farming

Budget cuts and wider competition for USDA's 'rural' dollars

Luke Runyon — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 05:01:01 +0000

As lawmakers debate the Farm Bill in Washington, millions of dollars are at stake for small businesses across the country. Rural development grants go out to everything from home loans to water projects to small co-ops.

The Tricky Business of Running a CSA

Luke Runyon — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 03:27:13 +0000

Within the local food movement, the community supported agriculture, or CSA, model is praised. It’s considered one of the best ways to restore a connection to the foods we eat. Consumers buy a share of a farmer’s produce up front as a shareholder and then reap the rewards at harvest time. But as Harvest Public Media’s Luke Runyon reports running a CSA can bring some tricky business decisions.

Refugees find home on the farm

Amy Mayer — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 05:01:00 +0000

On a small farm in suburban West Des Moines, Iowa, even the barn is a refugee—an historic structure relocated from nearby Valley High School. The farmers, most of them refugees, are just starting to hoe the land, each one working a 50-foot by 50-foot plot where they’ll grow corn, beans, cabbage, eggplant, onions, tomatoes and peppers.

My Farm Roots: From pastime to passion

Hilary Stohs-Krause — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 22:26:06 +0000

Aaron Troester’s life both did, and didn’t, turn out exactly the way he planned.

The 29-year-old farmer in the north-central Nebraska town of O’Neill was pouring honey into jars from bees he keeps when I met him. I soon learned he had a chemistry degree and had planned to go to medical school, but the lure of the land he farms with his father changed his mind.