Tagged Farming

Smart Chicken Tecumseh Farms
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Smart Chicken: Tecumseh Farms Interview on Sustainable Humane Chicken

A lot of people are wondering what brands of chicken are healthy and humane. The answers may surprise you. In this interview we take a fresh look at Smart Chicken. What do we discover? A new take on “food miles” — killing chickens gently and humanely is possible — thoughts about antibiotics and animal byproducts…
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Ben Ripple Big Tree Farm Bali
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Sustainable Farming in Bali | Ben Ripple of Big Tree Farms

On the forefront of developing sustainable, community enhancing food systems in Bali, Indonesia Expats Ben and Blair Ripple left their organic farming jobs in Washington and moved to Bali, Indonesia, in the late 90s. Since then, they’ve been become somewhat famous in their efforts to bring artisinal Indonesian products to a larger market and to establish and…
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New Forest Farm Mark Shepard

Interview With Mark Shepard of New Forest Farm

Working with and within nature using perennial food crops and restoration agriculture. Mark Shepard has created something of an environmental oasis at his Wisconsin homestead, New Forest Farm. Shepard, a farmer and author, is a longtime proponent of restoration agriculture, the practice of recreating healthy, naturally occurring, economically viable perennial farms. Packed with biodiversity, these…
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Alternative Farming Systems

While certified organic farming has been the focus of much attention in the move toward sustainable agriculture, other methodologies and philosophies are being used with great success, though considerably less fanfare. Permaculture Inspired by Bill Mollison’s observation of self-sustaining ecosystems in rainforests in Australia, permaculture provides a method of analyzing the environment and designing systems—such as farms, gardens and human habitations—to work with natural flows and processes. Permaculture is closely related to human scale living, homesteading, and the appropriate use of technology and natural resources—especially the finite resource of oil energy. Permaculture has as its foundation the following principles: Earth…
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Urban Rooftop Farms

In cities, farmers are looking to rooftops to provide fresh food for urban populations. One of the major environmental and aesthetic problems with urbanization is the lack of available open space and the distinctive absence of greenery in lieu of concrete and asphalt. One of the solutions that urban farmers have started to pursue is the use of rooftops as viable space to grow food. These rooftop farms are ideal for growing food because they have access to direct sun light for most of the day and they make use of previously underutilized spaces without competing for expensive land at…
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Ecodynamic dates at Flying Disc Ranch

Flying Disc Ranch Eco-dynamic Desert Oasis

Robert Lower has created a thriving farm in the desert using sustainable design and cultivation methods such as permaculture and eco-dynamics.  His soaring date trees and fragrant citrus grove is evocative of an ancient Mesopotamian garden oasis. Situated in Coachella, California, is a lush desert plantation of date and citrus trees at Robert Lower’s Flying…
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Chicken of Tomorrow

How a massive breeding contest turned a rarely eaten backyard bird into the chicken we eat today. On a sunny June day in 1951, 8,000 chicken fans filled the Razorback Stadium at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in the culmination of a nationwide effort to create the fowl of the future. As a band…
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Global Farmers Market: Buying Coffee Directly from Growers

Coffee farmers devote years to producing top quality beans enjoyed by coffee lovers around the world. However, due to a lengthy and inefficient supply chain, these largely independent farmers are rarely rewarded with financial security. Inspired by a Nicaraguan women’s coffee cooperative, Noushin Ketabi, Rob Terenzi and Will DeLuca founded Vega Coffee to help give farmers a larger share of the global coffee market. Tell us about Vega Coffee. How are you working to make the coffee trade more equitable for farmers? “We started Vega to completely reinvent coffee’s broken supply chain. Specialty coffee farmers often earn around $1 per…
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Marji Guyler-Alaniz FarmHer

FarmHer: Interview with Marji Guyler-Alaniz

Iowa photographer Marji Guyler-Alaniz has been getting lots of attention for FarmHer, her captivating photography series highlighting female farmers. We interviewed Marji about her project, her inspiration, and future plans.
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Grim Seasonal Dairy

Grim Seasonal Dairy

Some farmers are turning away from conventional methods to embrace a more humane and natural way to make milk. Milk is a seasonal product and some dairy farmers are choosing to let their cows produce according to nature. Seasonal dairies are pasture based farms in which cows forage and produce milk until the natural end of the grass season
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Pray For Rain (To Stop)

United Kingdom: From Drought To Flood

Last year, the United Kingdom saw two opposite ends of the weather spectrum—drought and flooding—causing millions of pounds in property and crop damage. Learn how climate change is affecting crops, livestock, farmers, prices and lives in the UK.
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Federal Crop Insurance

Federal Crop Insurance: what is it and why does it matter? Unlike other forms of insurance, the Federal Crop Insurance scheme not only protects farmers from revenue losses due to lower than average yields but it also covers farmers who do not receive their expected revenue due to fluctuations in the marketplace.
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Who Pays For Climate Change?

The Financial Cost Of Climate Change

Climate change: what it costs and who is footing the bill. Maximilian Auffhammer, Associate Professor and Agricultural and Resource Economics Director at UC Berkeley, looks at the effects of climate change through a different lens than most.  As an environmental economist, Professor Auffhammer breaks down actions that cause damage to the environment and puts a…
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Crowdfunding Urban Farm Projects

Urban farms turn to crowdfunding websites to bring their projects to life. Since the 1950s, the global population has flocked to urban centers around the world. According to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report from 2007, about 50% of the world’s population lives in cities and many more are expected to migrate to urban…
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Detroit: Creating Oases in a Food Desert

Detroit: Creating Oases In A Food Desert

Home to Henry Ford’s assembly line, Detroit was once affectionately referred to as Motor City—the epicenter of American car production.  With the recent collapse in the American automobile industry and overall economic recession that has ravaged the United States over the past four years, over a fifth of Detroit households do not even own a…
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Carriage House Farm

Meet farm manager Richard Stewart, garden manager Kate Cook, and native plant specialist Abby Artemisia of Carriage House Farm. In a recent interview with EthicalFoods.com, they discuss the reasoning behind switching from conventional farming to using no pesticides or chemical fertilizers, why they are not certified organic, and how large agricultural corporations try to gain advantages over small independent farms.
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Farmers weigh the costs of organic certification.

Organic Certification: Farmers Weigh The Costs

Some farmers who practice organic farming, and even those whose methods achieve a higher level of environmental and ethical cultivation, have decided against getting certified organic. Farmers share their thoughts about the pros and cons of certification.
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Humanely Raised Meat: How to Buy Pork

Many avoid pork because of the lurid abuses endemic in conventional pig rearing. But, with a little research, conscientious carnivores can still delight in bacon and porchetta. Ethically raised pork is becoming easier to find as small scale local producers embrace pasture-based farming.
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three sisters bioshelter market farm

Three Sisters Permaculture Farm

Darrell Frey talks about permaculture farming, the danger of GMOs and how to choose the best local, seasonal foods. Darrell Frey is the author of Bioshelter Market Garden and farmer/owner of Three Sisters Farm in Pennsylvania, which provides fresh, organic produce to the local foodshed, even in the cold winter months. Frey’s initial interest in…
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