Tag Archives: sustainable farming

Too hot? Rained out? Enjoy a cool Deep Roots Radio blast from the past.

Sometimes, it’s just too hot to be out in the garden or pasture for too long. And then when it starts to pour, well, outside work gets cut short.

Never fear. Whether you’re in the sun, in your tractor cab, or calming down for the night, you can stream or download a Deep Roots Radio podcast that helps connect the dots between what we eat and how it’s grown.

Connecting the dots between what we eat and how it’s grown

The weekly radio show features interviews with guests from all over the country. They provide a wide range of perspectives and experience. In fact, in the last 13 years, co-host Dave Corbett and I have chatted with lawyers and farmers, ranchers and policy makers, advocates and investigative reporters, scientists and educators.

Topics range from cookie laws to winter cooking, from cattle grazing to the tie between Napoleon and food canning (yes, there really is a link), from food waste to food salvation and distribution, farmers markets to farm adventures, making cider to the value of working with stock dogs.  Then there are interviews with herbalists, chefs and environmental conservationists, and lots more in efforts to re-imagine a better, healthier agricultural/food system.

Here’s a link to the radio archive. It offers some of the several hundred shows we’ve done over the years. You can listen online or download to your phone, computer or iPad.

Enjoy!

Sylvia

In between Thanksgiving, Christmas and beavers

We didn’t do a conventional Thanksgiving this year. No turkey, stuffing, or cranberry sauce. Thanks to Dave’s hard work, we had home-grown pork shoulder roasts done Puerto Rican style. Dave grew the pigs, I did the Puerto Rican. I took all the garlic cloves I could buy, smashed them with salt, pepper and oregano, and then rubbed this fragrant paste liberally into every nook and cranny of the roast.

The aromas took me back to noisy celebrations at my grandmother’s apartment in Spanish Harlem. So many aunts and uncles, cousins and laughter, and so much food: the pork, rice and beans, green beans, big salads, and pumpkin pie. My Wisconsin take was just a little different. I didn’t make rice and beans, but I added roasted smashed potatoes and an additional home-grown apple pie. We enjoyed family, laughs and great conversation. A real blessing.

That was last week. Now, we’re cruising to Christmas as snow accumulates and temperatures fall, farm equipment is repaired, and we worry about the beaver dam.

In the 13 years we’ve been on Bull Brook Keep, we’ve never had a dam threaten the brook that runs across the southeastern corner of the farm. For some reason, this fall beavers decided to build just downstream of the property.  This has caused two large problems: water backup on the farm, and, a dramatic reduction of the speed of water flowing in the brook. It is the strength of water flow that keeps the brook from freezing over. This is critical because the cows need open water from which to drink. They can’t break through ice.

The problem

Bull Brook runs just 8 or 10 feet from the road that forms the western boarder of our farm. I walked down the road to take a closer look last week, I quickly realized taking this dam down is not going to be an easy task. The beavers used hundreds of long and heavy branches, wedging them tightly to create a structure able to hold back hundreds and hundreds of pounds of water pressure.

Dave has reached out to local officials to hopefully get their cooperation in removing this blockage because the rising water not only affects us but also poses a threat to a public bridge that abuts the farm and to the nearby road.  We’ve got to do something sooner than later.

I’ll walk the road again today, while it’s still light.

Meanwhile, I’ve started pulling out cookbooks. What desserts will I make for Christmas dinner?  A spicy chocolate bundt cake? Maybe a cranberry steamed pudding with vanilla hard sauce? A frangipane dotted with honeyberries? Hmmm. This should be fun.

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving and are looking forward to lots of love, laughter and great food this holiday season. Oh, and no beaver dams.

Sylvia

 

 

July 16, 2022, 10AM – 4PM Come visit — Eat Local Co-op Farm Tour

Agritourism
Agritourism
July 16, 2022, 10AM - 4PM Come visit -- Eat Local Co-op Farm Tour
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Bull Brook Keep is once again part of this Saturday’s Eat Local Co-op Farm Tour.

Save the date and time:  Saturday, July 16, 10AM to 4PM

It’s a high point of our summer and you’re invited to visit our cows and pigs, as well as the livestock and festivities at nearby farms. Make a day of it! At our farm, you’ll get a chance to meet the moos, sample our beef (and buy ground beef and delicious summer sausage), and learn about upcoming herb-hunting tours called Herbal Safaris.

21 farms from around the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area and western Wisconsin are part of this annual event sponsored and organized by a collaboration of natural food coops. These are many of the sustainable and organic growers who provide food for co-ops, farmers markets, CSAs, and direct sales in our region.

In this Deep Roots Radio interview, organizer Jennifer Dean describes why the coops launched this event a dozen years ago, and how its gained in popularity.

Go to coopfarmtour.com for a downloadable guide and colorful map you can use for your self-guided tour.

I hope to greet you on the farm this Saturday.

Sylvia

Woman entrepreneur makes Wildflour – a small town natural foods store – rebloom in time of COVID

Deep Roots Radio
Deep Roots Radio
Woman entrepreneur makes Wildflour - a small town natural foods store - rebloom in time of COVID
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There’s hope!

COVID 2020 – a year of pandemic, illness and isolation. We all learned about social distancing, working from home, and how to make sourdough bread. We clocked hundreds of hours on Zoom for professional meetings and family gatherings.

Lots of us dusted off our sewing machines and made face masks.  Our hearts broke as we learned about the hundreds of thousands brought down by the coronavirus. Businesses shuttered, and schools closed, and opened and closed again. Home-schooling was redefined.

Vaccines are on their way, but it appears distribution may take many months, and lots of political haggling.

It was in this chaotic context that Tessa Ingham purchased the local natural foods store, changed its name to Wildfour Market and set to work for the health of her community – Amery, Wisconsin, population 2,902.

Wildflour joins the steadily growing movement of agriculturally-based businesses in this small city just 70 miles east of the Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minnesota metro area. In the last 10 years, numbers of organic farmers have moved to the area to grow and market produce, meats, eggs, artisanal cheeses, mushrooms, fleece and fibers, and certified organic herbs and medicinal herb products.  The Amery area is also home to farm-to-table restaurant, microbrews, wineries, coffee roasters and distilleries using many locally-grown ingredients.   

I hope you enjoy this Deep Roots Radio interview with Tessa Ingham about hope and imagination, investment and grit in the time of COVID.

Sylvia Burgos Toftness

GrowingStronger 2021 – break-the-mold, 5-in-1 virtual conf for people who grow and love sustainable and organic food

What do you do when your annual conference is scheduled for February 2021, and COVID makes it impossible to gather the usual 3,000 attendees for three days of networking, workshops, shared meals, dancing, inspiring keynotes and more? Well if you’re MOSES (the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Services nonprofit), you decide the break the mold.

This year, GrowingStronger2021 is a collaborative effort put on by five powerhouse organizations with deep roots, long histories, and credibility in the organic and sustainable farming sector.

I hope you enjoy this Deep Roots Radio chat with MOSES Executive Director Lori Stern as she describes this break-the-mold event. As a farmer, and food lover, I can hardly wait.

Sylvia

 

Where to go for healthful beef? Read on

In light of emerging scarcities, and a desire to provide a healthful alternative, Dave and I are offering a smaller variety pack of our grass-fed-grass-finished beef. This 15-lb. pack is called “To Your Health!” and includes ground beef, roast and steaks.  You can pick up at farm, or at a drop site (+$5) in Mpls/St.Paul metro, and Wisconsin Polk and St. Croix counties.

Suppy is limited. Find out more and to order, click here.

Wishing you health and calm.

Sylvia – your local, sustainable farmer

Larger packs, ground beef, soup bones and summer sausage also available.

Questions? Email (sylvia@bullbrookkeep.com) or call, 651-238-8525.

Ag economist John Ikerd – how better policies and smalls farms can move American farming to better food, soils, and economy

Deep Roots Radio
Deep Roots Radio
Ag economist John Ikerd - how better policies and smalls farms can move American farming to better food, soils, and economy
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In this Deep Roots Radio conversation, internationally-respected agricultural economist John Ikerd describes how America’s farming model isn’t set in stone, how fence-row-to-fence-row planing isn’t manifest destiny, and how farmers don’t have to “get big, or get out” to thrive.

John Ikerd, Agricultural Economist

Recorded February 1, 2020, this chat is a quick preview to the keynote presentation Ikerd will deliver at the 31st annual Organic Farming Conference, hosted by MOSES in La Crosse, WI, February 27-29, 2020. (MOSES stands for the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service.)

From a childhood on a Missouri dairy farm, Ikerd earned his undergraduate, Masters, and Ph.D. in agricultural economics at the University of Missouri. He has taught at four universities, has authored several books, and scores of papers and presentations. Among his books are Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense and Small Farms are Real Farms, and  Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture.

In 2014, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization had Ikerd develop the North American report for the International Year of the Family Farm. In it, he made the case for multifunctional farms that protect and renew natural ecosystems and create and nurture caring communities that provide economic livelihoods for farm families.

For more information about Ikerd, visit johnikerd.com.  To register for the Organic Farming Conference, and to learn more about MOSES, visit mosesorganic.org.

I hope you enjoy this interview.

Growing past our tomorrows in organic farming and eating

It was a nail biter: whiteouts every few minutes, ice building on the roadbed, semi’s and cars in the ditch. It was late February in northern Wisconsin, so it wasn’t like this weather was rare. It was treacherous, but there wasn’t any way I wasn’t going to get to La Crosse, WI. The 30thAnnual Organic Farming Conference was due to start in a couple of days and I was going to get there.

Put on by the Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), I’ve attended the event many times, watching it grow from a gathering of fewer than 100 to the biggest organic farming gathering in the United State, if not the world. Now, as a member of the MOSES board of directors, I worried bad weather would cut attendance and dampen spirits.

I stewed as we rolled through the miles: MOSES staff had – with its signature professionalism and efficiency – developed an exciting program of 60 breakout sessions, nine full-day Organic University classes, and numbers of roundtable discussions, film screenings, and more. Presenters and keynote speakers were en route (I hoped) from all across the country. Exhibitors were due to spotlight the latest in equipment, ideas for cultivation, seed, consultation services, grant opportunities, and technical assistance.

Then there were the researchers, policy makers, financial and communications experts, and educators making their way on ice-crusted roads.

Would all the farmers make it? Pre-registration indicated we could expect at least 2,000+ from rural communities in 40+ states and points beyond, including China. Many were producing from certified organic acres. Others were transitioning, and still other contemplating this shift to organic practice.

From past experience, I knew attendees would include scores of pioneers – the men and women who laid the foundations of the organic sector and pushed for the passage of the Organic Foods Act of 1990.  They’d get to the conference come hell or high water (or six-foot snow drifts).

The snow began to lighten through the evening. By Friday, 2,900 attendees packed the La Crosse Convention Center and filled area hotels.

As with any good event, no sooner does it begin than it’s over, and you’re stopping for last hugs and coordinating calendars for pastures walks or FaceTime. Ultimately, this year’s event did for me what it’s done before: it lifted my thinking above the weather and into a place where I would not only welcome the coming growing season, but think into the future – our future.

Well, Spring begins tomorrow. As the drifts melt, I can see fences to mend and calves to prepare for at my farm, Bull Brook Keep. Possibilities swirl for this and next year: Should my husband Dave and I get into hazelnuts? How might that work in combination with Icelandic chickens for insect control in my BueLingo beef herd? Should I get on the bus and lobby at the state capital? How will I find young farmers who’d like to build their skills and income on my land?

Two conference take-aways are helping me explore these ideas: Thursday’s day-long “Organics 2051” session, and Friday’s keynote panel.

Organic 2051” was emblematic of what MOSES does every year, at every event and conversation – tap the wisdom of the crowd. It was a full day of intensive conversation about the organic sector 30 years from now. Audrey Arner (organic farmer/organics pioneer/past president of MOSES Board of Directors) facilitated the gathering of over 100 thought leaders as they envisioned the growth and strength, challenges and obstacles faced by the organic sector nationwide.

The participants self-selected to spend the day focused on one of 15 issue areas, including market infrastructure, climate change, rural community revitalization, and livestock. I was a fly on the wall, moving from group to group.  I listened as farmers and ranchers, financiers and policy makers, economists, marketers, and consumer advocates put their heads together over thorny and complex challenges. They identified key opportunities, drilled down to major obstacles, and worked to synthesize possible strategies.

 

I was struck by their will to hear every voice.  There was so much experience, youthful energy, creativity and hope at each table. Their conversations were pooled into written proceedings as well as artistic renderings. At the end of the day, their ideas and suggestions live on the MOSES website so that hundreds more can help shape direction and action.

The other big impression came from Friday’s keynote panel.

I’d been given the honor to moderate this exchange among six champions, men and women who helped shape the philosophy and practice of the sector, and were instrumental in the passage of the Organic Foods Act of 1990. The panel included Audrey Arner, organic farmer and former MOSES board member and board president; Atina Diffley, organic farmer, educator and author of Turn Here Sweet Corn; Faye Jones, helped establish the Organic Farming Conference, and first director of MOSES; Jim Riddle, helped develop the organic standards, inspector training, with wife Joyce Ford the 2019 MOSES Organic Farmer of the Year; George Siemon, CEO and early organizer of Organic Valley, served on National Organic Standards Board; and Francis Thicke, organic dairy farmer, served on NOSB, on first MOSES Board of Directors.

Each explained how the organic standards they worked to develop in the 1970s, 80s and 90s must be vigorously defended and expanded. They stressed that it is our responsibility to protect organic regulations from well-financed pressures to dilute them. The panel emphasized that the bar must be pushed ever higher.

It was humbling to sit on the stage with these leaders. I got to know most of them while serving as a public relations consultant in the late 1980s. They showed me organic farming could be done well. As they spoke, I looked out beyond the stage lights to the large crowd of students, 20-somethings and 30-somethings, clusters of 40-somethings and 50-somethings with children. They were listening.

Winter’s done, and, hopefully, the deepest freezes are behind us. Once we get through the thaw, we’ll start our growing season. We’ll get super busy; we always do.

Before the long days begin, I’ll need to schedule time to do what I can to protect and improve our standards, to think forward to those young men and women who’ll grow organic foods in 2051 and beyond.

I hope you’ll join me, our nation’s organic and sustainable farmers, and MOSES in this movement.

Sylvia

Founder/director describes growing demand and struggle for Beijing organic farmers market

Deep Roots Radio
Deep Roots Radio
Founder/director describes growing demand and struggle for Beijing organic farmers market
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The annual Organic Farming Conference held every February in La Crosse, Wisconsin never fails to deliver, and surprise.

Expertly organized by the nonprofit Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Services (MOSES), it attracts about 3,000 farmers and ranchers, researchers and policy makers, film makers, authors and chefs, vendors and advocates from the Midwest, across the country, and around the world. They brave the icy winds and occasional blizzards of deep winter to learn and advance sustainable farming practices, processing, and marketing. Why? For the health of the land and water, livestock and crops, and people.

Chang Tianle & Sylvia Burgos Toftness

I’ve attended this conference for several years, and now serve on its board of directors – an amazing privilege. This year, I had a pleasure to meet Chang Tianle, organizer/director of the Beijing Farmers Market, was well as a writer for Foodthink.

Although China is in the news every day, I know very little about it, or it’s capital city of Beijing. This Deep Roots Radio podcast provides some quick facts about the Peoples Republic of China. In the interview, Chang describes how the farmers market started, and how it’s growing despite struggles to compete with large corporations.

I hope you enjoy this interview.

Sylvia

 

Mike Schut audio interview: The deep connection between food, farming, social justice and spirituality.

Deep Roots Radio
Deep Roots Radio
Mike Schut audio interview: The deep connection between food, farming, social justice and spirituality.
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The relationships between farming and food, health and nourishment, people and spirituality are tightly woven. They are interlaced and as old as time. Unfortunately, these deep connections have been ignored or denied in recent decades – much to the detriment of human and environmental health, local economies and community connections.

In this Deep Roots Radio broadcast, Mike Schut, Senior Program Director and Events Coordinator for the Farm Table Foundation, describes these linkages and their impact on food, sustainable farming, social and economic justice and spirituality in the United States.

I hope you enjoy this interview.

Sylvia