The Farm Report

Jamie Ager’s family has been stewarding the land that is now Hickory Nut Gap Farm in the mountains of Western North Carolina since 1916. In this episode, he talks to host Lisa Held about his family’s legacy of supporting a thriving farm economy in the region and how he’s carrying on the tradition with Hickory Nut Gap Meats, a company that now aggregates pasture-based meats from multiple farms in t...

With the rollout of rules related to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), many produce growers are now subject to food safety regulations for the first time. Some of those regulations seem like common sense, and others can be downright confusing. In this episode, National Young Farmers Coalition business services director Cara Fraver talks to host Lisa Held about “A Small Farmer’s Practical G...

“These chemicals are not emerging, it’s our awareness that’s emerging,” Rober Bilott says. Bilott, a lawyer who exposed the fact that DuPont had been polluting the environment and drinking water with “forever chemicals” for decades—deserves credit for that fact. His story is the subject of a new book, Exposure, and the recent film Dark Waters, starring Mark Ruffalo. In this episode, he delves into...

Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming has been working on building local, sustainable food systems for 20 years, via farmer training, agricultural coalitions, and more. In this episode, Glynwood president Kathleen Finlay talks to host Lisa Held about what that work looks like locally and how the center’s programs apply to national food system issues, like a new pilot program to help low-in...

Farmworker justice groups are split in terms of supporting or opposing this new piece of legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for some undocumented workers, mandate farmers electronically verify worker legal status, and make changes to the H-2A guestworker program. In this episode, California writer and photojournalist David Bacon (author of In the Fields of the North ) joins host...

Future Harvest is the Mid-Atlantic’s most influential sustainable agriculture organization. Last week, it held its annual conference, titled “Farming for our Soil, Livelihood, and Community,” and close to 800 farmers and advocates from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, and Washington DC attended. In this episode, executive director Dena Leibman joins host Lisa Held to talk about the big...

Arnold Coombs’ family has been tapping trees in Vermont and making maple syrup for seven generations. Today, Coombs Family Farms sources maple from 3,000 small family farms. Mark Isselhardt is a maple specialist at the University of Vermont extension school, where he studies maple production. In this episode, both maple experts talk to host Lisa Held about the sugaring tradition, what modern, comm...

Chris Damico is the founder of Farm’d , a platform that connects local farms to restaurants in Atlanta, Georgia. In this episode, Damico talks to host Lisa Held about how the platform simplifies supply chain logistics to help farmers sell their food into local markets, the value of regional food systems, and how he plans to replicate the model in other cities in the future. The Farm Report is a He...

This year, the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture launched a Regenerative Farming Fellowship program in partnership with the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC). In this episode, two of the farmers from the inaugural cohort—Drew Blankenbaker, a vegetable farmer in Montana and the founder of The Farmland Company and Kelly Placke, herd manager at organic grassfed dairy Placke Organic Ac...

Animal welfare activist Leah Garces , the current president of Mercy for Animals , has been fighting against industrial animal agriculture her entire career. In this episode, she talks to host Lisa Held about her new book " Grilled: Turning Adversaries into Allies to Change the Chicken Industry ," in which tells the story of working with farmers and chicken companies to make incremental changes in...

“No farms, no food,” is a slogan American Farmland Trust (AFT) popularized to describe the importance of its farmland conservation programs. Its newest program that speaks to that mission is Farmer Batch, a collaboration with Greek yogurt maker Chobani . Based on a portion of sales from special Farmer Batch yogurts , AFT will offer grants to struggling dairy farmers to help them manage farm transi...

Gail Taylor started Three Part Harmony Farm three and a half miles from the White House. In the process, in addition to growing plenty of organic vegetables for the residents of DC, she also helped pass city legislation to make it easier for others to start urban farms in the nation’s capital. In this episode,Taylor talks to host Lisa Held about her farm, her approach to agroecology, and the effec...

The fourth-generation Oregon rancher worked in environmental policy before she moved home and converted her family’s ranch to a grass-fed cattle operation based on the principles of holistic management. Now, she’s partnered with other ranches nearby to create a new supply chain for grass-fed beef. In this episode, Carman talks to host Lisa Held about building soil health to restore grasslands and...

According to The Washington Post , the number of dairy goats in the US is now climbing quickly. But Suzanne Behrmann, owner of Shepherd’s Way Creamery , got into milking goats a long time ago, simply because she liked them. Now, her farm has a herd of 14, and she sells her artisanal goat cheese at farmers markets in West Virginia and Washington DC’s famed Dupont Market. In this episode, Behrmann i...

United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue recently made a lot of farmers angry. At a time when small dairy farms are going out of business at unprecedented rates (and small farms producing other crops are also struggling), Perdue made a comment that suggested the situation was par for the course. “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out,” he said. This week, host Lisa Held is...

Why take a “wild” approach to farming? Nancy Hayden has been co-owner of The Farm Between in Jeffersonville, VT for 28 years, and she’s the co-author of the new book, Farming on the Wild Side: The Evolution of a Regenerative Organic Farm and Nursery . In this episode, she joins host Lisa Held to talk about the agricultural benefits of wild spaces, agroforestry and other climate-friendly farm pract...

Dave Herring is the executive director of Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment, a demonstration farm, training center, and campground on 600 acres of preserved coastal land in Freeport, Maine. In this episode, he talks to host Lisa Held about a new initiative —OpenTEAM—launched in collaboration with partners like Stonyfield Organic and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Res...

While many forms of aquaculture have wreaked havoc on ecosystems, fisherman-turned-ocean farmer Bren Smith says farming the world’s oceans could help solve the climate crisis—if we do it right. In the wake of the dire report on the state of the oceans from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), host Lisa Held talks to Smith about his method of 3D restorative ocean farming (whic...

Many common agricultural pesticides have been making headlines recently, from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) reversing a ban on chlorpyrifos to multiple lawsuits in which juries have awarded millions of dollars to individuals who claim glyphosate (Roundup) caused their cancers. In this episode, expert Erik Olson , of the NRDC , explains the health risks and environmental impacts of some...

Little Wild Things Farm produces soil­-grown microgreens, shoots, and edible flowers in the heart of Washington, DC. Its produce can be found at the biggest markets and in top restaurants throughout the city. In this episode, host Lisa Held talks to founder-farmer Mary Ackley about her journey as a first-generation farmer, the rewards and challenges related to growing and selling specialty produce...

Before the news of the fires in the Amazon drew national attention, environmental organization Mighty Earth was calling out American agricultural giant Cargill for its contributions to deforestation in South America, among numerous other environmentally destructive practices. In this episode, host Lisa Held talks to Mighty Earth CEO Glenn Hurowitz about the scathing report the organization release...

Chris Starkus owns Lost Creek Micro Farm in Denver, Colorado, where he is a beekeeper and grower of vegetables. He’s also the executive chef at the restaurant Urban Farmer , where he’s created a “locally focused, sustainably sourced steakhouse menu influenced by the bounty of Colorado.” During a trip to New York City to cook at the James Beard House, Starkus stopped by the studio to talk to host L...

This week's show is a special collaboration between The Farm Report and Cutting the Curd. Together, host Lisa Held and fellow Heritage Radio Network host and producer Elena Santogade talk to farmer and cheesemaker Celeste Nolan. Nolan and her husband purchased a family dairy farm 15 years ago. After struggling to sustain the farm business based on fluid milk production alone, they added cheesemaki...

Created by renowned chef Dan Barber, breeder Michael Mazourek, and seedsman Matthew Goldfarb, Row 7 is “a seed company grounded in the notion that deliciousness might just change the world.” In this episode, host Lisa Held sits down with Mazourek to talk about how the company has been working with a network of chefs and farmers to develop vegetables like the Badger Flame Beet and the Purple Beaure...

Jonathan Sumner has a unique job for a farmer. At Riverpark, one of celebrity chef Tom Colicchio’s restaurants, he runs what is likely Manhattan’s biggest outdoor farm, organically growing around 100 varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers in 3,200 milk crates. His predecessor, Zach Pickens, now runs Farm Tournant in upstate New York and provides the restaurant with whatever the city farm can...