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Growing Urban – a Lower West Side Story
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Two farmers are committed to providing the Buffalo, NY community with a variety of produce. By Lynnette Wright, New York FSA Public Affairs and Outreach Specialist A Perfect Blend Prior to their partnership, Carrie Nader had been working the land since 2014. When she was growing up, she loved helping her grandfather tend his large…
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Chainsaw Safety, Part 5: Tree Felling
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Rich Taber, CCE Chenango In the previous four installments of this series on chainsaw operation we have looked at some of the myriad rules for safe and efficient chainsaw operation. We have looked at the protective gear that is needed by an operator, the safety considerations with the use of the chainsaw itself, and some…
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More Than a Matter of Taste
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By Fred Provenza This excerpt is from Fred Provenza’s book Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom (Chelsea Green Publishing, November 2018) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher. Liking for foods is typically thought to be influenced by palatability. Webster’s dictionary defines palatable as pleasant or acceptable to the…
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Working with Local Livestock Processors
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By Jason Detzel It is true that there are fewer processors today than there used to be. And on top of that, there are a lot more regulations that cost money to implement. The processors themselves are reporting to us that there is barely enough business to keep them afloat because there are very few…
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Main Street Farms – Improving Efficiency and Profitability
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Main Street Farms shares insights gained from their experience focusing on long-term business viability through a Profit Team project. By Kat McCarthy and Dan Welch At Main Street Farms, in Cortland NY, growth is the way of doing business. The farm has doubled in size annually. What started as a 1-acre market garden and 10,000…
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Tipsheet: Transitioning to Organic Management of Orchards
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By Guy Ames, ATTRA Organic certification verifies that fruit is produced according to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic standards. See www.ams.usda.gov/nop for details of the standards. In general, the regulations make several requirements of certified organic fruit: Produced without genetic engineering, ionizing radiation, or sewage sludge Managed in a manner that conserves natural resources and biodiversity …
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In Camden, a Hot Sauce is Helping Young Urban Entrepreneurs Fight Poverty
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A teen-focused entrepreneurial program in Southern NJ offers job training and education By Suzanne Cope Last fall, a half-dozen teenagers from the Southern New Jersey city of Camden brought hot peppers they’d grown in an urban garden to a rented industrial kitchen. Donning latex gloves, they de-seeded and chopped the chilies before adding them to…
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Kids, Cows and Conservation at Vermont’s Chapman Family Farm
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By Rebecca Harris In 1914, Sylvestor Howe packed up his horses, left behind his family and small brick house in Tunbridge, Vermont, to travel 90 miles to the big city of Brattleboro. He would return weeks later with the town’s first registered Holstein cows to start Holstein Stock Farm. Nine of the Howe children would…
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BOOK REVIEW: Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production
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In Defending Beef, author Nicolette Hahn Niman takes on no easy task: as the title suggests, this vegetarian cattle rancher seeks to exonerate beef from the many ills for which it’s blamed, both from ecological and nutritional perspectives. She anticipates every argument, discussing everything from the role cattle play in water contamination, soil health, and…
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Hay You! Should I Make My Hay or Buy It?
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By Rich Taber, CCE Chenango As the haying season winds down across the northeast, I am left to ponder the eternal question; should I keep on trying to make hay for my livestock every year, or buy it? Well, “the devil is in the details”, as the old saying goes. First off, I am going…








