Listen to the trailer for In Her Boots Presents: Breaking Ground, a two-part audio story from Marbleseed that follows a journey for farmland financing with farmers Dria Price and Halima Salazar and their diversified farming operation, Justevia Teas.

It’s a Farm Bill year, which means there’s an opportunity to change agricultural policy in the United States and the way it helps—or hurts—farmers. Right now, policies reward and finance agriculture that produce singular crops or livestock at an industrial scale, often to the detriment of communities, animal welfare, and the planet. So, what happens when farmers want to do things differently?  

In this episode, we’ll get to know farmers Dria Price and Halima Salazar and their diversified farm business, Justevia Teas. In many ways, their story is emblematic of a beginning farmer success story: their small, biodiverse farm brought in multiple revenue streams and responded to the needs of their community. But even with their successes, their journey to moving off leased land and borrowed land, to owning their own farmland has not been easy. In Just Starting Out we’ll find out about some of the barriers they met and the solutions that supported them along the way.   

Dria and Halima were interviewed for this podcast in December 2022 by Tiffany LaShae, host of Marbleseed’s podcast, In Her Boots (Bootless). 

Dria Price & Halima Salazar, Justevia Teas and Gimbia’s Kitchen

Lulu Moyo, Co-Director of the Braiding Seeds Fellowship Program 

Lori Stern, Executive Director of Marbleseed 

Dria and Halima start seeking farmland financing with traditional agriculture lenders and the outcomes are not what they expected.  We’ll also hear how some grassroots organizations are helping beginning farmers to navigate these systems and innovative ideas on how farmland financing can be approached in a more supportive and community-minded way. 

People featured in this episode:  

Dria Price & Halima Salazar, Justevia Teas and Gimbia’s Kitchen

Jan Joannides, Executive Director & Co-Founder, Renewing the Countryside 

Tera Johnson, Principal Consultant, Kitchen Table Consultants