Considering climate change, adaptation is key. In the final webinar of the Wild Farm Alliance ’s series “The Role of Birds on Farms,” we learn not only about the feeding habits of birds but what plants and trees are best suited to survive warming temperatures and therefore continue to help birds to ...

About 40 years ago I met a fellow named Brian on business in Cooperstown. He called California home, but was born in the Oklahoma Panhandle in the 1930s. He didn’t recall anything about the Sooner State, because he was only 1 when his family piled him, a few belongings and some siblings into a Model...

Ralph Waldo Emerson aptly surmised, “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” If that’s the case, there are millions of forested acres being born every day with the advent of Earth Day and Arbor Day actionable celebrations. Landowners and communities are planting these living “lungs” as ...

Selecting a sheep breed represents an important part of the process of launching a sheep operation. For sheep breeders Steve Gabriel and Alex Caskey, the Katahdin breed checks all the boxes. The two presented “Katahdin Sheep: A Versatile Breed for Pasture and Silvopasture” as a webinar hosted by Foo...

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is at it again, claiming to be a nutritionist for 8.4 million citizens. The same guy who wanted to take away kids’ chocolate milk now wants to limit beef and dairy for the good “of emissions.” New York State farmers just might have a beef with this kind of rhetoric. Ju...

The United Junior Suffolk Sheep Association (UJSSA) recently sponsored the presentation “Hitting the Target for Lamb Yield Quality and Value.” Dr. Travis Hoffman, assistant professor of animal sciences and Extension sheep specialist at North Dakota State University, was the seminar’s featured speake...

Here are five floral milestones that mark out that many stages of spring (as seen by this writer). The first wild plant in the Northeast to promise winter is losing its grip is marsh marigold, also called cowslip. This plant isn’t even slightly related to garden variety marigolds; it’s in the butter...

Fun fact: agriturismo is how you say agritourism in Italian. It is an enormously popular enterprise in Italy, so much so that the first International Workshop on Agritourism was hosted there in 2018. (The most recent one took place in Burlington, VT; it returns to Italy in 2024.) However, as the des...

Jim Lindauer is a cattle rancher with over 50 years in the beef business. He is the latest generation of the Lindauer family to run Running W Farms in Chestertown, MD. “I’ve raised grass-fed Highlands for most of my life. I’ve been a meat cutter, a buyer and I’ve been active in marketing. And I can ...

Pennsylvania is the top cattle-producing state in the Northeast with 8,800 beef cattle farms. The commonwealth ranks 19th overall in cattle and calf production, and more than 7,500 of its beef and dairy producers are involved with the Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) program. Those numbers add up to qui...

“Bending, squatting, grabbing, twisting, pulling, pushing, cutting, walking, running, jumping, dragging, digging, pounding, lifting, tossing, catching, reaching. These are all examples of ways you’re likely incorporating physical activity into your farming duties regularly,” said Kate Graves. Graves...

During most of my post-formative years as an ag educator, I referred to small grains planted in late summer and/or early autumn as cover crops. I was strongly encouraged to stop using that term almost 11 years ago when I visited the Cornell Research Farm in Valatie, NY. During June and July of 2012,...

There’s an unwritten rule among those who raise livestock: If loose livestock are spotted, neighboring farmers do what they can to identify and return them to their rightful owner. Livestock that escape typically don’t go far, preferring to remain close to familiar animals and surroundings. But that...

“Buckwheat is really a pseudo grain. It’s not wheat. It’s not barley. It’s actually a seed more closely related to rhubarb, but it acts in a way similar to rice or quinoa,” explained Kyle Gifford, CEO of Birkett Mills in Penn Yan, NY. Birkett Mills , established in 1797, is the largest buyer and mil...

About 10 years ago, farmers started to feel this pressure, this need to pay attention and be involved in consumer engagement. “It’s a weird thing that we agreed consumer engagement is a thing we needed to focus on,” said Janice Person of Grounded and Rising , a community and training platform focuse...