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.

Plantation 144

Plantation Farming Farming Acre 144

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

MARCH 31, 2025

. “The Brighter Future Funds Emergency Resilience Grant is not only meant to help ease immediate hardships but also provide stability for the future, says Ashley Brucker, Senior Manager of Grantmaking, Brighter Future Fund & Farm Viability tells Food Tank. The fund has distributed over US$4.5

Farmland 59

Farmland Distribution Food Acre 59

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 116

Ruralism Farming Farming Ranching 116

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. Black farmers now represent just over 1 percen t of all American farmers.

Family Farming 98

Family Farming Acre Farming Farming 98

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.

Ranching 105

Ranching Family Farming Farming Farming 105

Civil Eats

JULY 2, 2024

Beyond Loleta, Jersey Scoops’ rainbow-labeled pints are making waves at local farmers’ markets, stores, and restaurants. The ice cream shop is an extension of the Nicholson family’s sixth-generation, 120-acre farm in nearby Ferndale. With family dairies drying up in droves—the U.S.

Pasture 141

Pasture Production Marketing Supply Chain 141

Caff

JUNE 29, 2021

Rebecca was recently notified by the State Water Board that she may be prohibited from pumping water from a well on the three acres that she leases. Fines for violating the order are as high as $1,000 per day of violation and $2,500 for each acre-food of water diverted. She farms 1.5

Family Farming 52

Family Farming Farming Farming Water Rights 52

Modern Farmer

OCTOBER 3, 2023

“When I start my own farm, I will need to have off-farm income to live a balanced, happy life.” When I started Jupiter Ridge Farm in 2017, I did—and still do, like many traditional family farms. Why is running a small-scale farm more like an expensive hobby? But why is it like this?

Farming 134

Farming Farming Family Farming Food 134

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

JULY 28, 2023

Photo credit: Sanctuary Farms This month, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) announced more than $300 million in awards to 50 projects focused on increasing underserved farmers and ranchers’ access to land, markets, and capital.

Marketing 82

Marketing Farmland Distribution Real Estate 82

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.

Cattle 136

Cattle Ranching Supply Chain Forage 136

Modern Farmer

MARCH 12, 2024

My Land Advocacy Fellowship with the National Young Farmer Coalition empowered me to share my experience of growing up on the family farm with my senators and representatives offices on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The LASO Act would expand on the promise of the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program.

Farming 122

Farming Farming Farmland Real Estate 122

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.

Agriculture 137

Agriculture Agriculture Ruralism Farmland 137

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 128

Agriculture Agriculture Acre Farming 128

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. Many family farmers have had to leave the hog industry or find other jobs.

Ranching 128

Ranching Farming Farming Acre 128

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.

Farmland 128

Farmland Food Farming Farming 128

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 98

Food Ranching Ecology Fertilizer 98

Food Tank

APRIL 2, 2024

Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund The Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund is a multidisciplinary, cooperative nonprofit ecosystem that aims to regenerate custodial land ownership, ecological stewardship, and food and fiber economies in the American South.

Cultivation 105

Cultivation Food Marketing Distribution 105

Caff

AUGUST 22, 2022

Today the USDA halted an Almond Board rule change that would have prohibited direct online sales of raw almonds, which farmers had previously been pursuing as part of the roadside stand and farmers’ market exemption. In 1985, this roadside stand exemption was expanded to include farmers’ markets.

Marketing 52

Marketing Family Farming Farming Farming 52

Farmbrite

DECEMBER 12, 2024

Market Trends : Analyzing general market data helps farmers select crops that will yield the best pricing, making their planting more strategic and profitable. The Precision Farmer Case Study One inspiring case is a midwestern farmer who adopted drone technology and IoT sensors across their 500-acre corn farm.

Farming 96

Farming Farming Technology Yield 96

Caff

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

But wanting to pass on her legacy, she worked with 3 of her mentees, assisting them in raising capital from the community that she helped build to purchase the farm, launching the first worker-owned cooperative CSA on the north coast. In just a few years, Chris has shown that even a new farm can have a lasting impact.

Farming 98

Farming Farming Marketing Food 98

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. There’s not many on the market.”

Acre 98

Acre Sharecropping Processing Farming 98

Modern Farmer

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

During that same time, production has grown, as only farms of more than 200 hectares (approximately 400 acres) have increased in number. According to the recently released 2022 Census of Agriculture , the largest four percent of US farms (2,000 or more acres) control 61 percent of all farmland.

Manure 107

Manure Farming Farming Production 107

UnderstandingAg

FEBRUARY 27, 2025

My paradigm assumed that I was helping to feed the world, and as a result I thought that academia, industry, and government were all invested in the survival of our family farm. You have to be willing to be proactive in seeking alternatives and/or creating your own markets. Could you stack multiple enterprises on the same acre?

Ranching 95

Ranching Ruralism Farming Farming 95

UnderstandingAg

DECEMBER 31, 2024

In the following discussion, I would like to share some thoughts on how to add net profit into a grazing operation, as well as share my own experiences reducing hay inputs with the grass-finished beef herd that roams across our northern Michigan family farm. We have also seen an increase in plant diversity with increased rest periods.

Pasture 106

Pasture Forage Livestock Manure 106

Civil Eats

AUGUST 20, 2024

She is now in her second season of managing a 1-acre farm that Outgrowing Hunger leases in the nearby town of Boring, Oregon. While she named the operation MR. Farms after her initials, she has leaned into people misreading it as “Mister.” When people see these vegetables in the farmers’ market, they get really excited.

Food 137

Food Farming Farming Marketing 137

Sustainable Food Trust

SEPTEMBER 3, 2024

In addition, they may have been told that the carbon emissions for each litre of milk produced by intensively managed ‘fully housed’ cows, is less than the emissions from lower-yielding, mainly grass-fed cows – in other words, the cows that I and thousands of other dairy farmers look after on our family farms.

Farming 128

Farming Farming Ruralism Supply Chain 128

Modern Farmer

JULY 4, 2024

Doing it your way may be the small difference you need to have customers buy your product and gain market share. AKreGeneration is committed to restoring the land for generations to come, acre by AKre. What are the barriers to being a young farmer, and how are you dealing with or overcoming them?

Cultivation 107

Cultivation Meadow Farming Farming 107

Food Tank

JULY 14, 2023

Niman Ranch offers a guaranteed market for its farmers’ and ranchers’ products in exchange for a high standard of practices. Steven says that this gave the Imhoffs the opportunity to invest in quality equipment that make other aspects of day-to-day farm life easier.

Farming 97

Farming Farming Ranching Farmland 97

Modern Farmer

AUGUST 28, 2023

Payne operates a 300-acre regenerative farm in Concordia, Missouri, an hour outside of Kansas City, where he raises sheep and cattle. Payne’s family farm is a microcosm of American agriculture’s monocrop past and its changing future. We’re rethinking the farm process based on climate predictions,” Payne said.

Livestock 98

Livestock Farming Farming Cattle 98

Civil Eats

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Embry now lives alongside his cousin in Richmond, Kentucky, on the 30-acre Ballew Farm, named after his great uncle Atrus, who died at age 100. Yes, I’m currently actively involved in farming, but in defined ways. I moved to our family farm in 2012 to help look after our aunt and uncle who were both 90 years old at the time.

Food 136

Food Agroecology Agriculture Agriculture 136

National Young Farmers Coalition

JULY 20, 2023

“The Farm Bill touches the lives of virtually every American and is vital to our state’s economy,” said Senator Smith. The bills that I am introducing today will help beginning farmers access land and develop markets for their products, two of the biggest issues I have heard during my Farm Bill listening sessions around the state.

Farming 75

Farming Farming Farmland Ruralism 75

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.

Compost 141

Compost Manufacturing Food Production 141

Modern Farmer

DECEMBER 20, 2024

A daytime sleep schedule can curb quality time spent with loved ones, as well as limit when wares can be sold or traded in local markets. Its also impacting their ability to support themselves and their families through a generations-old trade. But what the family is already doing is waking up at 5 a.m. Im very proud of that.

Agriculture 73

Agriculture Agriculture Food Harvesting 73

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.

Pasture 126

Pasture Food Production Farming 126

Food Tank

AUGUST 30, 2023

Now in its 25th year, Niman Ranch is a network of more than 600 small and mid-size farmers and ranchers across the United States who all adhere to high standards of sustainable and humane farming practices. In exchange, the farmers receive a guaranteed market for their products and an invaluable support system.

Food 52

Food Ranching Farming Farming 52

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. After all, they have simply been following the money!

Food 141

Food Farming Farming Tractor 141