Country Folks
Posted on December 17, 2025
This year’s Keystone Farm Show is one of the largest in its 28-year history. Started in 1998, the Keystone Farm Show carved out an important marketing niche for the agri-businesses in Pennsylvania. While the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg is a great show to educate the people about the importa...
Country Folks
by Sonja Heyck-Merlin 
Posted on December 17, 2025
"More than 70% of cyber attacks are aimed at businesses with less than 100 employees. "They’re not going for the big guys because the big guys can afford the big cybersecurity firms,” said IRS employee Sheba Gonzalez. At an event hosted by USDA, Gonzalez and her colleagues, all IRS specialists in ta...
Country Folks
by Sally Colby 
Posted on December 17, 2025
When Dr. Jennie Ivey was doing graduate work at West Virginia University in 2008, she saw many emaciated horses and became interested in what happens in horses’ bodies during reduced nutrient intake. Today, Ivey, associate professor of animal science at the University Tennessee, helps teach horse ow...
Country Folks
by Sally Colby 
Posted on December 9, 2025
Benjamin Barnett’s grandfather started a dairy farm in Pennsylvania in 1952 with $1,200 and 14 cows. Today the farm is 700 acres and 200 cows. “It still wasn’t big enough for me to stay when I graduated college,” said Barnett, who operates the farm today with his wife Kelsey. “I went to work as a ma...
Country Folks
by Enrico Villamaino 
Posted on December 9, 2025
In a forward-focused webinar presented by the International Dairy, Deli & Bakery Association (IDDBA), Dr. Armin Pearn delivered a resonant message about the future of dairy farming. As a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and the head of data science and strategic marketing for Dairy Data Warehouse (DDW)...
Country Folks
by Holly Devon 
Posted on December 9, 2025
Pest management is one of the most pernicious problems faced by farmers, thanks to the fact that we are not alone in what we consider to be delicious and nutritious. Bugs, slugs and mice think our fields have been grown as an all-you-can-eat buffets just for them, and defending crops against their b...
Country Folks, Crop Comments
Crop Comments
Crop Comments B3 
Posted on December 9, 2025
As I’m writing this column on the first day of December, it’s about three weeks until days start lengthening in the northern hemisphere. Recently, most of the Northeast had been gathering just a few occasional snowflakes. But that changed the day after Thanksgiving, when the Mohawk Valley got about ...
Country Folks, News
by Sally Colby 
Posted on December 3, 2025
There are several primary goals for a profitable beef cow/calf herd – the majority of herd females should achieve viable pregnancies and calves are born alive and healthy. The newborn calf's primary requirement is colostrum. While there isn't a lot of information on colostrum for beef cows, theres s...
Country Folks, News
by Deborah Jeanne Sergeant 
Posted on December 3, 2025
Improving both profits and animal welfare was the theme of “Farm 5.0 and the Future of Dairy Care,” a webinar recently presented by Beverly Hampton Phifer, senior director with National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) program and hosted by the Dairy Cattle Welfare Council. FARM ...
Country Folks, News
by Courtney Llewellyn 
Posted on December 3, 2025
It’s no secret that sugar maples are the preferred variety of trees for sugarmakers. But in the interest of making the most of what’s already growing on your property and diversifying your agricultural portfolio, should you consider tapping other trees? That was the question posed and studied by Dav...
Country Folks, News
by Andy Haman 
Posted on December 3, 2025
“I wasn’t really a poultry guy,” Jacob Horst shared – but that’s all behind him now. He and his family, of St. Johnsville, NY, became a family farm partner with New Hampshire-based Pete & Gerry’s Organic Pasture Raised Eggs. Their impressive new facility, shown to the public during an early November...
Country Folks, Crop Comments
Crop
Posted on December 3, 2025
As I wrote this column, the actual holiday was three days away. The happening should be considered more a season, not just a single square on a calendar page displaying the fourth Thursday of each November. A look at early colonial history in Massachusetts supports my reasoning. The first Thanksgivi...
Country Folks
by Ben Simons 
Posted on November 25, 2025
On Oct. 21 the Oneida County Farm Bureau hosted their 70th anniversary annual dinner meeting at Franklin Hotel Restaurant in Rome. The dinner menu was made up of locally grown products from Twin Orchards Farm Stand, Jake’s Gouda Cheese, John Collins Farm & Creamery, Neil Collins Family Maple, Simmon...
Country Folks
by Laura Rodley 
Posted on November 25, 2025
Shelley Gray and her husband Roger have been raising turkeys for 30 years at Gray Family Farm in New Windsor, NY. First they raised chickens at the farm. “Since we did chickens, I thought I could do turkeys. You think you know chickens, so you think you know turkeys,” she said. Not so, she found. “F...
Country Folks
by Kelsi Devolve 
Posted on November 25, 2025
Receiving funding through a grant is a huge honor and success, but it takes a lot of work to earn it. Going through the process of applying for a grant can be really overwhelming, but the Tri-State Extension Dairy Team hosted a webinar to make the process easier to comprehend. UVM Extension Dairy Re...
Country Folks
by Lia Raz, American Farmland Trust 
December 17, 2025
Over the past five years, seven Vermont dairy farmers have participated in a farmer cohort facilitated by Cheryl Bruce, senior livestock & grazing spe...
B: Country Folks East, Crop Comments
Crop Comments
December 17, 2025
Occasionally the bottom drops out, temperature-wise, in Central New York during the last week of November. Three or four years ago, Thanksgiving Day i...
Country Folks, News
by Laura Rodley 
December 3, 2025
Axel Linde of Lindenhof Farm in Kirkwood, PA, wears a sweatshirt embroidered with the words “Turkey Whisperer” when he sets up the market table where ...
Country Folks
by Kelsi Devolve 
November 25, 2025
Virtual fencing is a relatively new farming option in the Northeast, but it’s very effective and reduces labor when moving animals between pastures. V...
