3 posts were split to a new topic: Warm & cool season perennial grass managed in harmony
So great to read about all of your farms! I am Kelley Babbin @Howling Flats Farm in the NW Corner of CT. I started the farm 15 years ago with my son and am now running it on my own while he & his wife focus on raising my adorable grandchildren. I operate a small but mighty regenerative farm rooted in clean and ethical meats. I raise AGW Certified Humane Angus cattle, also pasture hogs, Boer goats and until recently a flock of meat sheep as well.
With the help of a couple of grants I recently converted 3 acres of my little farm into silvopasture with plans to improve the remaining acres as well. In its past life my farm was a stable for racehorses (with a 1/2 mile measured racetrack and all) - which means poor pastures with compaction rates over 300 PSI.
I love the books listed but find I spend more time reading marketing & coaching books lately to fund this amazing lifestyle I am blessed to be living.
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Hi everyone, I’m a beginning sheep farmer in northeast PA. We have 20 Katahdin ewes and will retain ewe lambs for a few years and hope to grow to around 100. I’m interested in cross breeding with an Australian White in the future. I work as a grazing specialist for NRCS and have done research with silvopastures, summer annuals, and crabgrass.
My current favorite book is Managing Your Ewe by Laura Larson because I know how to manage grass, but diagnosing sheep is where I want to improve.
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Hello fellow grazers!
I am Bart Niswonger. I run Kinne Brook Farm with my wife and kids. We have a herd of 40-ish Scotch Highlanders in Worthington MA and are Certified Grassfed and Animal Welfare Approved by A Greener World.
Like all of you, we do a lot of things: forest renovation into silvopasture, raise bees, collect maple sap, make our hay, compost our bedded pack and generally try to reduce inputs as much as possible.
Nick, thank you for setting this up, and thank you all for joining and contributing!
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Hi Bart! Great to see you here! This is a newer forum, so I think most everyone here is in the same boat. One thing I’m seeing about the participants here is the amount of diversification within each operation. I work for the NRCS and see some diversification where I am, but I am talking maybe 2 or 3 things. Participants here seem to be doing about a half dozen different things on average. Some doing more, some less, but it keeps things interesting and I love diversification.
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Hey Everyone, great to see some familiar names and faces on here!
Ben Crockett, officially - I work with Berkshire Agricultural Ventures as the climate-smart agriculture program manager (and happy to discuss views and feelings on the term climate-smart!). I get to spend my time supporting all kinds of farmers in the 4 counties at the intersection of CT/MA/NY with climate risk management planning and general farm operations technical assistance. I also have the pleasure of being part of the New England Grazing Network steering committee on behalf of BAV, and really love spreading resources and knowledge about grazing practices across the Northeast.
In past chapters of my life I’ve enjoyed an array of agricultural pursuits from diversified crop production, orcharding, raising hogs, and milking a small Jersey herd. Now I farm 1s and 0s, and using my farming background, doing what I can to help farmers strengthen their businesses and farming practices. If I had my druthers, I’d probably be raising some (brown) dairy cows and enough poultry to keep the pastures fertilized, along with an oversized garden.
In terms of books, I usually find myself recommending Sarah Mock’s “Farm and other F words”. I think it’s a pretty sober look at American agriculture, and emphasized to me the trap of the “self-sufficient” farmer - haven’t read her follow up “Big Team Farms” yet, but in my own experience her reflections on the need for a team (like any business) to make it in farming is spot on. Her podcast “The Only Thing That Lasts” is a good listen if you’re into agricultural land history.
And to stir the pot a bit, I have a hard time with the Omnivores Dilemma at this point - it was great to see how many people it has (and still does) inspire, but I think the “solutions” Pollan offers are not solutions for most people. If you can afford a localvore diet, great! But that’s a small fraction of the population. I think this Maintenance Phase podcast has a pretty good dissection of the book and the issues that rippled out from it’s mass uptake by U.S. food systems.
As others have mentioned, thanks Nick for building this space, I look forward to exploring and learning more from others!
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