is to work with the land and animals. Hear about how Lauren uses all that she’s learned with hands-on farming experience to benefit her legal and financial work. 

Lauren’s career is an illustration of her philosophy to follow your curiosity. She talks about how just showing up and continuing to show up has led to so many opportunities for her and how you can do it, too. 

Lauren talks about her work as associate director of Food System 6, a nonprofit that is working to change how financing firms choose to finance agricultural operations. She explains how they go about encouraging underwriters to see agricultural output from a more holistic mindset and gives examples of what this uphill battle looks like in practice. She even talks about the new book, Food Inc., 2, in which she coauthors a chapter on this subject. 

Get excited about a project that Food System 6 is working on to create an EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program) bridge loan. This would allow farmers to apply for NRCS EQIP funds without needing the capital to finance their project upfront, which is a major barrier to small-scale farmers utilizing this federal cost-share program.

Switching gears from ag-industry details to on-farm details, Lauren talks about using the USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program to finance her first farm: goats on the side of a rough hillside. Through telling her story, she gives her best advice for anyone to get started with grazing animals and purchasing a farm property in general. (Also see her advice in this article online.) Spoiler alert: Patience, mentorship and experience are central to future success — also buying used equipment.

Listen to the end to hear about Lauren’s current 35-acre property as she talks about pasture development, pasture-management for horses and the uncommon practice of rotational grazing for horses.

Episode links:

Lauren Manning on LinkedIn

Lauren on Instagram

Food System 6 on LinkedIn