Agriculture Trade News

Want real food? Rent a farmer [top]⇑

By Megan Pennefather, Mirror Staff Writer

After being picked, processed and shipped thousands of miles to a table near you, our food is just plain worn out.

Or as Ferndale resident Trevor Johnson says, "You're eating stressed-out food."

It fits with our stressed-out lives, always running to this and trying to accomplish that before the day's over. It's enough to make us forget that eating is a privilege as well as a necessity, something that, if done correctly, can nourish our soul as well.

That's where Johnson comes in. He's looking to carry a new food revolution on his 24-year-old shoulders, educating people about the food they eat, where it comes from, why it's grown the way it is.

He wants to help people to "foster that food revolution in their front and back yards."

To that end, Johnson has started his own business called "Rent-a-Farmer," which offers clients the chance to use the expertise of real farmers to help them grow fruits and vegetables in their back yards. "This is not about going back to the farm," said Johnson, who graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in horticulture. "It's about bringing the farm back to us."

Johnson is founder of Ferndale's Good Neighbors Garden, which rents out gardening space for residents in Ferndale and bordering cities to grow their own produce.

Rent-a-Farmer would allow clients to buy a basic-level package that includes, for example, gardening tutorials and access to gardening tools. Each successive level would include increasing involvement from farmers, and the premium package would essentially send a farming expert to your back yard to oversee your home garden. Other services may include help in building containers for raised beds and constructing a small greenhouse to extend the growing season.

"We're really open to whatever clients want," Johnson said.

Johnson's mom, Debbie, loves her son's idea and thinks the times are amenable to this sort of business.

"People want things that are green," she said. "They want to eat local. It's exciting."

Johnson thinks so, too, and he's already got some farming and gardening experts on board, as well as some potential clients lined up. He's still looking for gardeners who are willing to be part-time farming consultants. Those interested in becoming "farmers" don't have to have a degree or work in horticulture professionally, he said. "What we're looking for is experience."

And as intuitive as Johnson is in matters of the earth, he may be somewhat counter intuitive in matters of business. He's hoping he doesn't have any one client for longer than two years, by which time he hopes they learn to cultivate crops for themselves.

At some point, he said laughing, Rent-a-Farmer may go out of business completely.

"And I'm OK with that," he said, "because we'll have a world of home gardeners and farmers."

For more information on Rent-a-Farmer, call Trevor Johnson at (248) 894-4059 or e-mail at mailto:john2116@gmail.com .

Source: HOMETOWNlife.com ( http://www.hometownlife.com/ )

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Payroll for Dummies [top]⇑

A weekly look at the latest products and services designed to help you run a better business.

By Venuri Siriwardane

PayCycle, the California-based online payroll services firm, and Wiley Publishing, best known for its "For Dummies" series of how-to books, have teamed up to offer a free payroll guide for small-business owners.

"Payroll for Dummies, PayCycle Special Edition" is a pocket-sized booklet offering payroll basics and tips on how to avoid costly errors. It includes information about top payroll responsibilities, payroll taxes, and automating tax filings and payments.

Going Mobile

Intuit, which designs financial management systems for smaller businesses, recently unveiled free mobile versions of its flagship products.

The applications include QuickBooks Online for the iPhone and BlackBerry, which allows business owners to view balance sheets, access vendor, customer, and employee lists, and view bank account and credit card balances. Quicken Beam lets owners track their last five transactions and view their account balance from a mobile device. And Billing Manager for the iPhone enables users to view invoices and accept payments.

To download the applications, go to http://www.intuitlabs.com/ .

Score Free Tools

SCORE, the national entrepreneurship resource group, and Visa are offering free online tools to help small-business owners improve critical business functions.

"The Financial Management Workbook" covers topics such as managing cash flow, maximizing income, minimizing expenses, and getting capital. Additionally, Ask SCORE, an online counseling service, is now available through the Visa Business Network. The service allows business owners to locate and connect with local mentors with relevant industry experience.

Get the workbook at http://www.visabusinessnetwork.com/ or SCORE offices nationwide. Access Ask SCORE at http://www.askscore.org./

Source: Inc.com ( http://www.inc.com/ )

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Inspiration for College Students Motivated by Desire for Social Change [top]⇑

By Tom Cherveny, West Central Tribune

MONTEVIDEO - There are lots of college students still looking to make the world a better place, and preparing for careers that give them that opportunity.

Where do they go for inspiration?

Montevideo, where 35 students from colleges in the Twin Cities came to meet farmers committed to sustainable agriculture, rural business owners and authors.

"It's really been interesting," said Sonja Pipek of Staples, after hearing a panel of rural authors discuss their craft recently in the basement of the United Church of Christ Congregational in Montevideo. She was among the students who participated in the overnight tour of the Montevideo area.

The students are participants in a program known as the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs.

Born of the civil rights movement in the 1968, the organization is an opportunity for college students to learn about social justice, according to Julia Nerbonne, program director for the consortium in the Twin Cities.

Initially, the consortium provided students with opportunities to work for civil rights in communities across the country. It continues to provide students with summer internships in a variety of settings - here and abroad - dedicated to bringing social change and making life better for others, said Nerbonne.

In more recent years, it has also added a second component dedicated to environmental studies and stewardship, she said. Some of the students have taken on summer internships on farms and in rural communities.

This is the fifth year that students from the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs have come to Montevideo. Many from this group made the woodstove-heated cottage known as the "Brudio" on Audrey Arner's and Richard Handeen's Moonstone Farm outside of Montevideo their headquarters for the recent overnight visit.

Nerbonne said they come to this area to tour farms using both sustainable and productive agriculture practices, learn about ethanol and renewable energy, and to look at rural life.

They also make west central Minnesota their destination due to its rich crop of authors who focus on rural themes. The late Paul Gruchow, one of Minnesota's most celebrated environmental authors, grew up on a farm outside of Montevideo.

A panel of eight authors with west central Minnesota ties spoke to the students as part of their visit.

Panelist Jim VanDerPol of rural Kerkhoven, who is both a writer and farmer, encouraged the students to pursue their interest in rural issues. He and his wife, LeeAnn, started farming in 1977 and watched Dust Bowl-like scenes of erosion occurring on the plowed fields surrounding their farm during dry years.

"It occurred to me that agriculture is critical to the environment," said VanDerPol, who has been writing essays about agriculture ever since. "It is our largest land use."

Other panelists, such as Joe Amato, a retired history professor from Marshall, encouraged the students to explore a wide range of rural issues. He told the students that every area is "intrinsically rich and interesting." He has authored books on topics ranging from how those behind the Jerusalem artichoke scam of the 1980s exploited the rural dream to telling the story of the 1983 murder of two bankers by a farmer and his son indebted to the bank.

Florence Dacey of Cottonwood is known for her poetry and writings on environmental and social issues. She told the students that she began her social activism with the early civil rights movement in Birmingham, Ala., and took up feminist and environmental causes. Today she is interested in the struggle of native peoples.

Dacey told the college students that her hope is to "pass the torch" to them to carry on the work.

For their part, the students responded by snapping up copies of the works published by the authors in the panel, and winning the praise of their instructor. Pointing out that the students could easily be back on their college campuses and enjoying all that the Twin Cities have to offer, Nerbonne said the students enjoyed the opportunity to immerse themselves in rural life.

"Motivated," she said of the students.

Source: West Central Tribune Online ( http://www.wctrib.com/ )

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Advancing Small Scale Farms [top]⇑

By Annie Addington

PINE MOUNTAIN, Ga.  Across America, many of the small-scale farms that once fed the country have been replaced by mega-sized monoculture farms with a single crop growing in all directions, as far as the eye can see.

But Pine Mountain farmers Chris and Jenny Jackson are part of a growing movement of small-scale, sustainable farmers working against that trend.

At ages 27 and 26 respectively, Chris and Jenny are unlikely farmers. They are each roughly 30 years younger than the average full-time farmer in the United States. And although they are working on family land, they didn't inherit a family farm.

Now in their second year of production on a 4-acre farm that yields a wide array of crops from spring through winter, they are building their knowledge about how to operate a sustainable, economically viable farm using chemical-free farming practices.

Last month, they traveled to Turin, Italy, to attend the biennial Terra Madre conference with 7,000 other farmers, food producers, chefs and educators committed to promoting traditional foods, local farms and sustainable agriculture. They spent four days attending workshops and sampling traditional foods that have been pushed near extinction by the homogenization of agriculture.

After the conference, the Jacksons took another seven days to travel and dine in Italy - a country where local, fresh produce is standard fare in restaurants and home kitchens alike.

Jenny had long ago learned to love growing and eating food fresh off the land. As a child, she enjoyed helping out in her family's big garden, and as a college student - at the University of Georgia - she decided to major in horticulture.

I always felt very tied to this area and to this land in particular, and we've always had a big garden, so I've always been interested in growing things and eating from our garden, Jenny said.

Then when I got to college and realized that small farms are a viable career I got more interested in pursuing farming.

It helped that Jenny's parents, Maxie and Laura Earl, owned land that the Jacksons could farm - land that Jenny was born and raised on and that her father, who owns a flooring and painting business, had used to grow hay and raise horses and beef cattle as a side-hobby over the years.

But Chris and Jenny got their true hands-on initiation in sustainable agriculture in Hawaii, where, before they launched their own farm, they worked for four months on organic farms through a program called Willing Workers on Organic Farms. It was an experience that whet their appetite for farming.

Back in Georgia, they sought out longtime organic farmers Skip and Cookie Glover of Douglasville as mentors and worked on the Glovers' farm a few days a week while also beginning to lay the groundwork for their own farm now dubbed Jenny Jack-Sun Farm.

During their first year of production, the Jacksons received a grant that paid for 90 percent of a $12,000 irrigation system, which helped make their fledgling farm viable. They built a farm small enough in scale that they could maintain the kind of crop diversity that keeps a farm healthy and that makes it possible to use organic farming techniques effectively.

Now their farm helps to supply food for a Community Supported Agriculture group in Atlanta. And each Saturday of the growing season, Jenny hauls produce to the Atlanta farmer's market while Chris hauls a load to Market Days on Broadway in Columbus, which is now closed for winter.

Through Dec. 3, though, the Jacksons will continue to operate their Wednesday on-the-farm market, where at this time of year customers purchase leaf and root crops such as lettuce, arugula, turnips, carrots, broccoli, collards, Swiss chard, sweet potatoes and winter squash. They also supply produce to the Rose Cottage in Pine Mountain, the Columbus Country Club and the Big Eddy Club in Columbus.

Although they are not certified organic (a process which is both expensive and labor-intensive), Chris and Jenny do not use chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides as they grow their seasonal vegetables, herbs and cut flowers - along with some blueberries, blackberries and figs.

Instead they rely on the biodiversity of their farm to keep pests at bay and to maintain naturally rich soil.

The only difficulty for us has been occasional pests, Jenny said. But because we are so diversified we never have had something mow everything down. One crop might be attacked but we've got 20 other things to fall back on. We think the key is keeping it diverse so we are protected from pests that way.

The Jacksons also have a small pastured egg operation featuring 75 chickens and a movable egg mobile that Chris built himself. The egg mobile a chicken coop on wheels with fencing attached - allows the chickens to be moved around so that their droppings fertilize different sections of the farm.

The Jacksons also plant cover crops to nourish the soil, and they occasionally use crops for trapping insects. Turnip leaves on the farm become food for grasshoppers, which prevents the grasshoppers from gobbling up more delicate crops. The turnips themselves are perfectly salvageable once their leafy tops have been cut off.

The Jacksons raise honey bees, which not only make honey but also help keep the flowers and produce on the farm well pollinated.

Beyond growing food, the Jacksons are growing a new way of thinking about food - or rather, a return to an older way. And they believe the fresh, natural produce they harvest from their farm provides healthier, tastier and more environmentally friendly food to consumers than store-bought foods grown states and continents away.

Chris cited recent research indicating that some organically grown varieties of produce contain more nutrients than their chemically treated counterparts. As food safety becomes an increasing concern, he said, more people are showing interest in buying food close to its source.

It seems like every few months on the news there's some sort of scare of this food being infected or that food being diseased, so I think folks are finally starting to come around to realizing that maybe a food item shipped from 2,000 miles away has much more opportunity to be infected than food grown just down the road, Chris said. A lot of folks appreciate knowing that the lettuce they just bought was grown 20 minutes away and in a very sustainable way.

Of course farming is no easy life. The Jacksons say they each put in about 80 hours of work per week during the peak growing season.

But those bursts of intense labor also help buy them a couple of months off in January and February, when they like to make time to travel.

And they enjoy being outside, connected to the land, eating and selling the fruits of their labor and working on their own schedule.

At the end of the day it's easy to go to sleep, Chris said. But while we're out here we ask each other every once in awhile: Would we rather be doing something else? And there's absolutely nothing else that we'd rather be doing.

Source: Fort Mill Times ( http://www.fortmilltimes.com/ )

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Farm Worker Wages Higher as Numbers Hired Decline [top]⇑

Reported by Editor, Lancaster Farming

WASHINGTON - Down three percent from a year ago, there were 1,117,000 hired workers on the U.S. farms and ranches during the week of October 12-18, 2008, according to the Farm Labor Report released Nov. 21 by the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

Up approximately 3 percent from a year ago, farm operators paid their hired workers an average wage of $10.70 per hour during the October 2008 reference week - up 32 cents from a year earlier.

Field workers received an average of $10.05 per hour, up 43 cents from last October, while livestock workers earned $10.19 per hour, up 17 cents from the average of $10.02 reported a year earlier. The field and livestock worker combined wage rate, at $10.08 per hour, was up 35 cents from last year.

Of these hired workers, 801,000 workers were hired directly by farm operators. Agricultural service employees on farms and ranches made up the remaining 316,000 workers.

The number of hours worked averaged 41.3 hours for hired workers during the survey week, down 2 percent from a year ago.

The largest decreases in the number of hired workers from last year occurred in California, the Corn Belt I (Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio), Southern Plains (Oklahoma and Texas), Appalachian II (Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia), and Appalachian I (North Carolina and Virginia) regions.

The largest increases in the number of hired workers from last year occurred in the Pacific (Oregon and Washington), Corn Belt II (Iowa and Missouri), Northeast I (New England and New York), Delta (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi), and Mountain II (Colorado, Nevada, and Utah) regions. In the Pacific region, increased acreage of cherries, berries, and grapes heightened the demand for hired workers. Despite wetter conditions in the Corn Belt II region, compared with the previous year's reference week, increased acreage of major field crops kept the demand for hired workers above last year.

In the Northeast I region, drier conditions compared with the previous year's reference week led to a stronger demand for hired workers.

Hired worker wage rates were generally above a year ago in most regions.

The largest increases occurred in the Mountain III (Arizona and New Mexico), Appalachian I, Mountain I (Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming), Northeast I and Appalachian II regions.

The higher wages in the Northeast I region were due to a higher percentage of dairy, equine, and nursery and greenhouse workers. The 2008 U.S. all hired worker annual average wage rate was $10.59 per hour, up 4 percent from the 2007 annual average wage rate of $10.23 per hour.

The U.S. field worker annual average wage rate was $9.78 per hour, up 38 cents from last year's annual average. The field and livestock worker combined annual average wage rate at the U.S. level was $9.89 per hour, up 4 percent from last year's annual average wage rate of $9.49 per hour.

Source: Lancaster Farming (www.lancasterfarming.com)

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How Police Deal with Illegal Workers [top]⇑

By Kristin Carlson - WCAX News

SHELDON, VERMONT - At the Green Mountain Dairy Farm in Sheldon they milk 900 cows almost around the clock.

"We've farmed all of our life and my brother and I are trying to set this farm up for the next generation," farmer Bill Rowell explains.

It takes 18 employees to keep the farm going... three are Hispanic.

"Do we need Mexican labor to run our farms in Vermont? Yes we do," Bill says.

The farm is just miles from the Canadian border. The Rowell Brothers say they only hire workers with documents.

Brian Rowell says, "We're always concerned there because even though we feel we've got everything checked out you know we're not an official and do we know how to check things out properly?"

Having Border Patrol so close by also worries some of the migrant workers.

"They're not scared of police, they're scared of immigration getting them and deporting them back to Mexico," says Saul Moreno, one of the farm workers.

Reporter Kristin Carlson: Because they don't have the papers you have?

Saul: Yes, they don't have them.

Saul Moreno has a green card and has lived in Vermont for about 12 years, but his co-worker didn't want his face shown.

"If I was them I would be scared too," Saul says.

The Rowells have never had trouble with Border Patrol. But nearby farms have had workers deported.

"When you're milking roughly 1,000 cows and you are relying on that help and tomorrow morning they're not here-- that puts you in quite a predicament," Brian Rowell says.

"It is illegal and probably should not be done," says Brian Savage, a newly elected State Representative from the border town of Swanton.

Farmers are one of his main constituents and as a law and order conservative he struggles with this issue. He hears from farmers who say they need workers but also says breaking the law should not be part of any business.

"The biggest concern-- it's not a concern while they are on the farms-- is if they should leave the farm and just go someplace and we don't know where they are going," Savage explains.

"We pay a lot of attention to Vermont," says Amparo Anguino, of the Mexican Consulate.

At the Mexican Consulate in Boston they are concerned about a federal crackdown in Vermont.

"This is my colleague Herman... he's in the legal department," Anguino says. "He's been going to Vermont for many years."

Amparo Anguino's office covers 5 states and of all of them, Vermont has the highest number of Mexicans arrested. For the first half of this year, 82 Mexicans were picked up-- more than triple that of Rhode Island, even though Rhode Island has nearly twice as many Mexicans living there.

"They stand out more easily so that may be one reason why," Anguino says.

Border Patrol says it's focused on the border not on Vermont farms. But Anguino says Immigration and Customs Enforcement does pay attention. There have not been many farm raids but workers are sometimes picked up when they go to town.

"And of course once detained the likelihood of being deported or voluntary departure is very high," Anguino explains.

"They're here, they're part of the community and we have to acknowledge that," says Chief Tom Hanley, of the Middlebury Police Dept.

Chief Hanley takes a different approach. The Chief says his officers won't detain undocumented workers unless they commit a crime.

"I can't arrest illegal immigrants anyway. I can request Border Patrol give us authorization to do a detainer on them and hold them until Border Patrol comes. But if they are not doing any kind of crime, that it doesn't rise to the level of our attention," Hanley says.

It was the first policy of its kind in the state and Hanley says it allows illegal workers to talk to police without fear of deportation.

Vt. State Police recently adopted a similar policy.

Carlson: Do you think your policy makes Middlebury safer?

"I think it does. I think it does give us a bigger pool of people who are willing to report crimes," Chief Hanley answers. "We can't have subcultures here. We can't have people living in the shadows. If you are going to be here in the community you should feel safe."

It's a complicated issue that's been difficult for Independent Senator Bernie Sanders.

"It's a sad thing. I'm not happy about it," Sanders says.

Sanders has built a career railing against companies using migrant labor and protecting jobs and wages of Vermonters. But he's changed his mind when it comes to dairy farms.

"I didn't always believe this, but Vermont farmers are telling me they're having a hard time-- virtually impossible-- to find good labor," Sanders says.

Visa programs exist for seasonal agriculture workers but not for dairy farm labor, where workers need to stay for two-to-three years to learn the job. Sanders is backing Sen. Patrick Leahy's plan for a guest worker program for dairy farms.

"I have concluded that in certain areas in agriculture migrant labor is very important. We need to make sure that people in this country are here legally are treated well, that they have rights, I am supportive of that," Sanders says.

The Rowell Brothers say a federal program would bring peace of mind to an industry trying to stay alive.

"This is a viable labor force and they're here," Bill Rowell says. "Hopefully we will address it."

Vermont's Congressional delegation supports a visa program to allow foreign workers to legally come to Vermont dairy farms for a few years. Senator Leahy has tried several times to pass that legislation, most recently this summer. Leahy's office hopes there will be a fresh attempt at solving this problem with the new Obama Administration.

Channel 3 has gotten a lot of feedback on this series. Some say these workers should be arrested and what the farmers are doing is wrong. But the majority of responses have been supportive, saying it's refreshing to see people willing to speak so candidly about this. Mama Nancy -- who was featured in Part 2-- says she's gotten a big reaction with people saying they want to help the Mexicans in any way they can. And Rob Hunt-- the farmer also in Part 2 who admitted his workers were here illegally-- says farmers have contacted him and say they're willing to rally and protect him in case federal authorities raid his farm.

Source: WCAX-TV NEWS (www.wcax.com)

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