Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Jake Carter, Owner & CEO, Southern Belle Farm in McDonough, Georgia, just south of Atlanta. https://www.southernbellefarm.com Southern Belle Farm is an 8-generation family owned 330-acre working farm, open seasonally for fresh produce, berry picking, peach picking, fall fun, Christmas trees, and much more! It's Strawberry Season on The Farm, and they have lots of fun planned for guests this Spring! U-pick st...
Apr 22, 2024•17 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Jerry Apps, author of "On Farms and Rural Communities: An Agricultural Ethic for the Future." https://bookshop.org/p/books/on-farms-and-rural-communities-an-agricultural-ethic-for-the-future-jerry-apps/20186975 Jerry Apps is a former county extension agent and is now professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he taught for thirty years. Today he works as a rural historian and full-time writ...
Apr 11, 2024•18 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Steve and Jesse McBee of McBee Farms. www.mcbeefarms.com Their new series on Peacock The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys, is a new reality series that takes viewers behind the scenes of the high-stakes world of farming and ranching in rural Missouri. McBee Farm and Cattle is on the brink of becoming a billion-dollar business... or a financial disaster. They own and operate 2100 acres of fescue pasture and h...
Apr 03, 2024•14 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Warren Shaw, President of the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation (MFBF https://mfbf.net/ ), a non-profit farming advocacy organization representing almost 3,000 family members across the Commonwealth. In this capacity, he assesses the overall direction and strategy of MFBF. Warren is also the owner/operator of Shaw Farm in Dracut, MA. https://shawfarm.com/ The 113-year-old family dairy has a herd of 100 and pr...
Apr 01, 2024•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Tami Purdue, from Sweet Peas Urban Gardens, LLC. www.sweetpeasurbangardens.com & www.triangleunitedgrowers.com Tami is a trained as an accountant, but her own “foodie” journey led her from rapt engagement with entertainment cooking, to organic gardening, to a profound fascination with all the ways food culture underlies manifold concerns of health, justice, identity and personal expression. They grow local, ...
Mar 25, 2024•18 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Lesley Sykes, founder, and CEO of Primary Beans. www.primarybeans.com Primary Beans is a new, direct-to consumer online dried bean company offering an array of single-origin beans from recent harvests, sourced across North America from climate-conscious farm partners. They believe that beans as the perfect food from a nutritional, culinary, and planetary perspective....
Mar 13, 2024•13 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Dr. Chad E. Hart Professor, Iowa State University Department of Economics Area of Expertise: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics. Called "Dr. Doom" by some. Heading into 2024, he paints a somewhat more encouraging picture for grain prices than USDA does. When the Iowa State University Extension ag economist spoke to farmers at the Purdue Top Farmer Conference in early January, USDA’s latest estimates for...
Mar 11, 2024•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Glenn Roberts founder of Anson Mills. www.ansonmills.com. Glenn grew up in San Diego, California, the son of a professional singer and photographer, and a former Southern belle from Edisto, South Carolina. Somewhere along the road Glenn’s overarching interests distilled into the study of architectural history and the history of food. Glenn explored rural back roads looking for the famous white Carolina mill corn...
Feb 29, 2024•17 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Cristian Gilces, a New York State FFA Reporter who has a passion for Urban Agriculture. www.nysffa.org Throughout his Supervised Agricultural Experience he has worked at the Queens Farm, and he is a long-term intern at Grow NYC. He is also an avid indoor gardener, with an indoor greenhouse full of house plants. He strongly believes FFA makes a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their pote...
Feb 22, 2024•18 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Arthur Erickson, CEO and co-founder of Hylio, a Texas-based company that designs, manufactures, and offers agricultural drones that precisely apply liquid and granular inputs to a wide variety of crops. https://www.hyl.io/. These units are extremely easy to use and reliable and make farming easier and more successful for everyone. Their systems have successfully treated hundreds of thousands of acres across the ...
Feb 14, 2024•17 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Magen Allen of J A Farms Feed. www.jafarmsfeed.com Megan, her husband Jeremy, along with their four children, raise cattle, hay, and operate a feed mill and retail store in Bismarck, Arkansas. Magen is also a State Board Member with Arkansas Farm Bureau, Bismarck School Board Member, and Children's Ministry Volunteer at her local church. Since 2007, they have become a well-known feed source in Bismarck, Arkansas...
Feb 07, 2024•18 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Jean-Martin Fortier, a farmer, educator, entrepreneur, and best- selling author specializing in organic and biointensive vegetable production. His book, The Market Gardener https://themarketgardener.com has inspired hundreds of thousands of readers worldwide to reimagine ecological human-scale food systems. His teachings have been adapted to different online organic farming courses that support over 3400+ grower...
Jan 31, 2024•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Melissa O'Rourke, Farm and Agribusiness Management Specialist at the Iowa State University Extension Service, morourke@iastate.edu . They discuss how the extension offices work, foreign farmland ownership, goat milk, how to keep the farm in the family, being good stewards of the land and women in farming, the problems that Iowa farmers face when trying to hire farm hands.
Jan 25, 2024•18 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Peter Miller, an Organic Dairy Farmer from Vernon, VT https://www.vtmillerfarm.com and Harley Sterling, director of nutrition for the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union’s food service program. https://www.universalschoolmealsvt.org/ Learn how Miller Farm collaborates with the public school systems for bag in box organic milk. In 2009, Miller Farm became certified organic. What this means to the community is the...
Jan 18, 2024•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Greg Cohen, who is working with Farmer Doug to crate an "Agrihood," called Baiting Brook Farm. https://baitingbrookfarm.com/. Agrihoods are based around the concept of integrating farms and gardens into neighborhoods, allowing for the development of residential neighborhoods that have a rural feel. Integrating agriculture into neighborhoods also allows for communities to supply themselves with locally-produced f...
Jan 10, 2024•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Anneliese Abbot - Author, Malabar Farm: Louis Bromfield, Friends of the Land, and the Rise of Sustainable Agriculture. http://historyoforganic.com/ She has been researching the history of organic and sustainable agriculture since 2015.
Dec 31, 2023•20 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Ronny Lee a 6th generation Farmer who runs Lee Turkey Farm. www.leeturkeyfarm.com The farm was first purchased by Ronny’s great-great-great-grandfather, Clement Updike, in 1868. At peak, the farm-raised 7000 turkeys, which were sold typically live to various places, including a Kosher plant in Lakewood. When the Federal government became more strict in their regulations for processing, some of the clients could...
Dec 31, 2023•20 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Michael Francis, owner of Maple Ridge Nursery. https://japanesemaplesandconifers.com/ Facebook@japanesemaplesandconifers Michael is a fourth generation nurseryman that has been growing Japanese maples in the Atlanta area his whole life. They grow over 500 different varieties of Japanese maples, as well as hundreds of varieties of rare and unusual conifers. They have an online store and they ship trees all over t...
Dec 18, 2023•18 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Gary Steinbrenner & Maryse Laurin of LS Ranch & Farms/Bois D'Arc Christmas Tree Farm. https://boisdarcchristmastreefarm.com/ The ranch/farm was purchased and established in 2012 as a ranch for breeding Registered Texas Longhorns. In 2016, they started the Christmas Tree Farm, with a lot of love, dedication, patience, and hard work. All of their trees are organically grown.No pesticides, herbicides, or ch...
Dec 11, 2023•20 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Robby Kluver, Kluver Family Farms. http://kluverfarms.com/ Robby grew up on the family farm in Northfield, MN. After receiving his Masters he found a job working at Monsanto corn research group at Stanton, MN. Then, decided to use my familiarity with the seed industry and start his own company, “Kluver Family Farms.” He produces, utilizes, and sells his own line of competitive corn hybrids. President Joe Biden t...
Dec 04, 2023•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Christopher Grallert, President of Green City Growers, a Boston-based urban farming company. https://greencitygrowers.com/ Founded in 2008, Green City Growers’ original mission was to provide home owners with the infrastructure, tools, and education to grow their own produce at home and help create more environmentally sustainable, nutrient-dense food sources from small urban and suburbanspaces. By spring of 200...
Nov 28, 2023•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Dr. Ada Szczepaniec, Associate Professor Department of Agricultural Biology, Colorado State UniversityColorado Center for Sustainable Pest Management. https://agsci.colostate.edu/ Her current work is focused on sustainable approaches to management of pests associated with industrial hemp in conventional and organic hemp production, incorporating biological control in IPM of hemp and specialty crops, insecticide ...
Nov 15, 2023•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Jocelyn Molyneux, owner of Waste Not Farms Worm Farm. https://wastenotfarms.com/ Unlike some worm farms, Jocelyn Molyneux’s operation doesn’t sell its worms for bait. At Wastenot Farms, more than a million earthworms have been put to work munching through compostable waste to produce all-natural plant food for urban farmers. Molyneux first came up with the idea for the farm when she started working for a large w...
Nov 07, 2023•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to The Supermarket Guru Phil Lempert. www.supermarketguru.com For more than 25 years, Phil, an expert analyst on consumer behavior, marketing trends, new products and the changing retail landscape, has identified and explained impending trends to consumers and some of the most prestigious companies and trade associations worldwide. Known as The Supermarket Guru® he is an author and speaker who alerts customers and ...
Nov 06, 2023•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Kim & Karl Milikowski, owners of Foster Hill Farm and Garden Shop, Stafford Connecticut. www. www.FosterHillFarmAndGarden.com & www.facebook@FosterHillFarm The couple started keeping miniature donkeys in 2008. They initially kept only 2 as pets while they searched for a property where they could have greenhouses and develop a breeding program for the mini donkeys. After looking for years at many properti...
Oct 30, 2023•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Cameron and Natalie Andelin of Andelin Family Farm. www.Andelinfamilyfarm.com Cameron and Natalie were married in 1998 and moved to Sparks NV where Cameron had grown up. His family bought a 150 acre farm, and although they lived in town, they raised cattle on the land and grew hay. Eventually they built a house on the property and moved there. A simple pumpkin patch has led to Baby Animal Days and Tulip Festival...
Oct 19, 2023•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Richard Lyon of Lyon Family Farms. https://www.lyonfamilyfarms.com/ Lyon Family Farms is owned and operated by Richard and his wife Shelley Lyon. Richard grew up on his parents’ farm at a time when the family grew primarily 200 acres of Christmas trees. But, today, that farm is primarily a wholesale vegetable and row cropping farm. Lyon Family Farms has grown into the Farm Attraction of the Tennessee Valley, wit...
Oct 11, 2023•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Callie Cline, Texas 4-H Marketing & Communications Specialist, and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. http://texas4-h.tamu.edu/ Through her current position at the Texas 4-H Youth Development Program, she now have the ability to give back to an organization that raised her, and to spread light on the incredible opportunities offered through 4-H. 4-H is a nationwide club for kids and teens ages 8 to 18...
Oct 04, 2023•18 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Aaron Fields, Head of Horticulture at Eden Green Technology. www.edengreen.com He has worked in the horticulture and agriculture industry since 2008. Aaron grew up in a small ag town in Southern Illinois, has worked in traditional farming in Salinas Valley, CA, flat tray greenhouses in Brooklyn, NYC at Gotham Greens, and has led vertical farming at Eden Green for the past 5 years. He's seen it all when it comes ...
Sep 27, 2023•19 min
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Dave Fleming of Shady Brook Farm. www.shadybrookfarm.com In 1913 Shady Brook started as a produce stand off the back of a truck by T. Herman Fleming. The farm expanded to 40 acres, growing crops that were delivered to wholesale markets and grocery stores in the Philadelphia area. In 1984, Shady Brook opened its first retail market with pick-your-own strawberries. In 1990 the market expanded from a produce stand ...
Sep 21, 2023•18 min
