Valley Flora’s Zoe Bradbury grew up on the family homestead in southern Oregon, just a few miles from the Pacific Ocean. She left at sixteen and came back many years later to a farm where her mother and sister had started growing and selling vegetables. Many years later, Valley Flora feeds over 100 CSA members and provides produce to dozens of restaurants and stores in the 50-mile radius around their farming collective, as well as a farmstand and u-pick operation on the farm. We discuss how she, her sister, and her mother have integrated the troublemaker of the family into the existing farming ventures, including the nuts and bolts of how the three separate farming operations cooperate to market together and share resources. Zoe shares her experience about the joys and challenges of farming with children, integrating horses into the operation, marketing in a rural environment, and living off the farm.
The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.
Andrea Hazzard grows and mills 30 acres of ancient and heirloom grains, from black beans and red corn to emmer, spelt, einkorn, and oats. Returning to her family farm, she originally began growing vegetables, but gravitated back to grains – with a twist on what her family and her neighbors are doing. We get into the nitty gritty of growing and handling specialty grains, and the differences between planning and marketing a shelf-stable product and planning and marketing vegetables. Along the way, we get into the challenges of working with a distributor, the joys of working with family, and the special demands of farming as a woman.
The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.
Jess and Brian Powers own and operate Working Hands Farm, with 4 acres of vegetables and a bunch of livestock just outside of Portland Oregon. In this episode, we talk about how the farm got started in 2009, the ways they’ve worked to evolve their CSA into something more sustainable for themselves and the farm, and the relationship they’ve developed and nurtured between themselves as the farm has grown. There’s a lot of great information in here about land access, working together as a couple, and the creation of a farm-centric, rather than a customer-centric, CSA operation, and Jess and Brian are two thoughtful, inspiring farmers who brought everything they’ve got to the show. Plus, how they met is a pretty darned cute love story.
The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.
Paul Dietmann is the Emerging Markets Specialist with Badgerland Financial, a member-owned rural lending cooperative and Farm Credit System institution serving southern Wisconsin. Paul has worked with farmers and farm financial issues for over twenty-five years, first as an extension agent, then as director of the Wisconsin Farm Center and Deputy Secretary of Agriculture for Wisconsin, and most recently in his role as a lender. He has woked with hundreds of farmers, helping them assess their farm financial situation. Paul is the co-author (with Chris!) of the book, Fearless Farm Finances: Farm Financial Management Demystified. We talk about common pitfalls of beginning farmers, strategies for getting on the land, profitability and cash flow, how to set up early-warning systems for your farm finances, and the guilt and shame that hamper our ability to deal with farm financial issues in a timely manner.
The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.