American Family Farmer

Host Doug Stephan begins with news about the first death lawsuit against Monsanto over use of Round-Up. Next, Doug's special guest is Daniel Morash of California Safe Soil  http://www.calsafesoil.com . CSS provides a full-cycle process to assist supermarkets to recycle their organics, improve store hygiene, and reduce costs, in addition to helping agricultural customers save money, increase crop y...

Host Doug Stephan shares news about the skyrocketing demand for Organic Foods and Organic Milk, and how Government agencies are trying to set the standards. Next, Doug meets Lydell Steiner of TILMOR  http://www.tilmor.com . TILMOR is fourth-generation family farm (certified organic since 2006), with more than 50 years of experience designing and manufacturing turf and agricultural equipment. While...

Host Doug Stephan reveals a recent study which indicates that the number one cause of concern in the world is Animal Welfare. Next, Doug talks with Government Relations Representative for the National Farmers Union http://www.nfu.org , Matt Perdue, who is an advocate for family farmers, ranchers, and rural communities in Congress and the executive branch.  He focuses on climate, conservation, ener...

Host Doug Stephan reviews the latest developments with egg production, and the recent Salmonella scares. Next, Doug spends some time with Chelsea Davis, Communications Director of Family Farm Action,  http://www.farmaction.us a coalition of family-farmers and advocates building the "political muscle" to fight for farmers and rural communities. Existing political organizations have aligned themselv...

Host Doug Stephan talks about a farmer and his wife, who started a rural delivery service to deliver his products and products from other local farms to neighboring customers.  Next, Dairy Farmer Brian Smith, and Member of Americans For Farmers and Families  http://www.americansforfarmers &families.com discuss this coalition of growers, producers, suppliers, transporters, retailers and consumers d...

Meet Thomas Monteith, a 79-year-old retired Dairy Farmer, who owned Woodland Farms in Granville, MA. He is not optimistic about the future of the small family dairy farmer. Thomas is an advocate for independent dairy farms. There is a huge discrepancy between the price we pay for milk in the store, and the price the dairy farmer gets for it. You won't believe the influence that Walmart has on the...

Martha Boneta is a farmer at Liberty Farm in Paris, Virginia. A native Virginian, Martha grew up in Mt. Vernon on what she was told was a part of George Washington’s vast farmland. Growing up, her family always had kitchen gardens and it was Martha’s childhood dream to be a Virginia farmer and that dream became reality over 9 years ago. Immediately following law school, Martha worked in government...

Wendy Johnson is a farmer from Charles City, Iowa. She was born and raised on a farm a few miles from where she lives today.  She left the rural life when she was 18 for the big city thinking she'd never return, but 18 years later, she returned to her roots, living in her grandparents home and working the land that they once did. During those 18 years, she went to college, traveled the world, made...

In this weeks American Family Farmer podcast, Host Doug Stephan speaks live from the Central US Hemp Growers Conference with Morris Beagle, the founder of We Are For Better Alternatives, a program providing education and information about Hemp to promote the industry and the benefits of the plant.   He also speaks with Samantha Walsh, a lobbyist for the Hemp industry  and CEO and co-founder of Tet...

Doug Fine is a world-class adventure writer and investigative journalist, who, in 2011, turned his attention to America’s 40 Year-Old War on Drugs. Coming at it from a both an economic and a sustainability angle, he looked into the cannabis fields of Northern California, some of them third generation farms that are as old as the war itself. After researching the hemp industry worldwide for two yea...

Tyson Nekirch is an instructor at The Farm School's "Learn to Farm Program," located in rural, north-central Massachusetts. There are three main programs at The Farm School: Program for Visiting Schools, Learn to Farm Program, and the Chicken Coop School. One of the things that makes the farm school approach to both immersive education for school age children is that all of the program staff are f...

Host Doug Stephan meets  Brendan Davison, the Founder of Good Water Farms in Bridgehampton, NY, where he grows over 30 varieties of Microgreens.  Microgreens have 4-6 times higher levels of vital nutrients than mature greens of the same plant and have really amazing nutritional benefits, such as....     •    They are the best possible source of the elevated biotics critical to your body’s producti...

Mary Kimball is the Executive Director for the Center for Land-Based Learning, where they strive to inspire, educate, and cultivate future generations of farmers, agricultural leaders and natural resource stewards. She started working there in 1998, and has led its growth since that time; in 1998, there was one program and 30 high school students. Today, Land-Based Learning runs five different mod...

Eliza Maclean talks veterinary practices & raising livestock at Cane Creek Farm

Paul Haldeman, a retired military officer and life-long syrup-maker, and Deanna Nelson, a lawyer by trade, are rural neighbors in Rodman, New York, and partners in their business, Zoar Tapatree Co..  With a combined 250-acres of property and approximately 10,000 sugar maples, Haldeman and Nelson have set out to make the most amazing syrup possible--and convince consumers that there is a world of f...

Roger Johnson has been President of The National Farmers Union since 2009. Prior, he was a third-generation family farmer from Turtle Lake, ND, where he also served as North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner since 1996. NFU was founded by ten local farmers in 1902 as the Farmers Educational Cooperative Union of America in Point, Texas. After its founding, NFU advocated for increased co-operative rig...

Architect Javier Ponce is the founder of the Smart Floating Farms project (SFF) and currently a registered architect in Barcelona, Spain Javier graduated from Monterrey Institute of Technology in México and holds a Master's degree in Advanced Architecture from UPC University in Barcelona. Between 2007-2009 Javier worked for british architect Norman Foster in London, where he was exposed to differe...

Bullock Farms is a family owned and operated 100 acre farm located in beautiful central New Jersey with gently rolling hills, green pastures and open farmland. Brett Bullock and his sister are the sixth generation of farmers at Bullock Farms in Cream Ridge, NJ, which was founded in 1860. Brett grew up on the farm and then went to college at University of Vermont, where he earned a Bachelor’s degre...

Jack Algiere is the farm director at Stone Barns Center. Jack graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a degree in horticulture and has been actively farming since the early 1990s. His lifetime of experience in organic, biodynamic and ecological systems brings a broad diversity of experience in greenhouses, orchards, fields and pastures. Jack oversees the diverse farming operations, mult...

Daniel De Carvalho is the Global Director of Corporate Communications of Zaluvida, the makers of Mootral, a new natural feed supplement for cows. Zaluvida, a biotech company that tackles health challenges ranging from antibiotic resistance to livestock emissions, claims to instantly reduce cow methane emissions by at least 30%. The powdery supplement, which is compressed into pellets and mixed int...

When he’s not networking with hemp researchers and growers, or briefing legislators like Senator Mitch McConnell about the multi-billion-dollar boost that federal legalization of hemp would give to the economy, hemp industry consultant Josh Hendrix of CV Sciences can usually be found conducting interviews with the media as part of his mission to educate young and old about the many benefits to be...

Pamela Rickenbach co-founded Blue Star Equiculture in 2009 with friends in Philadelphia wanting to create a permanent home for retired carriage horses. With many years experience working alongside first nations people in sharing their messages to the world with National Geographic senior editor and author Harvey Arden, Pamela wanted to include indigenous native people's wisdom in developing a holi...

After attending the University of Massachusetts-Amherst with a B.A. in Political Science, John went back to his roots and spent time living in Italy where he worked at a variety of farms and homesteads.  While overseas, John realized agriculture was extremely important to him and he wanted to continue the lifestyle within the United States.  Upon his return John spent two years working at local fa...

Dena Hoff, Vice President of the National Family Farm Coalition, has farmed most of her life and has raised sheep, cattle, alfalfa, sweet corn, edible dry beans, and other crops on her farm in Glendive, Montana, since 1979. She is an active member of her rural community, serving on the Water Commission and the local food cooperative, as well as Montana-based Northern Plains Resource Council.  She...

Jackie Allenbrand started the PHARM Dog USA program in 2005.  PHARM stands for: Pets Helping Agriculture in Rural Missouri. She and her husband used dogs on their own farm to work the cattle and wondered if a dog could be trained for further farm use.  After meeting a farmer with a partial leg amputation and talking with him about his dog she decided to pursue the idea of training dogs for farmers...