Winter versus Spring Lambing
In past decades it was common wisdom to lamb in the barn during the winter months in January and February. It was heavily promoted as the right thing to do. The wisdom was that farmers had time to give their flock the attention they needed during winter months, before the busy spring planting season arrived.…
Read MoreWinter Reads: Water and Natural Gas
Winter brings us indoors and the weather provides an overdue excuse to sit down and pick up a book. But which one? This column will offer a review of the newest and best books on a particular topic of general interest to the readers of Small Farm Quarterly. Hydrofracking and the risks to our agricultural…
Read MoreWinter Homework? Take an Online Class!
Winter has arrived! What can you do with those long evenings? Learn something new with distance learning! ‘Distance learning’ is the delivery of instruction through electronic means where the instructor and learner are geographically separate. There are a wide variety of types of distance learning but this article will focus on some of the on-line…
Read MoreWhy I Graze
This article was one of four winning entries in a writing contest sponsored by the New York State Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI). GLCI is led by a Steering Committee of farmers and agricultural professionals to promote the wise use of private grazing lands, and is funded by the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service. I care…
Read MoreTurning Sand into Soil
This article was one of four winning entries in a writing contest sponsored by the New York State Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI). GLCI is led by a Steering Committee of farmers and agricultural professionals to promote the wise use of private grazing lands, and is funded by the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service. It was…
Read MoreThe Challenges and Rewards of On-farm Poultry Processing
When’s the last time you saw “locally grown” stamped on a chicken at the grocery store? How many restaurants do you know that tell you who raised the duck on their menu? The market is out there—pasture-raised broilers can fetch over $30 per bird—but the supply isn’t keeping up. So what’s the holdup? If you’ve…
Read MoreSlaughter Daughter
My father is a butcher. He doesn’t have a potbelly or drape strings of sausages from his hands. He doesn’t have a mustache or wear one of those little straw hats, either. He does boast that he could skin a cow at the age of 10, can strip the meat from a carcass down to…
Read MoreSecond Life Farming
The age old question of, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is typically directed towards children, but has been coopted by a much older population these days. There are many factors influencing the decision to pick up all that you have known and choose a second career. Corporate loyalty gave way…
Read MoreSave the Unicorns and Farm the Forest
Through forest farming, I can help to save the Unicorns (Aletrisfarinosa) and you can too. Forest farming is the cultivation of high value specialty crops under the forest canopy. For those of you not familiar with Aletrisfarinosa, also known by ‘Unicorn Root’, it’s a perennial flowering herb found in open woodlands. Here in Ithaca, NY…
Read MoreRaw Milk, “Moo-n Shine”, and Risk Management
When planning to profit from an agricultural activity like selling raw milk, farmers often fail to take seriously the risks of regulatory non-compliance. Meteorological or market risks figure far more prominently in the minds of farmers everywhere. Yet the business of food production, and dairy in particular, is one of the most highly regulated industries…
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