EMILY MEREDITH is the Chief of Staff at the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) in Arlington, VA. Her primary responsibilities lie in the areas of strategic planning, organizational oversight and stakeholder outreach. She also oversees the National Dairy FARM ProgramTM, which assures consumers that milk and other products from American dairy farms are the end result of responsible animal care practices. In supervising the exceptional FARM Program team, she focuses on other education and tr...
Jun 11, 2017•52 min
KEVIN SKUNES is a vice president at the National Corn Growers Association and a fourth-generation farmer outside Arthur, North Dakota. On his 6,000 acres, he currently raises about 55 percent corn, 45 percent soybeans. This constitutes a big change since Skunes was a child in the 1960s. Back then, the farm was about 2,000 acres of wheat, barley, sunflowers and soybeans, with no corn. Farmers who had long rotated plantings among a diverse group of grains are increasingly turning to a single one. ...
Jun 04, 2017•52 min
DANNELE PECK is Director and Agricultural Economist, USDA ARS Rangeland Resources and Systems Research Unit. Previously, she was an Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Wyoming, where she conducted research, extension, and teaching for 10 years. Her area of expertise is decision-making under risk and uncertainty. Raised on a dairy farm in upstate New York, Dannele is a first-generation college graduate. Her region, which includes Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska...
May 28, 2017•52 min
CHRIS HOLMAN was born in Oceanside, CA. In 1989, his family moved to the middle of the Navajo Indian Reservation. After high school, he joined the US Army, where he served as an Arabic Linguist. He went on to teach Arabic at the University of Oregon, and eventually left for Wisconsin to work on the farm that he and his wife Maria purchased. Neither of them had ever farmed before 2009. In addition, he has taught at UW-Madison, Madison College and he is currently finishing a two-year contract at C...
May 21, 2017•52 min
MICHELE PAYN is known as one of North America's leading experts in connecting farm and food. Her lifelong passion for agriculture stems from childhood and she has been breeding and judging dairy cattle as a registered Holstein breeder since the age of nine. She now resides on a small central Indiana farm, where she enjoys working on the farm with her daughter. She knows agriculture because she lives agriculture. Payn holds degrees in Agricultural Communications and Animal Science from Michigan S...
May 14, 2017•52 min
JOLENE BROWN, CSP is a real live “FARMER BROWN.” Her corn and soybean farm is in east central Iowa, 40 minutes west of the Mississippi River, on a non-flood year. She also can hypnotize a chicken, plug grain augers and entertain the folks behind the equipment parts counter She has been authoring books and speaking professionally for 25+ years, primarily to agricultural audiences including grass roots farmers & ranchers, their Associations and Corporations. This includes those who produce in ...
May 07, 2017•52 min
DINO GIACOMAZZI is a fourth-generation California dairy farmer, who embodies what it means to have farm responsibly and sustainably, on his 900-acre farm, with 900 dairy cows. He and his family live on the dairy property and oversee all aspects of its operations. And now, their newest crop is almonds. He has become a leader in the community, advocating the benefits of conservation tillage to other dairy farmers. He uses social media channels and hosts demonstrations and field days at his farm to...
Apr 30, 2017•52 min
PETE KENNEDY is an attorney in Sarasota, Florida and serves as the president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and vice president of the Farm-to-Consumer Foundation. Pete has worked on raw dairy issues in various States as well as other food distribution aspects including extensive reviews of legislation, particularly food safety and raw milk bills. On April 14, Governor Doug Burgum signed House Bill 1433 (HB 1433), referred to as the North Dakota Food Freedom Act, into law. On April 7,...
Apr 23, 2017•52 min
CELESTE LONGACRE lives in Nashua, NH and is a radio personality, author, professional speaker and astrologer for The Old Farmer's Almanac. She is also author of “Visitor’s Guide to The Planet Earth, an Astrological Primer.” Celeste will also be doing gardening, canning, freezing, etc. workshops at her home this summer. Her charts in The Old Farmer’s Almanac are based on the Moon’s sign and shows the best days each month for certain activities, such as: planting crops, pruning, cutting hay, breed...
Apr 16, 2017•52 min
SALLY FALLON MORELL is someone that I met, several years back, at the “Raw Milk Symposium” in Wisconsin. Her lifelong interest in the subject of nutrition began in the early 1970s when she read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price traveled the world over studying healthy primitive populations and their diets. Sally applied the principles of Dr. Price’s research to the feeding of her own children, and proved for herself that a diet rich in animal fats, and containing the protect...
Apr 09, 2017•52 min
JULIE KELLY is a cooking instructor, food writer, blogger and a Mom who lives in the Chicago area. In 2015, she got passionate about GMOs. Kelly is a contributing writer to the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Huffington Post, The Hill and other media outlets. While science and farming communicators struggle with how to best educate consumers and the media, organic executives and celebrities are defining the narrative on GMOs. This is not without serious ramifications if we turn away from g...
Mar 22, 2017•54 min
MITCH HUNTER is a PhD candidate at Penn State, in agronomy working with Dr. David Mortensen to develop ecologically sound farming systems that are productive, economical, and workable for farmers. He is also pursuing a minor in ecology. His current research focuses on using cover crops to improve cropping system productivity, sustainability, and resilience in the face of challenging climatic conditions. Food production must double by 2050 to feed the world's growing population. This truism has b...
Mar 12, 2017•54 min
EILEEN GORDON is an entrepreneur, farmer and the founder of BARNRAISER, along with business partner and husband, Chef Michael Chiarello. Her journey to sustainable food and farming, as well as passion for kids education, came from her farming family in Northern California, long-time swiss dairy ranchers and now cheesemakers. An indirect path from Apple's education group to the Napa Valley leads to her current obsession with the makers in clean, good food movement, and with giving the next genera...
Feb 15, 2017•54 min
BARB SHATTO runs the Shatto Milk Company with her husband, Leroy. She grew up on a family farm, and even though she has a Master’s degree in Health Services Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, she always knew that the farm was the place for her. SHATTO MILK COMPANY is a small family-owned and operated dairy farm, with 350 Holstein cows, located just north of the Kansas City metropolitan area. Their family has been farming there for more than 100 years and began a dairy farm more...
Feb 08, 2017•56 min
DR. DICKSON D. DESPOMMIER is an emeritus professor of microbiology and Public Health at Columbia University. From 1971-2009, he conducted research on intracellular parasitism and taught courses on parasitic diseases, medical ecology and ecology. In recent years, he has received considerable media coverage for his ideas on vertical farming. He developed the concept over a 10-year period with graduate students in a medical ecology class. Despommier is also co-host of three popular podcasts along a...
Feb 05, 2017•45 min
ROBIN AND MARK WAY own and operate Rumbleway Farm, a 62 acre certified organic farm located in Cecil County, Maryland. Robin has a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology, and formerly worked in the DuPont Pharaceutical-lab. Mark has a Bachelor of Science, in Biology, and formerly worked for DuPont Pharmaceutical’s - lab research on inflammatory diseases and safety. They have become active and enterprising in diverse agriculture to include aggressive marketing of pastured poultry and all natural p...
Jan 29, 2017•45 min
AUDRA MULKERN is a cook, writer, photographer and a podcaster, who lives in a farming community. She noticed the face of the farmers in her own community was starting to change as more and more women were applying to become interns.Today, she is putting good food in the spotlight and changing the way you look at farming and the food on your plate. THE FEMALE FARMER PROJECT documents the rise of women in agriculture. It is a chronicle of images and stories of female farmers who are tasked with fa...
Jan 22, 2017•45 min
ALLEN LASH is President and CEO of AgriSolutions, Inc. and CEO of FamilyFarms Group. He is a widely recognized leader in the area of future agriculture direction, business and management structures, and financial management for agriculture. Mr. Lash was an early leader in the Farm Financial Standards Council, with commodity associations such as the National Pork Producers Council and the Corn and Soybean Association. He was also an early leader of the Northeast Dairy Standards Council group in P...
Jan 15, 2017•45 min
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. SOME TALKING POINTS: 1. U.S. farm policy already favors Big Business. Will it get worse under Trump? 2. Ten food trends that will shape 2017 Trend 1: Silicon Valley & Food Trend 2: The Wild West Trend 3: Enhanced Foods: Beyond Brownies Trend 4: Generation Z Trend 5: Sustainabil...
Jan 08, 2017•45 min
Meghan and Ross Nichols are an energetic, hardworking couple who own and operate High Hopes Farm on a beautiful 120ish-acre piece of land in Bristol, Maine. The couple purchased the farm earlier this summer, and already have a small, thriving operation. They both grew up in the area, and didn’t even consider looking at other farms because they knew they wanted to stay in their community. When they bought the farm, Maine Farmland Trust purchased an easement on the property, lowering the cost for ...
Dec 18, 2016•45 min
Johnny Fonteyn is a former chef, and his wife Elizabeth Del Negro, a former educator. They are in their 30’s, and now are full-fime farmers. They started with an 8-acre farm, just north of Los Angeles, in Ojai (PM: O-HI), California, which was formerly a minimum-security prison. Today, they grow vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers on three different farms. The farm is known as Rio Gozo. "Gozo" is Spanish for Joy. The majority of the food they grow supplies Rio Gozo Farm's CSA program; any extra...
Dec 11, 2016•43 min
Hanson's Farm has been a working farm since 1715, farmed for almost 200 years. In 1908, Matthew Hanson got the opportunity to rent the fifty acre farm and loved it, finally purchasing it in 1913 after which it officially became Hanson 19s farm. His grandson Tom eventually took over, and began concentrating on the farm stand and adding things such as upick, hayrides and other things. To bring families to the farm, diversifying has helped to keep the farm going and such things as a horse boarding ...
Dec 07, 2016•32 min
Jana Linderman is President of The Iowa Farmers Union. She grew up on a family farm in North Dakota and is the 4th generation to work in her family 19s farming operation. As a beginning farmer, she works with her parents raising spring wheat, small grains and non-GMO food-grade soybeans that are direct marketed to processors in Japan. Her long-term goal for the farm is to transition to organic production and start a farm-to-table craft distillery using grains grown on the farm. Since 1915, THE I...
Nov 07, 2016•37 min
Sharon Caswell is the founder and CEO of PonyUP Technologies, and has been a life-long horse owner. She currently has two horses and rides as often as possible. Pony Up Technologies was founded on the simple desire to make life better for horses and their handlers. Their products give equine professionals a better way to manage the health and conditioning of their horses. The objective is to bring products to market that are simple to use and yet have a profound and game-changing impact on healt...
Nov 07, 2016•37 min
Kriss Marion is a former Easterner and Journalist from Chicago. Kriss and her husband Shannon, own the Circle M Market Farm and B&B, in Lafayette County. She is the founder of her local farmers 19 market in Blanchardville, Wisconsin. Even though Kriss is a first-generation 1cniche 1d farmers, she always vowed she 19d never do a farmers 19 market. She got into farming because she liked playing in the dirt. Her dream revolved around shepherding animals, growing plants, shaping the landscape an...
Oct 04, 2016•22 min
Marc Santucci is the owner of Santucci Farm, in Travers City, MI. He says a Federal Regulation has forced him to let 40-thousand perfectly-good tart cherries go to waste. There is nothing wrong with the cherries, but the regulation requires him to dump them, to allow the import of 200-million pounds of cherries from overseas. Santucci said that tart cherries imported from Turkey and Eastern Europe have made up increasingly larger portions of the market, and limiting the amount of domestic cherri...
Oct 04, 2016•36 min
The Farrell Family has transformed Sunset Farm into a local icon in Narragansett. It is the last of its kind in the south-end of Narragansett, being the last working farm in the area. The Farrell Family works pasturing a herd of 100 head of Black Angus beef cattle, born and raised right on the farm. Sunset Farm prides itself on the fact that their beef cattle never leave the state of Rhode Island. Sunset Farm also grows a wide variety of produce in their fields located behind the Historic Kinney...
Oct 04, 2016•36 min
Mark Schneider is a former firefighter who turned full-time grower after he helped his in-laws, Kevin and Denise Kilgus, convert their truck farming operation into Living Water Farms. He is now President and CEO of the farm. LIVING WATER FARMS is owned and operated by the Kilgus/Schneider families. It is a small sustainable family farm, focused on growing the highest quality specialty greens and micro greens year round for top chefs, select distributors, and local retail throughout the Midwest. ...
Aug 17, 2016•37 min
Freddy Hill Farms began as a dairy store in 1972. The milk is processed and packaged right on the farm, and then sold in the dairy store. To complement the dairy sales, dipped ice cream is also offered to customers. After learning how to make their own ice cream at Penn State University's creamery, the Seipts expanded their ice cream offerings and began making ice cream cakes. The ice cream sales soon outgrew the small space and a full, sit down ice cream parlor was built in 1988. The partners' ...
Aug 17, 2016•36 min
Stacy and Tenzin Botsford are first generation farmers who are dedicated to the idea that caring for the land and growing high quality organic food can be mutually beneficial for the farm, the farmer, and the community. Their goal was to regain their relationship to the land and to the food that we eat, while helping to revitalize small farms in Central Wisconsin. This summer, they are embarking on a new adventure as they represent Wisconsin Farmers Union in the Farmers Union Enterprises (FUE) i...
Jul 29, 2016•37 min
