Food Tank

NOVEMBER 1, 2024

This was soon after the Zachmans founded Feathered Acres Learning Farm & Inn with substantial startup expenses. Trisha says niche markets like this are critical to keeping small family farms like theirs alive. “If Niman gives us the opportunity to just be a small family farm,” says Trisha. “We

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Farming Farming Ranching Pasture 115

Modern Farmer

AUGUST 24, 2023

Two organizations want to put an end to the wild west of claims and prove, through certification, that food labeled regenerative is genuinely the gold standard of sustainability and not just another marketing buzzword. Her family farm has been organic certified since 2006, but it only adopted the ROC standards in June 2022.

Food 94

Food Ranching Ecology Fertilizer 94

Caff

JULY 19, 2023

On June 29th, Lopes Family Farms hosted a field day with Community Alliance with Family Farms (CAFF) in Princeton, CA focused on rice and duck farming, a Biologically Integrated Farming System (BIFS). For more information on Lopes Family Farm follow them at Lopes Family Farms. *All

Family Farming 52

Family Farming Farming Farming Ecology 52

Food Tank

MAY 3, 2024

Iowa is the number-one pork producer in the United States, but it has relatively few hog farms. Large factory farm facilities have replaced smaller family farms. The state lost nearly 90 percent of its hog farms from 1982 to 2017, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Census data.

Ruralism 107

Ruralism Farming Farming Ranching 107

Food Tank

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

By his senior year, Williams was trying to figure out how to return home and take over the family farm. Williams, his wife Hannah, and their toddler Lyle now live on Williams Family Farms, sustainably and humanely raising pigs and farming about 400 acres of cropland. Become a member today by clicking here.

Ranching 106

Ranching Family Farming Farming Farming 106

Modern Farmer

AUGUST 29, 2023

On the back 16 acres of Walla Walla Community College, 30 Red Angus cows stand munching on hairy vetch, ryegrass and other cover crops that were planted to help restore the soil. million grant for its soon-to-come vertical farming, hydroponics and plant-based culinary arts programs. who will direct the new project. “As

Food 96

Food Farming Farming Agroecology 96

Modern Farmer

OCTOBER 3, 2023

Small farms that made all their household income from the farm struggled the most, despite selling something we all need—food. Nevertheless, these farms were honorably scraped together from nothing, their growers much like passionate artists in the field; their art: beautiful, healthy local food.

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Farming Farming Family Farming Food 133

Modern Farmer

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

Just a Few Acres Farm in Lansing, NY has nearly 500,000 subscribers on YouTube, where seventh-generation farmer Pete Larson posts videos with titles like “The basics of cutting hay” and “Playing in the Dirt with Pregnant Pigs”. Photography courtesy of Pete Larson and Just a Few Acres Farms.

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Farming Farming Acre Marketing 103

Caff

JUNE 29, 2021

Small farmers who scrambled to adapt and supply healthy, local food when the pandemic shuttered restaurants and dining halls are once again facing enormous challenges. Caiti Hachmyer of Red H Farm in South Sebastopol started a CSA in 2020 which helped her farm survive the pandemic but the heavy workload took its toll.

Family Farming 52

Family Farming Farming Farming Water Rights 52

Modern Farmer

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

New research published in Nature Sustainability projects that, if trends continue, the number of farms across the world will be sliced in half by the end of the 21 st century as consolidation of land, wealth and power reshapes our farming and food landscape. The marginalization of smaller-scale farms has severe consequences.

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Agriculture Agriculture Ruralism Farmland 133

Modern Farmer

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Outside of Charleston, South Carolina, in the picturesque marshes of the Kiawah River, sits more than 100 acres of working farmland. But unlike neighboring farms that focus on production for faraway markets or keep a single family afloat, the farm at Kiawah River is supporting 185 families who live in the surrounding homes.

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Farmland Food Farming Farming 127

Sustainable Food Trust

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

This is because the subsidies have been unconditional and the market has been brutal; they have used, as the NFU likes to say, ‘all the tools in the toolbox’, i.e., nitrogen fertiliser and pesticides, to continuously increase their food production in order to stay in business. Of course, this is not the end of the story.

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Food Farming Farming Tractor 141

Modern Farmer

JANUARY 2, 2024

In one of the greenhouses on the Lundberg Family Farms acreage in northern California, there sits a binder. Rice growing in one of the Lundberg Family Farms test greenhouses. Crucial to food security, we’ll have to both protect and invest in rice within our food system as the population grows.

Family Farming 109

Family Farming Acre Grain Greenhouse 109

Food Tank

AUGUST 30, 2023

A version of this piece was featured in a special edition of Food Tank’s newsletter. I just returned from one of my favorite events, the Niman Ranch Hog Farmer Appreciation Celebration in Des Moines, Iowa, at which Food Tank is honored to co-host an Educational Summit. These are stories that are too often ignored and forgotten.

Food 52

Food Ranching Farming Farming 52

Civil Eats

DECEMBER 10, 2024

In the months before Patrick Brown was born in November 1982, his father, Arthur, lay down on a road near the familys farm to prevent a caravan of yellow dump trucks from depositing toxic soil in his community. Patrick currently operates Brown Family Farms on the land that Byron worked as a sharecropper once he was freed.

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Plantation Farming Farming Acre 144

Sustainable Food Trust

SEPTEMBER 3, 2024

This community used to form the backbone of UK rural culture, however, during my lifetime of dairy farming, it has been decimated. Customers are increasingly suspicious that many of the foods they eat, and milk in particular, are coming from ever larger and more industrialised farms. Holden Farm Dairy is one such unit.

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Farming Farming Ruralism Supply Chain 128

Civil Eats

JULY 2, 2024

The ice cream shop is an extension of the Nicholson family’s sixth-generation, 120-acre farm in nearby Ferndale. In addition to piloting new equipment, recipes, and processing techniques, the universities facilitate worker training and certificate programs in cheesemaking, food safety, marketing, and other specialized areas.

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Pasture Production Marketing Supply Chain 140

Modern Farmer

MARCH 12, 2024

America’s farmers, especially beginning and Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) farmers face insurmountable challenges, yet 87 percent of young farmers are dedicated to regenerative, climate-smart farming practices. Eaters and farmers alike depend on this bill to get food on the table. Photo courtesy of Carly Boyer.

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Farming Farming Farmland Real Estate 103

Food Tank

JANUARY 5, 2024

Eric Boor took over his great-grandfather’s nine-acre farm in southern Iowa four years ago. When they first started, many in their family and community doubted that they could successfully farm this way. Today, the Boors’ farm “looks completely different,” according to Mikala.

Ranching 128

Ranching Farming Farming Acre 128

Food Tank

APRIL 29, 2024

The exhortation by Benson and Butz for farmers to “get big or get out” finally came to fruition, with the average size of a farm nearly doubling from 650 acres in 1987 to 1,201 acres twenty-five years later. From Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry by Austin Frerick.

Family Farming 69

Family Farming Acre Farming Farming 69

Civil Eats

APRIL 29, 2024

He plants nitrogen-rich legumes and other perennial cover crops amongst his pear, apple, plum, peach, and cherry trees, but he buys a commercial compost product to keep his 100-acre, fourth-generation family farm thriving. Ela knows first-hand how central compost is to his organic farm—and all organic agriculture.

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Compost Manufacturing Food Production 137

Modern Farmer

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

Today, new generations of innovative farmers see agroforestry as a solution to not just producing nutrient-dense food and specialty crops but to also mitigate the intensity of climate change-induced weather events. They farm on 130 acres of the land on which her father and grandfather had raised hogs. Johnson laughs.

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Acre Farming Farming Pasture 107

Civil Eats

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Half the largest herd—which lives in a 2,900-acre reserve with a fence that protects nearby ranches—died mostly due to insufficient forage. The Park Service recently proposed removing the fence, allowing the elk to join the two smaller herds that can already roam the seashore’s more than 71,000 acres of beaches, forests, and ranchlands.

Ranching 139

Ranching Acre Food Farming 139

Wisconsin Farmers Union

OCTOBER 9, 2024

Her family farm is located in Waupaca County outside of Ogdensburg where she cares for a herd of nine dairy goats, two horses, hay fields, bees, a large kitchen garden, and more. Eventually the couple settled on a 80 acre farm, where they’ve been for the past 34 years. The field was very skewed towards men.

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Acre Farming Farming Pasture 98

Caff

JANUARY 27, 2021

Every year, we honor individuals, farms and local businesses making a positive impact on our food and agricultural communities throughout California. Big thanks to everyone who nominated their own local food and farm heroes. LEGACY FARMER Will Scott, Scott Family Farms Will Scott Jr.

Food 52

Food Farming Farming Ecology 52

Caff

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

Every year, our community recognizes amazing farms, individuals and local businesses making a difference in our food system. He is also on the CAFF Policy Committee and a member of Black Farmers Rising, a burgeoning statewide Black Farmer and Food Activist organizing group. We can’t wait to see what she does next!

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Farming Farming Marketing Food 98

Civil Eats

MAY 1, 2024

When Jeff Broberg and his wife, Erica, moved to their 170-acre bean and grain farm in Winona, Minnesota in 1986, their well water measured at 8.6 Those tiles, which were first installed in the mid-1800s and have now largely been replaced with plastic pipes, ultimately allowed farmers to grow crops on land that was once too wet to farm.

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Fertilizer Farming Farming Acre 142

Modern Farmer

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

French farmers, for instance, managed to persuade their nation’s leaders to ban food imports treated with the insecticide thiacloprid, dedicate €150 million (US$163 million) annually to support livestock producers and provide European-wide definitions for what constitutes lab-grown meat. Their public disruption has also produced results.

Manure 86

Manure Farming Farming Production 86

UnderstandingAg

SEPTEMBER 26, 2024

An example from our family farm is shown below. To determine the cost of erosion, I used the NRCS tolerable soil loss or “T” value for our farm of 5 tons per acre. The Daily Erosion Project and other research has shown that this is roughly the average soil loss per acre in the Midwest. What’s the value of that?

Acre 76

Acre Crop Fertilizer Ranching 76

Modern Farmer

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Upon leaving her family farm to study agriculture at Stanford, she took up a work-study program investigating the economic viability of grass-fed beef. “It The same year that Carman returned to her family farm, a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, was detected in the US.

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Cattle Ranching Supply Chain Forage 134

Daily Yonder

OCTOBER 24, 2024

In one interview, a farmer told me that he had been offered $40,000 an acre for his land, money that would make him an instant millionaire. The subdivision in Sugarland’s song is called “Shady Acres.” Jason Isbell’s “Last of My Kind” calls out a family farm becoming a Wal-Mart parking lot. Subdivide, give it a name.”

Farmland 109

Farmland Ruralism Acre Real Estate 109

Modern Farmer

MAY 28, 2024

“Of 400 farms in our county, only five are organic,” says Matt Fitzgerald of Fitzgerald Organics in Hutchinson, Minnesota. His 2,500-acre family farm is patchwork across 40 miles of land the family owns and leases, and grows organic corn, soy, wheat and specialty crops such as beans and peas.

Agriculture 104

Agriculture Agriculture Acre Farming 104

Modern Farmer

OCTOBER 11, 2023

SweetRoot Farm is pitched squarely in the middle of a long and narrow mountain valley, framed by the Bitterroot Mountains on one side and the Sapphire Mountains on the other. The 10-acre farm outside Hamilton, Montana is run by Noah Jackson and Mary Bricker, who dedicate four irrigated acres of pasture to their laying hens.

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Pasture Food Production Farming 103

Modern Farmer

JUNE 30, 2023

Prime farmland, it attracted countless farmers, including the Black farmers seeking to fulfill the promise of “40 acres and a mule” that followed the American Civil War. But Black farm ownership has dropped dramatically over the years, with just 1,500 estimated to remain in Arkansas today. But the process hasn’t always come easily.

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Acre Sharecropping Processing Farming 95

Trimble Agriculture

JULY 17, 2024

The debate surrounding industrial agriculture and farm consolidation is complex and multifaceted. On one hand, industrial agriculture is criticized for contributing to the decline of small family farms and promoting unsustainable practices. The greater the consolidation, the more “industrialized” our food system becomes.

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Industrial Agriculture Agriculture Agriculture Finance 52

Caff

SEPTEMBER 23, 2021

These investments range from broadband infrastructure, to housing for farm workers, as well as significant climate change efforts through investments in the various California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) climate smart agriculture programs. ” Unfortunately, the work is never done. .

Family Farming 52

Family Farming Food Supply Chain Farming 52

Sustainable Food Trust

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Food and farming writer, Steph Wetherell, explores the potential of share farming, an agricultural model common in the New Zealand dairy farming industry and on the rise in the UK, whereby new entrants gain access into farming through connecting with existing landowners who in turn benefit from the support they receive for succession arrangements.

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Farming Farming Livestock Acre 105