This week on The Farm Report, we present the "So You Want to Be a Farmer" panel from this year's Cherry Bombe Jubilee. The panel discussion featured Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm, Katie Baldwin and Amanda Merrow of Amber Waves Farm, Molly Culver of The Youth Farm, and Laura Ferrara of Westwind Orchard, and was moderated by our very own Erin Fairbanks.

This week on The Farm Report, we bring you a special field piece recorded at AeroFarms in Newark, New Jersey.

Vertical farming is the practice of producing food in vertically stacked layers, vertically inclined surfaces and/or integrated in other structures, and AeroFarms is the largest vertical farm in the world. Their state-of-the-art aeroponic growing system uses a patented technology that allows us to grow food indoors without sun or soil, using 95% less water than in the field.

Tune in for a tour of their Newark Farm facility, a 30,000 square foot former paintball and laser tag arena.

This week on The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks is joined in the studio by Kate Greenberg, the Western Water Program Director for the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC). Kate organizes young farmers and ranchers across the West, advocates for supportive policy, and promotes land and water stewardship. Prior to joining NYFC, Kate worked on vegetable farms, managed Western environmental policy field programs, and restored riparian habitat in Mexico’s Colorado River Delta. She sits on the Board of Directors of the Quivira Coalition and the farmer-owned Southwest Farm Fresh Cooperative and lives in Durango, CO.

Read the new western water report "Conservation Generation" here

This week on The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks is joined in the studio by Anastasia Cole Plakias, co-founder and Vice President of Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm. As a managing partner of Brooklyn Grange, she has run the business’ sales department, created its events program, and manages the farm’s communications and external affairs. Anastasia also channels her love of food into weekly CSA newsletters, chock full of fun vegetable trivia and cooking tips, which were spun off to the Heritage Radio Network series, Anastasia’s Fridge.

Her new book is titled The Farm on the Roof: What Brooklyn Grange Taught Us About Entrepreneurship, Community, and Growing a Sustainable Business.

This week on The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks is joined in the studio by Matt Nielsen, the chief operations officer for Nielsen-Massey Vanillas Inc. and Managing Director of Nielsen-Massey Vanillas International BV.

Matt began working in the family business when he was 15 years old, sweeping floors and cleaning tanks; today his responsibilities include overseeing all operations at the company's headquarters and manufacturing facility in Waukegan, Illinois, as well as its manufacturing facility in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.

On the season premiere of The Farm Report, Erin Fairbanks returns to hosting duties! She sits down with Kamal Mouzawak, who started Souk el Tayeb, the first farmer’s market in Beirut, Lebanon.

Souk el Tayeb promotes unity around a common respect for food, land, and agricultural traditions. It aims to preserve food traditions and the culture of small farming in Lebanon, to protect the interests of the small farmers and producers and to enable them to compete with industrial and globalized food trade. The literal translation of Souk el Tayeb means “the good market” – both good in taste and character.

Most food starts with a seed tucked in the soil. But where do seeds come from? This week on The Farm Report is a special glimpse into part of the seed supply chain. Host Holli Cederholm takes listeners on a tour of Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove, Oregon, with stops at their packing facility and trial farm.

When discussing farm labor, some complex issues come to the table: the history of the labor movement, immigration, fair wages for farm workers, fair prices for farmers... This week’s episode of The Farm Report offers context to these issues with two guests from different big agricultural states. Bryan Little, the Director of Employment Policy for the California Farm Bureau Federation, and Elizabeth Henderson, an organic farmer and Board member for NOFA-NY, both contribute to the conversation.

Have a quail of a time with Brittney Miller of Manchester Farms in Columbia, South Carolina! Owner of her family quail farm, Brittney has a lot to say about this old school bird and her passion for bringing farrow quail to more dinner tables as an easy and healthy protein that many chefs have long embraced. Spread out over 380 acres, Manchester Farms produces 80,000 quail per week that are growth-promotant and hormone-free, following the same husbandry practices that Brittney’s father practiced in the 1970s. Learn what it takes to live a day in the life of a quail farmer.

Andre Leu, President of IFOAM – Organics International, the only global umbrella organization of the organic world, joins host Holli Cederholm on The Farm Report for a briefing on climate change and agriculture. Leu was on-site in Paris for the COP21 Climate Conference in late 2015, and shares his thoughts on the new international agreement on climate change, and on why utilization of land is really a big deal for curbing climbing carbon in the atmosphere. An organic farmer with more than 40 years of experience in organic agriculture, Leu also distills the Myths of Safe Pesticides from his 2014 book of the same name.