The West Branch Commons is a land access project in the Catskill region of New York that provides one of the most holistic approaches to supporting beginning farmers in the country. In this first part of our two-part series we talk with Sea Matais, one of the first farmers to access land through the project, and Rhiannon Wright, a collaborator and part of the team that helped get this project off the ground. Watch the documentary Tom and Sea https://youtu.be/I0YkC15W49M?si=oX2-DGZQKPxBe_5J

Who can call themselves a farmer? Depending on where you sit in the food system, you may answer this question very differently. In this first episode of Small Farms Radio, hosted by Cornell Small Farms Program, we hear a range of perspectives on this question from a diverse group of stakeholders. Why does it matter who is called a farmer? This conversation encourages reflection about who is served by different definitions of the term.