The Greenhorn Circular

Issue 1

December 2009

Media

Events

Healthcare

Merchandise

Devin Foote

NYFC

Radio

Farmer Ninja Style

It Took A Village

by Patrick Kiley

Every Thursday at 2:00, Greenhorns radio streams interviews with young farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs from all over the country.

This fall, Severine has spoken with a biodynamic farm-to-table restaurateur from Georgia; an upstate organic grain man who thinks beans are sexy; High Mowing Organic Seeds President Tom Stearns; and a second-generation New Hampshire vegetable grower who dreams of a root cellar and a commercial kitchen of his own.

Listen in on Heritage Radio Network and sign up for the podcast!
www.heritageradionetwork.com

The Greenhorns are quickly becoming special events mavens, throwing one-of-a-kind farm parties crossed with expert-led workshops. We love to get together!

Most recently we held a two-day butchery workshop + feasting event, It Takes A Village To Make A Sausage. Butchers, poets, pastry chefs, writers, photographers, interns, activists and many hungry friends pitched in to pull off this glorious bacchanal, which was held at Mead Orchards in Tivoli, New York.

Severine said of the event:
“Perhaps the highlight of the weekend was when our new friend Lauren fried homemade donuts and apple fritters in a cauldron of lard which our new friend Melissa had carefully rendered over a campfire. Oh my.”

Chef-in-training La Mason came from the Culinary Institute of America to attend the pork party. She found the cold, rainy day transformed into a “Roman feast” where a crowd of thirty dined on the Tamworth hog that they had earlier helped prepare with butcher Bryan Mayer of Brooklyn’s Green Grape Provisions.

La found out about the party on Facebook and took the opportunity to catch up with old friends and confirm her opinion that pork is the sexiest meat. Bouts of singing and artisanal whiskey drinking carried the night away. Reflecting on the farm- to-table barnburner afterwards, La was reminded of how she got into food in the first place: “I grew up farming, and that’s where I learned how to love food,” she said. She was delighted to learn about the Greenhorns campaign for young farmers and perhaps will donate some expertise at the next event. “I would love to get involved!” she said.

Contact us at thegreenhorns@gmail.com for details on the next party!

Green Seeds,
Green Beans,
Greenhorns

A Holiday Gift Pack

You can support the greenhorns by buying our unique handmade merchandise on Etsy.com.

Right now you can purchase a unique gift package of special delights from the Greenhorns, all proceeds to benefit the Greenhorns. Only 10 are available!

The gift pack contains:
2 packets hand-harvested lettuce seed
1 lb “Greenhorns Blend” Bolivian coffee beans from Strong Tree
Organic Coffee Roasters
2 pints Smithereen Farm’s own Tomatillo Salsa
a handful of hand-printed greenhorns stickers
1 dried flower wreath
1 packet Smithereen Farm dried marjoram

www.etsy.com

I have to say, I think you’re doing really great stuff for new and young farmers, and every time I read or hear something about the Greenhorns, it makes me quite thrilled to be one.

—Nora Saks,
Young farmer and program intern at the Poughkeepsie Farm Project

Big News

We have decided to organize!

Last week’s Young Farmers Conference at Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture inspired an exciting development that we want to share with you – the beginnings of a National Young Farmer Coalition. During the conference we facilitated a workshop on Building the Young Farmers Movement in order to explore how we can grow from a widely-scattered array of inspired, enthusiastic young farmers into an organized force driving the sustainable ag movement forward.

At the workshop, the group of 30 or 40 of us spoke up, listened, brainstormed on big easels, and made a decision. We acknowledged three main action areas in the Young Farmers Movement: Cultural (currently championed by the media-savvy and farm-festive Greenhorns); Technical (such as the training projects being embarked on through the USDA’s newly funded Beginning Farmer + Rancher Development grants, as well as the Stone Barns conference itself); and Political ( . . . currently glaringly lacking!).

By the end of the workshop, there was tangible excitement and a clear, collective message: We need to develop a National Young Farmer Coalition to give our movement a coordinated, powerful political voice. In so doing, we can work strategically with established policy groups in the sustainable agriculture field, both to address the specific concerns of our generation, and to inject our creativity and passion into the broader sustainable agriculture movement.

Detailed notes on the meeting are below, and we hope you will look them over. Most importantly, though, we need a few of you to step up in a leadership role, and we need all of you to back us up. There’s no way that the small group in our workshop, or at the conference as a whole, can speak for the diverse movement of young farmers that is burgeoning across the country. We need to reach out through our networks and spread the word on this coalition, and to bring voices into the fold from all corners.

So we invite you to join with us in two ways:

Thanks to all of you, we look forward to being in touch and moving forward together.

Severine von Tscharner Fleming, The Greenhorns + Smithereen Farm
severine@pixiepoppins.org
Benjamin Shute, Hearty Roots Community Farm
benjamin@heartyroots.com
Lindsey Lusher Shute, Pistil Farm
lindseylusher@gmail.com

National Young Farmer Coalition

Mapping the Path to Cooperation

What is it?
The National Young Farmer Coalition is an emerging membership-based advocacy group for young and beginning farmers that will formally launch in 2010. Th e coalition represents the interests, vision and practical insight of its farmer members. The coalition is being developed by young farmers for young farmers with an eye to the upcoming Farm Bill. The NYFC works closely with the Greenhorns, a nonprofit working to produce media, new media and events for young farmers. Unlike the Greenhorns, NYFC focuses on the structural obstacles facing young producers and ag-sector entrepreneurs.

Why young farmers?

entering the fray. Demand for locally produced foods is growing and this market support has allowed many entrepreneurs to start new farms. All over the country young farmers, whether farm- raised or city-born, are starting businesses, raising crops and animals, and navigating the logistics of startup and survival. Our national health relies on the success of these farms and farmers, and although many of us are the children of the Reagan generation and not so accustomed to thinking politically, we’ve come to see that the special interests controlling our food system work directly against bootstrap entrepreneurship.

Can I join?
Yes.

To track the progress and participate in this project, sign up for the Greenhorns mailing list, below.

Or join the mailing list at www.thegreenhorns.net
Track our progress at www.thegreenhorns.wordpress.com

If you are a young farmer, join the young farmer map at www.serveyourcountryfood.net

Your farmer’s body needs protection. Making it together.

By Severine von Tscharner Fleming
Director of the Greenhorns

The young farmers movement is growing, and the circle of caring continues to expand. As we work to build a business around our love of farming and a family alongside our practice, we encounter one scary part of growing up: Realizing how deeply critical our own health is to the viability of the farm. As young farmers with brave muscles and big dreams, we invest our best physical years in finding, setting up and capitalizing a farmstead. As entrepreneurs, we take tremendous risks and reinvest the earnings in service to a new small business. As citizens, we commit ourselves to place and to the performance of an ancient and sacred duty: providing sustenance to our community. But when the operation of all these interlocking systems relies for its longevity on the physical strength and resilience of an individual body, the body of the young farmer turns out to be one of the weakest links in the new food system.

We need healthcare. Many of us cannot afford it. Farming is physical labor with physical risks and with great demands on performance over time. As a nation served by many workers, some unionized, some wearing uniforms, we recognize the importance of retaining skilled practitioners with benefits. Our firefighters, coast guards and electricians are all provided with benefits, and healthcare. Why not farmers? Our enlisted soldiers and their families are provided with coverage for their service. Why not our farmers?

The reclaiming of our local economy will hopefully, in the next decade, be characterized by greater institutional regionalism. This means schools and hospitals buying food from local farms, this means deep partnerships of commerce within residential districts and within agricultural districts. In order to succeed at this level of engagement, the farmers will negotiate the hurdles of liability, red tape and logistics of rescaling. We’ll be operating forklifts and mid-sized delivery vans; we’ll be scaling up production. We will spend a lot of time resizing, retrofitting and rethinking systems of food production and distribution, in real time, and at real physical risk to ourselves. This is important work. We cannot lose the hardworking members of the team to illness and injury. We cannot lose any fingers or toes. We cannot afford for our farmers to be distracted by financial worry associated with the birth of a child or the infection of a blister. We need to provide health coverage for farmers, young and old, owners and workers, for the longevity of the sector and of the nation.

Are you interested in joining our National Young Farmers Coalition and working with partners to figure out possible solutions to the affordable health care situation? Please join the Greenhorns mailing list below so that we can keep you in the loop.

Thank you.

Q & A with Young Farmer Devin Foote

Devin Foote is a 24-year-old from Haslett, Michigan who is about to finish his first full season as farm manager at Common Ground Farm in Beacon, New York. He is currently working to reform agricultural policy with Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).

Where have you farmed previously?
I grew up farming in Michigan – my cousins were dairy farmers and friends did commodity crops. I began farming intensively at Michigan State University, focusing on intensive vegetable production with an emphasis on four-season high tunnel production. I moved on to work with my mentor Scott Chaskey at Quail Hill Farm, one of the nation’s oldest operating CSA’s, and most recently have been managing a farm in Beacon, NY.

Why did you decided to go work for Senator Stabenow?
Agricultural policy is at a crossroads right now where a paradigm shift is occurring. Not only is the general population becoming aware of the harmful effects of industrial agriculture and alternatives but the time is ripe for a new generation of young farmers to begin establishing a policy agenda for our own future. Senator Stabenow has been a long time advocate for farmers markets and crop diversity and has been very open to alternative market models.

What is at stake in the political arena for young farmers?
Timing is everything in politics and there has never been a better time than now for young farmers to make their voices heard on a national level. The national media has been slowly picking up on our aging population of farmers but has yet to understand that commodity policies haven’t changed. We need to act on reforming our Farm Bill and begin developing a government sponsored National Young Farmer Corps to reinvigorate the aging population.

How many other young farmers are entering politics?
Many young farmers have become active in their local governments and city councils to begin engaging city planners and council officials on the importance of local food production. The National Farm-to-School Network has allowed new farmers to enter into supportive local food communities and aide in the process of creating both physical infrastructure and an educated demographic.

Give to Georgia Greenhorns in Crisis this Christmas

"Charlotte Swancy and her family down at Riverview Farms in Ranger, Georgia need your help. Riverview is one among many family farms in Georgia that have been devastated by natural disasters late this year, first floods in September and now tornados in December. You can help them get back on their feet by donating online to the GA Small Farms Disaster Relief Fund, organized by Slow Food Atlanta. You can also send a check to the following address:

GA Small Farms Disaster Relief Fund
PO Box 2641
Smyrna, GA 30081

Call for Support

The Greenhorns are a volunteer-run, grassroots nonprofit organization based on a farm in New York’s Hudson River Valley. The tax-deductible donations we rely on are especially important now in the completion stage of “The Greenhorns” documentary film. Please consider supporting our project with a donation in any amount. Our job as filmmakers is to champion the lives of valorous young agriculturalists, and we are committed to this work. With your support we can best honor their brave work and most effectively entice others into the agricultural sector.

Donate at
www.thegreenhorns.net/donate.html

Join Our Mailing List
www.thegreenhorns.net/mailinglist.html

End of year letter from the director

Dear Greenhorns,

It is winter finally, and we are all recovering our senses and biorhythm after a long hard hustle this season. Tuckered though we may be, it’s time to count our blessings.

Indeed, the blessings are many – and the farmers are many. One of the most exciting outcomes of our year's work has been the expansion of the Greenhorns young farmer network. Thanks to the diligence of Michelle Rehme, database minxy, our Filemaker Pro color-coded custom database is up to 3,000 young farmers all over this fine, fertile nation. And a bunch of farmer-celebrants as well, not to be forgotten.

The little round sticker says: “grow up, show up.” And yes, this year we sure did show up. Between film shoots, farmers markets and spontaneous agrarian ramblings Greenhorns presented, hosted or collaborated on the production of more than 24 events.

(NOFA CT, Georgia Organic, Farm Aid, Waterpod, Kellogg Food & Society Conference, Brooklyn Food Conference, Common Ground Fair, Goatspit, Brooklyn Museum, Maker Faire, Watermelon Moonshine, Monticello Seed Festival, Hardwick High Mowing Mixer, Stone Barns Young Farmers Conference, Food Inc Q+A, Farm-Based Education Association Conference, Tuft s Graduate school, It Takes A Village to Raise a Sausage, Duck Pluck + more.)

Chances are, if you are reading this now, we met you there. Which of course was the point. Our agricultural educational/ celebrational events – utterly borne out by the collaborative improvisation of their constituent members – have in fact taken up the majority of our energy. As we challenge the not-yet farmers to take "direct action" with their lives, and enter an agricultural profession, we've found that these culturally resonant, even folkloric events provide a kind of amphitheatre.

But do not fear – the film is nearly completed. We've actually begun a few 'sneak peaks' of the rough cut in NYC (it’s still missing Brooke's animations, and we have to do the 'color correct and sound smoothening'). If you know some philanthropists, still useful in these final weeks, Patrick Kiley, development director, says: “We’re penny wise if you’re pound sweet.”

Reminders
Severine hosts a radio show every Thursday on Heritage Radio Network. I've got a full fun docket of folks in my lineup so get tuned in. Listening to the young farmers talk about the logistics of bravery and entrepreneurship might be quite a useful preparation for the aspiring farmers out in radio land.

The irresistible fleet of bicycles blog! We're getting 700+ hits per day these days. Check it out. Greenhorns communications director, Anne Dailey is blogmistress.

Get involved now with next year's events! We'll be doing mixers at NOFA NY+VT, an elderflower bike-ride with Formaggio Kitchen, SSAWG mixer in Tennessee, Small Farmers Journal dance party in Oregon, Campout at Sierra Orchards in Winters, California, Vernal Equinox Hogget cook-off with Animal Welfare + Kinderhook Farm, Detroit mixer, Hispanic/young farmer concert, Ag-Civic Emergence performance...

We're still in the prelim planning stages of mixers in many other states and the calendar is filling up fast – so If you want to help convene a cultural happening for the young farmer community that you live in, please email tucker@tuckerschwarz.com with a sketch proposal. Remember what the Rev says: "You've got to make Local Happen!"

Conclusion
In our 2nd year as a nonprofit organization we’ve grown on an order of magnitude, literally. As we knuckle down in the office, we are now lucky to have filing systems, orientation sheets, procedures and established workflow – all made possible by a merry team of mostly volunteer greenhorns. Next year's budget is mapped out, and yes we'll be needing more grant money – but hopefully the income stream from film screenings + DVD sales will help us along, and help us nurture the newly formed National Young Farmers Coalition.

Although still far too much of our work flows thru my dinky little computer – it’s great to have our grassroots grow up a little bit. Hey, we're working for the USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Group! Thank goodness our punky mandate in that group is to produce colorful posters for public-schoolchildren, video/ resource portal for ag-entrepreneurship, spectacular events for middle-schoolers, and young farmer panels around New England. Its really joyous multimodal work we are doing, and the team remains spectacularly dedicated.
As always, your volunteership, money, seeds, xerox machines and donated ninja skills make all the difference.

Thank you for making our network work.

Severine, Anne, Michelle, Tucker, Paula, Patrick