Learn about Mike’s family’s farming heritage, which came to the US from Italy with his great-grandfather and how Mike grew up with a more diverse farm experience than most of us. Mike’s early start in farming served him well as he studied environmental science in college and went on to do agricultural research and vegetable, dairy sheep and livestock farming.

Land access and farm business planning are the areas Mike became interested in early on. He talks about his and his wife’s journey through finding their own piece of property and how this affected his drive to help others trying to access land. Hear, too, about how Mike came to work with Land for Good and the University of Vermont Extension Farm Viability Program. You’ll definitely want to listen to the top business mistakes that small-scale farmers are making and Mike’s advice to fix those!

Hear about maple syrup experiences that Mike had as a kid that helped to form his fascination with sugaring: one in a sugar house and one at a pancake restaurant. He explains the process of sugaring, which started with Indigenous traditional knowledge. Listen to the sap-harvesting challenges presented from year to year as our weather becomes less predictable. Finally, Mike talks about three pieces of equipment that have made it possible for him to be a “part-time” sugarmaker and some grants that have helped with those purchases.

A note from Mike: Even though I am the main person running the operation, my wife and sons have always been a part of sugaring. In particular, they have always helped tap trees. And since the boys were in middle school, Margo and Elijah and Caleb have actually done most of the tapping. Elijah has even come home from college to help. Margo has also often joined me in the sugarhouse to help with boiling and bottling.

Links from this episode:

Land for Good

Entomologist and farmer Ron Bittner talks pollinators and soil health

This conversation with Ron Bittner will help you make the connection between crop pollination, water conservation and soil health in a way you probably haven’t before.

Learn about how Ron’s interest in insects—specifically the alfalfa leafcutting bee—has taken him around the US and all the way to Australia.

Hear about the beginnings of Ron’s small vineyard, which he operates with his wife, daughter and a small crew and why this location in Caldwell, Idaho, is ideal for growing wine grapes. Ron also talks about his farm’s certifications: Salmon Safe, Bee Friendly Farming and LIVE.

Ron’s involvement with the nonprofit Pollinator Partnership and continued research on pollinator populations in his area keep him involved with some of the 4,000 native bees in the US. Let his passion for pollinators get you excited about how to attract and protect these creatures on your own property.

Links from this episode:

Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good podcast episode with Sara Wittenburg

Pollinator Partnership website

iNaturalist citizen science app

Cambodian agroecology educator Panha Suon talks with Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good podcast host Lisa Munniksma about farming in Cambodia, from climate to crops and the challenges that farmers are facing there. Listen to how Panha became involved in agroecology and why he’s dedicated to educating others about the impact human activities have on the environment, particularly in a less-industrialized country like Cambodia.

Hear about Dassatek—meaning to awaken in Khmer—the project that Panha is developing to train Cambodian youth in agroecology. He talks about what motivates young people in his country and how he sees Dassatek appealing to them, including through an apprenticeship and a small seed fund to start their own agroecology project. Panha also talks about the social business enterprise model, as opposed to structuring Dassotek as a nonprofit or for-profit entity.

Learn about Panha’s 3-year homestead-building plan using natural building methods and how this suits Cambodia’s climate. He offers his advice for building your own earthen structure, focusing on using what you have on hand.

Listen to the very end to hear about Panha’s favorite traditional Cambodian farm meal!

Links from this episode:

Dassatek on Facebook

Dassatek on LinkedIn

Lewis Hughes, land steward and local-food distribution pro

Hear about Lewis Hughes’s journey into farming, from conventional pig and corn farms to international agricultural research to organic farming and cooperative farming. His vast experience in the farming world set him up to be able to work with small-scale farmers in distributing their products to wider markets.

Learn about the What Chefs Want (formerly called Creation Gardens) food distributor and its local-foods procurement arm, Local Food Connection. Lewis explains how a small-scale grower in Northeast Ohio might typically only be able to distribute their food to a farmers market or local food hub and how What Chefs Want can now help them sell throughout the Midwest and beyond. He talks about the grant funding (USDA Local Food Purchase Assistance, USDA Local Food for Schools and others) that has helped rapidly build capacity and infrastructure in the local food system and positively impact farmers and consumers.

Take Lewis’s best advice for how you, as a small-scale farmer, can make the step from selling at a farmers market to selling to a food hub, with the potential to bring your full-time-farming dream into reality.

Finally, Lewis talks about his new 13-acre property in Michigan and his plans to develop a “micro-farm” that relies on season extension and a focused crop plan.

Links from this episode:

Local Food Connection website

Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good episode # 67 with Ben Hartman

Small-scale farmer and entrepreneur Nasuha Lenuh — nicknamed R — talks about the tree crops grown in her region, the southern part of Thailand. Hear about her family’s tree crops, from rubber to durian fruit, and how R has chosen her own path in developing Rganic Farm, including herbs, salad greens and edible flowers. R shares this journey, being honest about her family’s and community’s feelings about her attempt at growing crops that others just aren’t attempting in this area.

R talks about her elevated raised beds, which she said go together like Legos so she can move them as the durian tree crops around them grow tall. She also talks about her experience as a woman farmer in Thailand and why this profession is important to her.

Based on her experience of growing temperate-climate crops in a tropical climate, R explains a secret of her success: patience in soil building.

Hear about the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, hosted by the US State Department, which awarded R a fellowship that brought her to the US to study food systems (and then allowed the Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good host Lisa Munniksma to visit Thailand through a reciprocal fellowship). R explains Kotatuera Basar Kita, the YSEALI project she’s working on now, to develop farmers and bring an American-style farmers market to her community in Yala, Thailand. R and Lisa also talk about what it’s been like to work together on this project both in the U.S. and in Thailand.

Links from this episode:

Rganic Farm on Facebook

Rganic Farm on Instagram

Military service members and veterans farming program and aeroponic gardening with Melissa Stewart

Listen to Melissa Stewart’s story about the West Virginia National Guard’s Patriot Guardens program — the only agricultural unit embedded in a National Guard unit — and how it grew from an educational program to what it has become in 7 years: an urban farm in Charleston, a flock of laying hens, farmers markets, an orchard on reclaimed coal-mine land in Central West Virginia, a robust beekeeping program, business and marketing support, a composting project, family programming, and mental-health services. All grant-funded, Patriot Guardens is ever-evolving.

Melissa talks about the ways this program is benefiting their military service people and veterans, with some seeing agriculture as a possible retirement plan, giving them an opportunity to continue to give back to their community after their military service. Hear about a success story of one participant who’s turned what he’s learned in the program into a thriving plant business. And Melissa gets emotional talking about why Patriot Guardens is important to her and the impact it has on their service members.

Melissa shares her story of her own home garden. As a greenhouse production grower before becoming an Extension agent (and now working with Patriot Guardens), Melissa has a ton of experience using a range of gardening techniques. Listen to the end for Melissa’s advice on getting starting with aeroponics at home.

Links

Patriot Guardens on Facebook

Patriot Guardens website

Flexibility in farming, connecting with the natural world, and the Organic Association of Kentucky with Jenny Howard Owen

In this episode of Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good, listen to Jenny’s story of her love of farming rooted in childhood. You might identify with her vivid childhood memories of digging potatoes, setting off with the family dogs through the woods and fields, and living a life outdoors. She talks about being in the Peace Corps in Gabon as her first experience with environmental education and the start to her work in sharing the outdoors with others. During her time in Gabon, she learned about gardening in the tropics and started teaching the concepts of ecology through school gardens.

Hear about how, when Jenny left Kentucky after college, she had no interest in living in her home state again but has since come back to Kentucky and built a farm. Being flexible is the lesson here. Jenny talks about the time she spent as a market farmer when her son was young and how she’s transitioned their 8 acres to more of a homesteading space for the time being.

Jenny tells us about her work as a farmer educator with the Organic Association of Kentucky, a nonprofit promoting and supporting organic farmers in the state. An annual conference, regular farmer field days, assistance for farmers transitioning to organic certification, and consumer education are all part of OAK programming. Additionally, the organization hosts the Kentucky Farm Share Coalition, which arranges employer-sponsored CSA programs with local farmers.

Finally, Jenny offers advice for getting started on your own land, sharing what she wished she knew when she and her husband were setting up their farm 10 years ago. And we hear about why this work is important to Jenny.

Diggin It Farm on Facebook

Organic Association of Kentucky website

OAK conference

Kentucky Farm Share Coalition

Research on employee-sponsored organic CSA programs