Farmer to Farmer with Chris Blanchard

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063: Rachel Armstrong and Cassie Noltnerwyss on the Legal Side of Employees and other Workers on the Farm Apr 21, 2016

Show notes

Rachel Armstrong founded the nonprofit Farm Commons, a legal resource for sustainability-minded farmers, in 2012. And Cassie Noltnerwyss owns Crossroads Community Farm in Cross Plains, Wisconsin. And they’ve both joined me for this episode to talk about the legal side of employees and other workers on the farm.

Rachel started her career working on farms and in community gardens before she transitioned into doing nonprofit and advocacy work for sustainable agriculture. She decided to go to law school when she realized that the resources didn’t exist to answer the kinds of questions small-scale and local growers were asking. Today, Farm Commons offers a variety of legal resources for farmers, from land use and business transfer to employment and contract law.

Cassie owns Crossroads Community Farm with her husband, Mike. They raise about 20 acres of vegetables, sold through a CSA, farmers market, and wholesale to grocery and restaurants in nearby Madison. Now in their twelfth year of business, Crossroads has up to ten full-time employees at the peak of the season. While Cassie doesn’t have any formal business or law training, she had learned a lot along the way as the business has developed and grown.

Together, Rachel and Cassie dig into the nitty-gritty parts of the legal side of having employees on the farm. We take a look at contractors versus employees, managing volunteers, workers compensation, minimum wage, overtime, navigating federal and state laws, payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, and more.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

062: Brenton Johnson on Growing from a Backyard Garden to Over 150 Acres in Vegetables Apr 14, 2016

Show notes

Brenton Johnson started growing vegetables in his backyard in Austin, and then his front yard, and then he started selling them, and then he moved to a larger acreage, and then to an even larger acreage at his current location fifteen miles east of Austin, Texas. Johnson’s Backyard Garden is a little bit bigger now, with 150 acres of vegetables and over 100 employees – and all of this since he first started selling vegetables in 2006.

Brenton shares the hows and whys of growing Johnson’s Backyard Garden, and we take a look at the organization behind his custom-box CSA, farmers market sales, and crop management, as well as irrigation and the use of storage facilities to extend the season into the hot Texas summer. Johnson’s Backyard Garden also has a reputation as a marketing powerhouse, and we get into how Brenton has built the JBG brand.

We also discuss Brenton’s approach to the entrepreneurial aspects of farming, and how Brenton has managed the fast pace of change in his business.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

061: Eliot Coleman on the Importance of Observation, and Making the Soil Work for Your Farm Apr 07, 2016

Show notes

Eliot Coleman raises about an acre-and-a-half of vegetables in Harborside, Maine, with his wife, Barbara Damrosch. With over 40 years of experience in all aspects of organic farming, Eliot is widely recognized as a pioneer in the world of organic market farming, especially when it comes to producing crops year-round in the northern tier of the United States. He is the author of the bible of organic market farming, The New Organic Grower, as well as the Winter Harvest Handbook.

Eliot shares his farming history in this episode, including the ways that farming in Maine has influenced his approach to farming, and how trying to make Maine soil resemble Iowa soils has led him to develop the skills of observation that have served him so well in the development of his farm. Along the way, we get into picking rocks, marketing, plant-positive pest control, and Eliot’s views on organic hydroponics.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

060: Mike Bollinger on Finding a Niche and Accessing Markets Mar 30, 2016

Show notes

Mike Bollinger raises about three acres of outdoor vegetables and a half acre under cover just inside the city limits of the small town of Decorah, Iowa, with his wife, Katie Prochaska. River Root Farm serves grocery stores and restaurants in its local market in Decorah, as well as in surrounding small cities and Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Enterprises at River Root Farm range from microgreens and transplants to fresh herbs and four-season salad greens.

Mike and Katie have worked hard to adapt to the marketplace in rural Northeast Iowa as they slowly laid the groundwork for their farm. They’ve found ways of making a living on the farm that didn’t put them into direct competition with an already crowded market farming scene in Northeast Iowa. We dig into how they’ve gone about testing markets and products to limit risk and maximize potential as they grew the business to a point where they could make the leap into both farming full time.

We dive deep into the details of how they’ve made the logistics work for co-shipping and cross-docking their product by adapting to the distribution system around them., discuss some of the finer points of producing transplants for sale to grocery stores and other retailers, and look at how River Root Farm harvests and handles their microgreens.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

059: Laura Masterson on Creating a Farm Future She Wants to Be a Part Of Mar 24, 2016

Show notes

47th Avenue Farm’s Laura Masterson started her farm on a double lot in a residential neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, twenty years ago. The farm expanded to many different plots of land, then consolidated; now, Laura farms about 20 acres of vegetables on land on two main parcels in the Portland suburbs, providing a year-round CSA to over 200 families and produce to restaurants in the Portland Metro area.

Laura’s commitment to the triple bottom line is apparent as we talk about Laura’s work in government and with non-profit organizations, her plantings of beneficial insect habitat on her farm, her weed control strategies, and record-keeping’s roll on her farm for making management decisions.

47th Avenue Farm was one of the first in the Portland area to move away from the internship labor model to providing full-time, year-round employment opportunities, and Laura goes in depth with how she has worked with her farm manager to create an open and encouraging work environment.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

058: Curtis Stone on Using the Pareto Principle on the Urban Micro Farm Mar 17, 2016

Show notes

Curtis Stone raises $100,000 of vegetable on just a third of an acre at Green City Acres in Kelowna, British Columbia. He’s also the author of The Urban Farmer, an excellent text on growing food for profit on leased and borrowed land. Curtis came out of a career as a musician and tree planter to start his urban farming venture, and he’s adapted the lessons he learned on the road and in the mountains to his farming career.

Oh, and he actually shrunk his farm in order to make more money! By focusing on the Pareto Principle – also known as the 80-20 rule – Curtis puts his attention on the right customers, the right crops, and the right techniques to maximize the output and the profits from his tiny acreage.

Curtis shares his tips for controlling weeds before you plant a crop, capturing and organizing information effectively, marketing at farmers markets and to restaurants, and how to structure your farm to better serve yourself and your markets.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

057: Dru Rivers on the Ballet of Managing Diversity, Partnerships, and Employees at Full Belly Farm Mar 10, 2016

Show notes

Dru Rivers began farming in 1983 with her partner, Paul Muller, in Northern California’s Capay Valley. Since that time, Full Belly Farm has grown to over 200 acres of vegetables, with still more acreage devoted to flowers, animals, fruits, nuts, and even grains. They’ve recently ventured into value-added products, as well. All of this is marketed to farmers markets, CSA customers, and wholesale customers in the Bay Area, Davis, and Sacramento.

Full Belly Farm has also grown in the number of people – and not just their intern program or their employees, although we dig into how Full Belly has created a renowned and very successful internship program and an environment that fosters fantastic employee retention. Full Belly’s ownership has also grown, with an early partnership with Judith Redmond and Andrew Brait, as well as a more recent expansion to include some of Dru and Paul’s children. Dru shares about why their partnership has worked, the return of all four of her children to the farm, managing a wide diversity of enterprises, and the renowned Hoes Down Harvest Festival.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

056: Emily Oakley on Setting Limits at Three Springs Farm Mar 03, 2016

Show notes

Emily Oakley owns and operates Three Springs Farm in Oaks, Oklahoma, with her husband, Mike Appel. Since 2003, they’ve sold their organic vegetables through a CSA and at a farmers market. They’ve chosen to keep their farm small, not just in acres but also in overall production, substituting tractors and equipment for labor on their three acres of vegetable production where they gross about $80,000 per year, with a net of well over half of that.

We talk about their choice to limit their acres, their work hours, and their growing season, and get into the way that their farm changed when their child was born three years ago.

With its unpredictable weather and biblical pest outbreaks, Emily says that if you can farm in Oklahoma, you can farm anywhere, so we also dig into how Three Springs Farm manages uncertainty and risk both in the field and in its business management processes.

Emily was also recently appointed to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), and she shares her perspective on organic certification and community service.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

055: Jane Hawley Stevens on Scaling Up with Value Added Medicinal Herbs Feb 25, 2016

Show notes

Jane Hawley Stevens raises certified organic medicinal herbs on her farm in North Freedom, Wisconsin, and turns them into creams, lip balms, and salves that are sold nationwide. With about five acres in production, Four Elements Herbals produces a wide variety of annual and perennial medicinals in the Baraboo Bluffs of Wisconsin.

We dig into medicinal herb production and post-harvest handling, meeting FDA regulations for processing and for selling herbal products, and how Jane has grown the Four Elements Herbal brand in the market place.

Four Elements Herbals recently used a Value-Added Producer Grant to support the expansion of their product line, which in turn drove significant growth in the business overall. Jane shares her experiences managing growth and moving into a national market, as well as how she has passed the field production torch to a new generation and the ways that her job has changed as her business has grown.

We also learn the meaning of the word, “garble.”

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

054: Erich Schultz Talks Suburban Farming in the Arizona Desert Feb 18, 2016

Show notes

Erich Schultz owns and operates Steadfast Farm, a certified organic farm in the heart of a suburban community on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. With 3 acres of vegetables, over six acres of orchard, and a passel of livestock, Steadfast Farm is the neighborhood amenity in the Agritopia development – an alternative to the golf courses and swimming pools that often anchor suburban developments.

Steadfast Farm sells produce through restaurants in the neighborhood and around Phoenix, through a farmstand, at farmers markets, and through a CSA.

Farming in suburbia comes with its own challenges, as does farming in the desert Southwest, and Erich fills us on the ways he has made the most of both. We discuss how he’s leveraged his neighborhood for marketing, how he manages irrigation, the evolution of Steadfast Farm’s livestock rotation, and how he has moved away from the intensive mechanization he started with.

We also get into the details of the arrangement Erich has with the developers and owners of the farmland, and how the neighborhood has managed some of the complications of having an urban farm.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

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