Year: 2011
Sheep with four horns, ducks with red fleshy heads, and pigs that look like cows? This isn’t a scene from ‘Through the Looking Glass’, but a description of the barnyard menagerie found on the Ort Family Farm near Bradford, NY, home to multi-species of Heritage livestock and poultry. Roger Ort and his wife Maria, along…
Young Farmers are everywhere. I’m writing this from the South. I’m on the road with Greenhorns, a documentary I made about young farmers in America– we are screening it at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Appalachian State University in Boone, NC and at the Contemporary Art Museum in Winston Salem, NC. This is the start…
How to feed the approaching world population of 7 Billion people has been a compelling question for me as I talk to farmers and educators in my work with Cornell Extension. There are many graphs and tables stating where the population is growing and rate that it is growing. Until recently, I assumed the general…
A group of farmers in Sullivan County take a pro-active approach to rural economic development. In spring of 2009, I was one of five farmers in Sullivan County, NY that came together to create an agri tourism program. We are in WOODSTOCK country, the site of the famous peace and music festival held in 1969,…
Ponds have been a part of the working landscape since agriculture emerged. Since water is the basis of productive biological systems, retaining and distributing this storehouse of fertility and life within a landscape is key to the success of any operation. The climate, topography, soils, and access to machinery and cheap energy (for now) in…
My husband and I started Shelterbelt Farm in Caroline, NY last year, joining the ranks of new farmers across the country capitalizing on direct marketing opportunities and the demand for local food. Like most beginning farmers, I’m coming into a farming career from outside the production agriculture sector. I have been working on food and…
Members of the Snow family have been farming in the Town of Caroline, New York, since 1816, nearly 200 years. The current generation has returned to cheese making, a value added product, to enhance the options for their milk and increase the farm income. Cal Snow says, “We’ve got some cheese making equipment around here,…
When the United States’ agrarian-based economy evolved into an urban-industrial one in the mid-19th century, the new economic structures greatly altered the way work was managed and performed. Most notably, the home ceased to be the center of production for every bit of food, furniture and fabric used by the family. Fast forward to…
Message from the Managing Editor Happy Summer! I hope this season brings you restful lunch breaks under shady trees and afternoon swims in wild ponds. I also hope you have some quiet evening moments to read through our summer issue of Small Farm Quarterly! This issue features a wide variety of content, from spinning wool…
You don’t need to lease your land to feel the impacts of industrialized gas drilling, which is now happening over much of New York and Pennsylvania. Just ask John Lacey who, for 30 years, served as an agricultural land resource specialist for NY State Dept. Agriculture and Markets. Every farmer needs to understand the…
