your cooperation in distribution

Hi there folks we love.

ITs distribution time!

WE need your guidance in getting the 2013 New Farmers Almanac out and about,

AK press will be distributing to bookstores– but we’d really like to get the book to

Hardware stores, Feed+ Farm Supply Stores, Coops, Grocceries, and local small businesses.

If you have leads in your town of places that might stock it, please send them along to almanac@thegreenhorns.net

We’ll respectfully approach them with a bulk order offer.

Thank you!

Severine, Shanye, Audrey and the Almanac team

yet another farm manager job

Ok people. I just want to say, if you are going to manage someone else’s farm make darn sure you get:

- Healthcare

- Housing

- Salary of at least a teacher/ non profit person ( 35-45k)

- Farm owned vehicle to drive

This is a big land, full of opportunity, so if you are fulfilling someone else’s dream, you should expect a good contract, good working conditions and a fair pay rate. We needn’t be naive in our excitement to work the land.

sev

———

New farmland owners near Doylestown, PA (40 miles north of Philadelphia) are hiring a full-time farm manager to start-up a diversified vegetable CSA and farmers market operation, starting late January or early February. Job description and contact info attached. The position is salaried and housing is available.

This is the dream project of a middle-aged, experienced entrepreuenrial couple with strong business background. It is a great opportunity for an experienced farmer to take the lead and on a new operation. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

JOB DESCRIPTION:

the governor of vermont, so on point

We need more farm-born statesmen.

” The economic future of our state depends on a local and regional agriculture”

Hell yes!

s

upcoming classes in this cool social technology called precencing

https://www.presencing.com/programs/foundation-program-us-2012

many farm jobs at…

www.beginningfarmers.org

farm manager wanted, nova scotia

Watershed Farm
Farmer Manager Wanted          

Watershed Farm has been a mixed vegetable and herb farm for over 10 years and is located 12 km. from Bridgewater on the beautiful South Shore of Nova Scotia. This past year we have successfully run a 45 member vegetable and flower CSA with a strong social justice mandate (subsidized shares and weekly food donations) and an educational component (we regularly host school field trips and workshops). Our plan is to double our membership for this upcoming 2012 season. In addition to the CSA, we sell at local farmer’s markets and have a few regular restaurant clients. The successful applicant will assume all farming responsibilities for this upcoming growing season including managing the CSA and the sales at farmer’s markets and restaurants. The position would begin in February 2012 with seed ordering and garden planning. While we would see the first year as a discrete contract that ends in November 2012, ideally we are looking for a candidate who is open to establishing a long-term relationship with Watershed Farm and Pollination Project. A farming couple or family would also be most welcome.

a great blog to follow

http://www.beginningfarmers.org/

doing an awesome job over there

Save The Date: Farm Bill Hackathon NYC 12/3

Mark your calendar! On December 3, Food+Tech Connect & Gojee are bringing together journalists, technologists, designers, policy makers, and food data specialists to develop tools and visualizations that help the public better understand how the Farm Bill impacts our lives. 

nominate a young farmer that kicks ass

NRDC Announces Fourth Annual Growing Green Awards to Honor Extraordinary Contributions in Sustainable Food

Nominations are due by December 9, 2011

$10,000 cash prize in the Food Producer category
$2,500 cash prize in the Food Justice Leader category
$2,500 cash prize in the Young Food Leader category

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) announces its fourth annual Growing Green Awards to recognize individuals who have demonstrated original leadership in the field of sustainable food.  Through this national award, NRDC will recognize extraordinary contributions that advance ecologically integrated farming practices, climate stewardship, water stewardship, farmland preservation, and social responsibility from farm to fork.

A Growing Green Award will be given to an outstanding individual in each of four categories, including Food Producer, Business Leader, Food Justice Leader, and Young Food Leader.  Cash prizes of $10,000, $2,500 and $2,500 will be awarded in the Food Producer, Food Justice Leader and Young Food Leader categories, respectively.  All winners will be widely celebrated through outreach to media and NRDC’s networks.   Winners will also be celebrated in May of 2012 at an event to benefit NRDC in San Francisco.  Award selections will be made by an independent panel of sustainable food experts.  Information about award eligibility, selection criteria and process, and the award selection panel are provided below.

peter nadin @ gavin brown’s enterprise

Tomorrow (Tuesday) – Greenhorns will be representing!
Art + Agriculture
Old Field Farm and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise will be holding talks at the gallery in July 2011 on subjects related to agriculture, land and water rights, art, community and production.  This event is the first in the series. For the full calendar, visit: gavinbrown.biz

“A carrot and the art I make here are both results of the same process.” – Peter Nadin.

Peter Nadin’s current exhibition at Gavin Brown’s enterprise shows us how easy it is to blur the lines between agriculture and art. Peter’s goal, as both a farmer and artist, is not to maximize production but rather to explore the interactions between various species and practices. Such collaborations are extraordinarily powerful; they have the potential to impact both the thinking around art and the success of independent farmers. In this talk, our presenters will speak to how alliances between farmers and artists can help create new systems of production and distribution that represent real alternatives to the larger agricultural industry. Artist/musician and farmers Sara and Brett Budde of Majestic Farm hosts artist residencies and exhibitions on the farm as a way to sustain both artist and farmer communities. Keil Borrman is currently building physical and social networks – centered around a market, bunker, and smokehouse – in order to connect farmers and artists and facilitate exchanges between them. Severine von Tscharner Fleming is the director of the film The Greenhorns and founder of the young farmer organization of the same name. Challey Comer, who manages the Beginning Farmer Program at the Watershed Agricultural Council, will moderate the discussion. Our hope is to expand the conversation around these alliances, and in doing so help build a community of collaboration and mutual support.

This talk will be held on Tuesday, July 19, 2011 from 6:30-8:00PM at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, located at 620 Greenwich Street, New York. Please RSVP by email to artandagriculture@gmail.com

eliot coleman paper delivered at yale

I’m not the hugest fan of this paper, but he references a lot of historical texts that I’ve begun digging into.

Currently on the bed: Agricultural Discontent in the Middle West 

It is a history of American Populism (which was born in the farmer cooperatives and state level leadership of Wisconsin, Iowa, etc).

The galvanizing force then, was the monopoly of the railroads– 

Speculators getting in deeper into farming

I may be a cloudy eyed springtime mud hopper, but these sharky speculators pushing buttons on wall street with our nation’s food supply get me all riled up and FURIOUS.

Hedge Farm! The Doomsday Food Price Scenario Turning Hedgies into Survivalists
By Foster Kamer, May 17, 2011 for the New York Observer

On the rare occasion that New Yorkers talk about farming, it’s usually something along the lines of what sort of organic kale to plant in the vanity garden at the second house in the Adirondacks. But on a recent afternoon, The Observer had a conversation of a different sort about agricultural pursuits with a hedge fund manager he’d met at one of the many dark-paneled private clubs in midtown a few weeks prior. “A friend of mine is actually the largest owner of agricultural land in Uruguay,” said the hedge fund manager. “He’s a year older than I am. We’re somewhere [around] the 15th-largest farmers in America right now.”

“We,” as in, his hedge fund.

read the full article HERE

grain situations

lots of times people wonder how this local food movement is going to ‘Feed the masses’

Those of you here likely have your own favorite answer to this question, but recently mine has had to do with Succession.

the succession of local farm operations, that grow more sophisticated, more logisticated, more formalized and diversified with each passing year.

And local grain growing is a huge part of that.

My friend Dorn recently told me he did the math. 

project partner in North Carolina

if you know any carolinian crafty farmer types. send them our way.

we are working on the flyer

http://elsewhereelsewhere.org/programs/collaboratory/

GMOs don’t help young farmers

In the last three weeks. New crops. ALfalfa, sugar beets, ethanol corn.

What is going on ? obama?

You need us to show you the movement? You need us to get direct up in your space?

You need some squealing piglets on the white house lawn?

These developments erode the resiliency of our agricultural system, imperil conventional and organic producers, and continue to concentrate power with corporate food giants.

Obama promised for manditory GMO labelling during his campaign.

I want this administration to know we noticed he did not meet that pledge.

And that our job as young farmers is hard enough without worrying about contamination, without a spiraling corporatization of our foodsystem.

We need more+ better businesses run by people who LIVE + WORK in rural america, not ever bigger big businesses that hire contractors to their dirty work.

Give us a set of rules that allows us to play fair. We are ready to play fair.

- GRRR>

sev