Organic Broadcaster | January 2021 | Volume 29, Issue 1

Changemaker Recognition

Grassland 2.0

Crop Insurance

Page 9

Page 13

Pages 5 & 7

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Volume 29 | Number 1

Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service

Coalition asks Biden Administration to put Organic back on safe footing

Organic Farmer of Year builds community while growing vegetables in Missouri

By Alice Runde

The Biden-Harris Administration has an opportunity to immediately tackle some issues that would put organic agriculture back on solid footing now and in future years. Much of the immediate work that is needed involves getting several key organic rulemakings and programs back on track after years of delays or outright regulatory rollbacks by the Trump Administration.

Organic is a voluntary system of farming and food production that allows farmers, suppliers, and processors to opt-in to a rigorous set of standards focused on protecting the environment and human health. Operations that choose to become certified as organic agree to meet these higher production and processing standards in exchange for using the USDA Organic seal, which generally allows those organic operations to reap a price in the marketplace that better reflects their true cost of production. For organic to work as intended, there must be consistent enforcement of organic standards, which often involves a constant vigilance to close regulatory loopholes to ensure consistency.

“Organic agriculture is a climate-friendly, consumer-friendly, and farmer-friendly model of agriculture that can help the new Administration address many of the goals that President Biden and Vice President Harris outlined during the campaign,” said Abby Youngblood, Executive Director of the National Organic Coalition. “The Biden-Harris Administration can deliver big wins to the organic community by restoring organic certification cost share funding and finalizing important rules that are critical to the livelihoods of organic producers and to consumer trust in the Organic seal.”

In November 2020, the National Organic Coalition (NOC) sent a letter to the Biden-Harris transition team, asking the new Administration to work with the organic community to advance the following priorities:

Reinstate the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices Rule.

Unequal enforcement of federal organic standards has long been a problem in the organic poultry and egg sector. To address this problem, under the

PO Box 339, Spring Valley, WI 54767

Organic Priorities continues on 8

January | February 2021

By Jason Montgomery-Riess From MOSES community nominations, the MOSES Board of Directors has selected Liz Graznak to be the Organic Farmer of the Year. Liz runs Happy Hollow Farm, a certified organic vegetable CSA and market farm in a sea of conventional row crop production in north-central Missouri. Liz has earned this honor by raising outstanding organic vegetables while expanding the borders of organic food through her CSA and market stand, her community-building efforts, and her engagement with other farmers.

If you just think of Happy Hollow as Liz Graznak’s organic vegetable farm, you need to think bigger. Her farm in rural Moniteau County, Missouri, is her business, to be sure. But, it’s so much more.

The easiest way to describe what she does is Community Supported Agriculture. Honestly, though, CSA doesn’t quite capture it. A better description is community-centered agriculture.

Of course, the farm does belong to Liz and her wife, Katie. This is their homeplace. They own the land and have lived here for 13 years. This is where they made their life commitment to each other in 2010, and where they have raised their two daughters, Sylvia and Ellowyn. They have invested time, talent, and treasure in barns, wells, soil, a pack shed, and more.

“This farm is my baby, and it’s my life. It’s just about all I think about,” Liz said. Without flinching, she added, “I will be buried here.”

At the same time, the farm belongs to lots of other folks. Through hard work, vision, and magnetism, Happy Hollow is a gravitational force of good food and good community to employees, rural neighbors, the wider community in Missouri, and fellow farmers.

Career Path Like many folks running organic vegetable farms, Liz didn’t arrive here on the “career path.” A visit to her younger sister at Cornell in 1998 led to working

Liz Graznak grows organic vegetables for CSA, farmers markets, and wholesale accounts at Happy Hollow Farm in Moniteau County, Missouri. She is the 2021 Organic Farmer of the Year. Meet Liz at the Growing Stronger Collaborative Conference during the kick-off Feb. 22.

Photo submitted

on the field crew at the university and, soon after that, enrollment in a graduate program. While working towards her master’s in plant breeding, she joined a CSA, and some new interests emerged: food sources and farm work.

A lecture at the university by Elizabeth Henderson pushed Liz further along. Henderson painted a picture of farming Liz could internalize. “I thought, ‘Well, I can do that.’ I could be a farmer.”

Farmer of the Year continues on 6

Groups in Twin Cities join forces on creative solution to help farmers access markets during pandemic

By Jennifer Nelson

2020 was an unprecedented year for produce farmers. Often in times of struggle, communities come together to provide solutions and build bridges. The Local Emergency Assistance Farmer Fund (LEAFF), a Twin Cities metro area collaboration, is a perfect example of community-building and creative solutions for farmers.

Early in 2020, Twin Cities metro area restaurant and institutional markets stalled due to COVID-19, and selling through direct and farmers markets became more complicated. Farmers began to panic about where they would sell their produce during the 2020 season, and eaters were worried about how to access local food. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) farmers faced additional challenges, working within the daily reality of institutional racism. Motivated by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, 2020 was also a year of painful growth and change especially in the Twin Cities metro area.

The Good Acre, a food hub in St. Paul, Lakewinds Food Co-op, a suburban co-op with three stores, and Mill City Farmers Market in downtown Minneapolis put their heads and budgets together. The three organizations began to collaborate on how to leverage their efforts to support the BIPOC farmers in their

networks. They all had emergency hardship funds for farmers set aside and saw the immediate need to use those.

“The groups that came together to start LEAFF saw a real emergency on the horizon,” said Dale Woodbeck, general manager of Lakewinds Food Co-op. “We need local, small-scale farmers to survive and thrive. Local food is a big driver in our state’s economy and in the communities where these farms operate. All of us who eat can have a positive impact on the wellbeing of local, small-scale farmers by making the decision to support LEAFF and buy local.”

Enter essential connections with communities, including the Hmong American Partnership (HAP), Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC), The Food Group, and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

HAP and LEDC reached out to their networks, providing culturally relevant information and education about LEAFF. They got the word out, with language translation, in a culturally appropriate way that invited BIPOC farmers and community institutions to participate. The founding partners came together with Creative Solution for Farmers continues on 12

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Volume 29, #1

Editor

January | February 2021

Audrey Alwell

Advertising Coordinator

Tom Manley

Digital Content Producer

Stephanie Coffman

The Organic BroadcasterTM is a bimonthly newspaper published by the Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), a nonprofit that provides education, resources and practical advice to farmers.

Opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher.

Inclusion of an advertisement does not imply endorsement of a product. We reserve the right to refuse inappropriate advertising. ©2021 MOSES

Content may be reprinted with permission.

Contact Audrey@mosesorganic.org.

Content Submissions or Inquiries: Audrey@mosesorganic.org Display Advertising: Thomas@mosesorganic.org or 888-90-MOSES Classified Advertising: Sophia@mosesorganic.org or mosesorganic.org/organic-classifieds Free Subscription: mosesorganic.org/sign-up or 888-90-MOSES

MOSES is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit qualified to receive tax-deductible donations.

Support resilient organic, sustainable, and regenerative farms by donating: MOSES, P.O. Box 339, Spring Valley, WI 54767

Time to think differently about challenges we face together

By Lori Stern, MOSES Executive Director

Whew, 2020 is over!

Even from this vantage point, it feels no easier than when we were attempting to live through it, grappling with hard issues of racism, injustice, the pandemic, and the ability of our democracy to prevail.

While we were dealing with the crises most obvious, others were still waiting to be addressed. Climate change, broken food and farm policy, inequity in access to healthcare, wealth and opportunity—all come with us into 2021. But, with all of these seemingly intractable problems, there are opportunities, a door open to change.

MOSES has been providing support and education for over 25 years to farmers wanting to utilize organic and sustainable practices. Increasing organic production continues to be an important vision that comes with positive benefits to the health of people and the climate. Since the inception of MOSES as an organization, several other farmer education organizations have joined the movement. Farming, like many other businesses, has been impacted by conglomeration and “bigger is better” mentality, creating new tensions in the organic movement.

So we begin 2021. One of my favorite quotes from Albert Einstein is, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” MOSES was an organizational leader in 1996, and it is time to think differently about the threats and challenges we face as farmers, community members, and a country.

We believe the way forward is putting people and planet first. MOSES Board Vice President Regi HaslettMarroquin, pushed us during strategic planning to “indigenize our thinking.” Recognizing our place in regenerating Earth’s resources as a farming community, while understanding these resources to be finite and communal, is key to our future.

If the election and attempted insurrection taught us nothing else, the fragility of our democracy should concern us all. From voter disenfranchisement to voter

apathy, we saw concerted efforts to silence, or worse, overturn, the will of the people. Bringing democratic governance to MOSES will be a way to ensure that farmer and community voices guide our collective work and that it remains vital and relevant to an emerging farm economy that has, at its core, the holistic health of people and our environment.

There are many problems, and I know this year will bring us opportunities to think about them in new ways. MOSES committed in 2020 to stand in solidarity with all of the farmers, partner organizations, and community members who are working toward equity and racial justice. In 2021, we renew that commitment through a restructuring, rebranding, and redefinition of the organization’s mission and vision.

Much of this new way of business has already commenced. We are setting up contracts with new community-based organic specialists, giving them programmatic dollars and freedom to address unique needs they see as experts in their communities. We are looking for funding to encourage true farmer-led research, an outcome of the communities of practice we call Grower Groups. We’ll continue to do podcast episodes like our series on forming cooperatives. And, we are looking to gather resources for business models that are truly farmer-led and owned, from field to fork. This year’s organic farming conference is a joint effort of not only the five partner organizations, but other groups, too, as content came together that reflects a shared commitment to organic and sustainable farming.

I believe we all have a responsibility to leave the world better than we found it. Opening a locally sourced farmto-table brunch spot in my rural community was my way of being in the world the way I wanted the world to be. Stepping into leadership at MOSES during this critical moment has given me an opportunity to guide our hearts and minds to a place of deep connection to each other as producers and to the Earth as our home—ironic that it comes at a time when we are unable to be together physically. But here we are nonetheless.

I hope to “see you” at this year’s collaborative conference. Let’s take this opportunity to connect and imagine a future for farming that is distinctly different than the thinking that brought us to this moment.

Online: mosesorganic.org/donate

MOSES educates, inspires, and empowers farmers to thrive in a sustainable, organic system of agriculture.

MOSES Team:

Board of Directors:

Lori Stern, Executive Director | lori@mosesorganic.org

Mike Bollinger | River Root Farm, Iowa

Audrey Alwell, Communications Director | audrey@mosesorganic.org

Sylvia Burgos Toftness | Bull Brook Keep, Wis.

Chuck Anderas, Organic Specialist | chuck@mosesorganic.org

Dela Ends | Scotch Hill Farm, Wis.

Sarah Broadfoot, Project Manager | sarahb@mosesorganic.org Sophia Cleveland, Administrative Coor. | sophia@mosesorganic.org Stephanie Coffman, Presentation Coor. | stephanie@mosesorganic.org Tom Manley, Partnership Director | thomas@mosesorganic.org

Regi Haslett-Marroquin | Northfield, Minn.

Clare Hintz | Elsewhere Farm, Wis. Charlie Johnson | Johnson Farms, SD

Jennifer Nelson, Land Access Navigator | jennifer@mosesorganic.org

David Perkins | Vermont Valley Farm, Wis.

Sarah Woutat, Farmer Advancement Coor. | sarahw@mosesorganic.org

Sara Tedeschi | Dog Hollow Farm, Wis.

On-Farm Organic Specialist Team | specialist@mosesorganic.org

Darin Von Ruden | Von Ruden Family Farm, Wis.

mosesorganic.org | 888-90-MOSES

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By the numbers: What it’s like to serve on board that shapes Organic standards

By Steve Ela, National Organic Standards Board

5, 4, 3, 2, 1… That’s the countdown many members of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) follow as they work toward the end of their five-year appointed term. Some members love the position and wish they could stay longer; others are ready for their terms to end. Why? The NOSB is one of the most active USDA advisory boards. Subcommittee calls, semiannual 3-day board meetings, reading public comments, and writing proposals add up in terms of time. On the other hand, being in a position to hear from a wide range of organic stakeholders on a wide variety of topics is stimulating, rare, and fascinating.

Our organic program is based on recommendations from the NOSB. The Board has the chance to shape the nature of “organic” for future years. Our organic stakeholders are stunningly intelligent, provide insights I would never have thought of, and give freely of their time to provide input to the NOSB. It is wonderful to not have to be “the expert,” but instead to be able to ask the full organic community for input into decisions.

The time needed is balanced by the education this service offers, the contact with others who care deeply about Organic, and the insight into how our organic program works.

I have enjoyed my time on the board. I have found it stimulating and a welcome change to my other life as an orchardist. I will be sad to leave next year, but glad that others will have a chance to provide their insights.

1, 2, 3…1,000, 1,001, 1,002… That is the count as Board members read the 1,000-3,500 pages of public comments we receive for our spring and fall board meetings. Those comments are mostly about topics the Board is reviewing, but also include topics on which our community thinks we should be working. These comments are critical to the Board’s decision-making.

We give our best thoughts, but you, as stakeholders, may have different ideas or different perspectives.

For example, Harriet Behar started working on the petition to allow paper pots, a tool that small farmers have repeatedly let us know is critical for their organic operations. She worked on the topic for a year, and I took over when she left the Board. For each of the last three meetings, we have made proposals to allow their use. In each of those meetings, stakeholders have noted missing parts, asked for wording changes, and predicted future ramifications. While I might think the proposal I have written is the best thing since sliced bread, the critical eyes of all of you say otherwise. Each following write-up takes into account your thoughts and ideas and improves the proposal. Hopefully, the proposal presented this spring will be acceptable and will reflect your will and input as to how our organic system should work.

For the Board, the write-ups open for public comments are the culmination of four months of work. The lead-up to each meeting starts at the end of the prior meeting and ends about a month and a half before the next meeting. The time before the meeting is needed to process our recommendations, publish them for public access, allow at least 30 days for comment submissions,

INSIDE ORGANICS Viewpoints from members of the organic community and then give the Board several weeks to read and digest the comments. As such, each subcommittee of the Board only has 3-7 meetings to give recommendations on up to 54 material reviews for items already on the National List (should they be relisted or delisted?), and provide recommendations on petitions for new materials or for changes in current rules.

Some have suggested we should have more or fewer meetings or that we should change the dates of the meetings to allow more access to farmers. Fewer meetings would mean fewer chances for stakeholders to give input to the Board and longer time frames for the Board to review petitions and recommend if materials should remain on the National List. More meetings would leave even less time for the Board to perform necessary reviews.

We recognize that meeting dates are difficult for many farmers. But, changing the dates makes them difficult for other farmers with different seasons.

Changes also affect the time the Board has to perform the needed work. Our goal, now that meetings have been virtual, is to find a way for future meetings to be live-streamed so that you can watch parts that have meaning to you without having to travel or spend three days at a meeting. We already have public comment webinars so that anyone can give us comments without being present in person. We take to heart the idea that the Board should be accessible to everyone, not just those with funds to travel. We will continue to listen to ideas that are workable for all.

Fall NOSB Meeting 9­–The number of proposals the Board reviewed.

41–The number of material reviews (sunsets) the Board conducted and found the material was still critical for organic use and should remain on the National List for five more years.

11–The number of materials that the Board recommended should be removed from the List since organic and natural materials have become available. These include kelp, sweet potato starch, Turkish bay leaves, a handful of colors, and whey protein concentrate—all materials we believe are now available in organic form.

The organic world continues to evolve, and more and more organic alternatives exist to replace synthetic materials that have been allowed.

At the fall meeting, the Board debated how to approach the conservation of marine ecosystems and the allowance of fenbendazole. We all believe that marine systems should not be compromised to subsidize land-based organic farms. However, the best way

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to protect our marine systems is hotly debated. The Board ultimately passed a proposal delimiting where and how marine materials should be harvested in order to prevent over-harvesting and degradation of the environments that affect all our lives.

The petition to allow fenbendazole use in organic poultry was also controversial. We voted to deny that use. While there is limited allowance for use in other animals, the Board determined fenbendazole use in poultry is not necessary; residues might remain in products that go directly to consumers.

National Organic Program Finally, there has always been concern about NOSB recommendations that are not acted on by the National Organic Program. While I can’t defend the program, I do want to say that at this time, the Board and Program work well with each other. And, we must remember the Board is strictly advisory. Our decisions advise the Program but are not binding. For our recommendations to become official, they must go through rulemaking. This is an onerous process that includes review by federal attorneys, budget officers, additional public comment, and other agencies. In some cases, our recommendations would be very difficult to put into rulemaking language. In others, opposing public comments might derail the process.

It also might be a matter of priority, moving some proposals through the process might be of greater importance than others.

That being said, the NOSB passes proposals with the intent they will be implemented. We do our best to have them reflect the will of our stakeholders. A recommendation that doesn’t become a rule still can have an effect on future Boards. We commonly look back at votes from previous Boards to inform our decisions.

While a proposal may not have an immediate effect, in time it might be incorporated in future rulemaking or subtly influence certifiers’ interpretations of the rules.

Board Membership One last number: 15. That’s the number of members serving on the NOSB. Five new members recently were appointed to the Board with terms starting this month. Three Board positions, including mine, end in January 2022. The USDA will put out a call for nominations this spring for those positions.

While the time needed can dissuade people from applying, the opportunity to make a difference to all of us is important. The Board is composed of a diverse set of individuals, yet it can always use more diversity.

We hope to represent the wide range of the organic industry. I encourage you to apply. We welcome and encourage your input to the Board. The diversity on the Board is a chance to interact and learn from others, to put your input into our system, and to understand how our organic system has come to be.

Steve Ela chairs the National Organic Standards Board.

He has a certified organic farm and orchard in Colorado.

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January | February 2021

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Carve out time now to set goals for growing season

By Carmen Fernholz, MOSES On-Farm Organic Specialist

Before the 2021 growing season begins, it’s good practice to sit down and perform a thorough, objective review of everything that went right and everything that did not go so right. If you have been keeping a brief written running narrative throughout the season, this task will be a whole lot easier.

Much of what I recommend here will be in the form of rhetorical questions; only you can evaluate your season objectively (provided you are honest with yourself).

First off, evaluate your whole season on a success scale of 1-10. Base this in part on your goals. Did you set some goals? If so, how successful were you in reaching them? Can you build on these goals? Did any of the goals end up being unrealistic or could any of them have been set higher? Start formulating your 2021 goals immediately so you will be ready next spring. If you had no goals, how are you going to measure your success?

Dealing with goals is more like a flyover task.

Getting to specifics is where clarity and detail will make a difference. So how was your weed management? Was it timely and complete? What were the factors that impacted its success or lack thereof? What weeds posed the greatest challenges and can you determine why? Were you attentive enough to the weather?

Do you have a reliable weather app on your phone by which you can make decisions? How convenient are the adjustments on your tine weeder, rotary hoe, or cultivator? You don’t want settings to be an excuse for not getting the best, most effective work from your equipment. In thinking about how good your weed management looked during harvest, can you do better with the equipment? What tweaks need to be made, or do you need to budget for something new? Finally,

how much weed seed did you allow to seed out this year?

Many farmers overlook the importance of effective, well-managed crop rotations. Effective crop rotations are one of the best weed-management tools available. Learning how these rotations impact soil structure and fertility is a work in progress. Rotations significantly affect how well tine weeders, rotary hoes, and cultivators function in passes across the field. Are there new crops you can add?

Now that the grain is all harvested and in storage, don’t forget to check its condition at least once a month or more often if moisture content or quality are questionable. Corn, especially, can get hot spots in the bin if the fines and cracked kernels accumulated in a single area because you did not use a spreader when filling.

Level off the top of the grain when finished.

One final note. I know we all bond quite closely to the grain in the bin simply because of all the time and sweat equity we have invested in getting it there. It is our livelihood. However, its market value is not dependent on this bonding or emotional connection. Buyers only see bushels to buy and with which to make their own living. Consumers only experience the satisfaction of having good quality food on the table.

I recommend finding a reliable, honest third party to represent you in the market arena; someone who is paid by you based on how well they perform for you.

This will not be a grain broker. This person is a marketing agent, someone in the market 24/7 who represents and speaks for you to the many buyers willing to take your grain at the lowest price they can achieve.

As an individual in the market, the decibel level your voice generates will be in direct relation to the volume of bushels you have to offer. So combine those

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bushels with other organic bushels and raise the vocal decibels for all of you. Turning up the volume can be accomplished by engaging a good, honest grain marketer to represent all of you and all of your bushels.

I’ll be on a panel discussing cooperative grain marketing at the Growing Stronger Conference, Feb. 22-27. Learn more about the conference and see the roundtable schedule at bit.ly/GrowingStronger2021.

I’m happy to answer your organic grain production questions. Reach me through the MOSES Organic Answer Line (see the box above for details) or by email: carmenfernholz@mosesorganic.org.

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Changemaker Hannah Breckbill is building community for LGBTQ+ farmers

By Hawthorn McCracken Changemaker recognition is a new effort from the MOSES community to celebrate emerging leaders in the organic farming and food movement who creatively overcome systemic challenges in order to nurture a thriving agricultural future for all. This is the second year the MOSES Board of Directors has recognized people with this award.

Meet the Changemakers during the Growing Stronger Collaborative Conference at the kick-off Feb. 22.

At last year’s MOSES Conference, I was very proud to see so many farmers and food advocates from diverse backgrounds featured as speakers, honored guests, and Changemakers. As I left the conference that year for my long, snowy drive home, I thought of all the fantastic farmers who had helped me along my way in learning more about organic, sustainable, and socially just agriculture. I knew just who I wanted to see on that stage next year. I’m pleased to announce the MOSES Board of Directors is recognizing Hannah Breckbill of Humble Hands Harvest in Decorah, Iowa, as a 2021 Changemaker.

Hannah and her farm partner, Emily Fagan, have been hosting the Queer Farmer Convergence on their farm since 2018, creating a real place-based LGBTQ+ community in the rural Midwest. They have not only worked tirelessly to create a successful, organic CSA that is owned cooperatively, but have also taken time to share their space with queer farmers from all over the country (and world), and to build a vibrant, healing community. The Queer Farmer Convergence (QFC) has been an absolute blessing for me and other LGBTQ+ folks in the farming world.

Queer farmers are often left out of the discussion of family farms and small agriculture, and they experience higher rates of isolation and mental health struggles than other rural populations. Without the resources of urban cultural centers, and surrounded by images of cis-het nuclear family farms, queer farmers sometimes feel invisible. Young queer folks struggle to see themselves or find affirming role models in traditional agricultural communities. Rural queer visibility is essential to preventing isolation and deaths of despair from suicide or substance abuse. The resources and social connections gained at QFC are invaluable to the LGBTQ+ farming community.

I spoke with Hannah about her experiences as a queer farmer and a community organizing force.

How does it feel to be recognized as a Changemaker?

I feel like I am representing this huge group of people—queer farmers—that I want to represent well!

Growing up Mennonite in an urban area gave me the experience of representing my faith as a whole, which made me need to understand my faith fully. Having minority identities helps a person dig into what it means to represent that community. As a Mennonite, believing in the power and importance of community decision-making was really important to me, rather than just individual agency. It’s all about building relationships as community and deciding together how we can build God’s kingdom, right here on earth.

I feel like the practical call of faith is to make a world that we know is good.

You are a founder and co-owner of Humble Hands Harvest, an organizer for the Queer Farmer Convergence, and president of the Driftless Chapter of the Young Farmers Coalition. What other projects are you involved in right now?

I’m on a lot of boards right now! I’m part of Iowa Food Hub, Oneota Co-op, and the Women Food and Agriculture Network. I also work as a Land Access Navigator for Renewing the Countryside.

Our farm became a cooperative not because of being queer per se, but because we needed a structure that would support what we wanted to do. We were two people working and owning a business together. We wanted to figure out a way to do it equitably, and a way that we could invite new people on easily. The workerowned cooperative model just made so much sense.

It’s just in the intervening years that it’s felt like, yes, this is totally a way to queer farming and business ownership and land ownership, and to get away from those models that are based on wealth accumulation.

That is not my goal when I’m trying to farm. My goal is stewarding the land, building community, and building soil. The interest in passing down land to descendants needs to change because it’s destroying our rural spaces; all of these absentee landowners are controlling land now because of this wealth accumulation, hetero-nuclear model of land ownership. We see a cooperative as a way to hold capital together and do the work that we want to do together.

Can you tell me more about your farm’s cooperative ownership model and how it intersects with queer identity?

Changemaker Breckbill continues on 14

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When you founded Humble Hands, did you envision it becoming a national model of queer cooperative farming?

Absolutely not! I had no idea. The Queer Farmer Convergence started because of my location. I started farming just kind of by default. I wanted to do something real and get out of my head after four years of college. I ended up in Decorah. Decorah is a place that knows how to do community. I felt welcomed and engaged in this rural space, which I know many rural spaces don’t have the kind of vitality that’s in Decorah.

Despite loving this community, there aren’t many queer people here. So, I was and have been lonely as a queer person. QFC was born from me crying to a friend over the phone about this, and her saying “OK, so what we need to do is find more queer farmers for you to hang out with. So, you’re gonna start this Instagram account and host this event on your farm.”

And it totally worked! Other rural queer people were feeling this way. To just have our intersecting identities seen and celebrated was so important.

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Hannah Breckbill has a share in Humble Hands Harvest, a worker-owned cooperative farm in Decorah, Iowa. She’ll be recognized as a 2021 Changemaker at the Growing Stronger Collaborative Conference.

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Farmer of the Year — from page 1 After completing her master’s degree, Liz set about working on other farms and attending conferences. As her vision began to coalesce, she turned her gaze back to Columbia, where she grew up. She worked for a season at The Salad Garden and figured she really wanted to run her own place but needed to build savings.

Liz went to work at The Superior Garden Center in Columbia for six years, and, while socking away seedmoney, acquired some other valuable experiences like managing people, marketing, and advertising. She also met Katie along the way.

Vision combined with discipline weaves through Liz’s unique story. The seeds of Happy Hollow were planted long before she could realize the dream. To bring about all this abundance and belonging, she had to put in time.

By 2005, Liz and Katie started looking for land.

The two-year search culminated in finding a farm in Jamestown that would become Happy Hollow. Still not in a rush, Liz didn’t start the farm operation for another 2 years. She kicked off their CSA with 18 members in 2009.

Fast-forward to today. Liz and her crew deliver 85 shares for a 32-week CSA season. Happy Hollow is a cornerstone vendor at the Columbia Farmers Market, where they blow out two tents with gobs of produce and flowers. Their produce also goes to local restaurants and natural foods grocers.

The Business The bedrock of Happy Hollow is the CSA. Unlike many subscription-style CSAs, though, they require members to work two half-days a season. Far from a burden, the work requirement bonds the farm and its members, who cherish the workdays.

Liz is adamant about raising certified organic. Of course, the label indicates third-party accountability, and customers have confidence they are following the rules. It opens up wholesale markets, and importantly, it forces Happy Hollow to do the paperwork that is so valuable for tracking performance.

While the diverse streams look familiar to many in her community, what really sets Happy Hollow apart is season extension. They’ve been selling produce 52 weeks a year in zone 5 since the beginning. In the summer months, they are delivering the very best versions of peak-season veggies in a crowded marketplace.

Winter sales of fresh greens out of the high tunnel offer a unique and valuable product that is in high demand.

“No one else has fresh, local, organic produce in December,” Liz reported with a joyful sense of being the farm that is filling in the gaps.

There’s something else about the business, too.

When it comes to local restaurants, there’s just about no order that is too small. If they want Happy Hollow produce, Liz’s team delivers. As employee Clint Shannon said, “Liz cannot say no to a restaurant.

Even though it doesn’t make sense to say yes.” On the surface that seems undisciplined, but he explains the no-limit approach, “is rooted in Liz’s desire to be feeding people in her community.”

The last 10 years at Happy Hollow have been a flurry of construction, connection, and people management. The market expansion has coincided with building out the farm infrastructure. With help from her neighbors and employees, they have raised barns, greenhouses, and lots of high tunnels. Not one to just leave the work to someone else, Liz has also been a construction worker.

Liz’s magic, though, is drawing people together to share in the work. She brings vision, grit, and hard work, and offers amazing food, meaningful work, and connection in return.

Liz is ready to take care of her crew, too. She pointed out with pride how pleasant her employee accommodations are. That commitment and cost is based on a promise she made to herself after seeing the meager conditions many farms offer the help.

Every aspect of the farm presents Liz an opportunity to activate her vision. She wants to raise the best vegetables, using the best land practices, being the best boss and best possible neighbor she can be, all while building a community of ethical eaters and organic producers in her region.

does. He credits Liz for helping steer him into the undergrad Ag Science program at the University of Missouri-Columbia. “After my second season, Liz threatened to fire me if I didn’t go to college. She was joking, I think, but I went to school.”

According to Megan Reid, Happy Hollow’s pack shed and greenhouse manager, Liz delivers as boss, mentor, and friend. She admires how Liz “is doing a lot of things at once. She shows up for people and herself so beautifully.”

Liz is known for being out with the crew, too.

Any new employee can expect a thorough training.

Clint Shannon noted that when she is in the field, she delivers wicked speed, quick thinking, high energy, optimism, and friendship. She’s always connecting professionally and personally.

It hasn’t always been easy finding good help to make Happy Hollow run. Liz admitted with gratitude, though, that she has always had at least one team member who helped make the magic happen. This year, though, brought a new chapter. With returning workers and a solid crew, she was able to focus much more on the business and give the crew more responsibility.

The Neighborhood You won’t get too far into Happy Hollow history without hearing about the neighbors. They are part of the inner ripple of community the farm draws together.

There’s the time in their first year living in the country that Liz’s pickup blew a tire on their gravel road. Rather than fix it, she called her mom for a ride to work in Columbia. When she rolled in at the end of the day, she found her tire fixed and a note from neighbor JT Cassil saying, “I hope it’s okay I fixed your tire.”

The Graznaks expressed their gratitude with a cherry pie and visit up to JT and Mary. A friendship The Crew was born, and a seemingly unlikely one at that.

For Liz, being a farmer-owner-boss is a combiJT’s family has history in these parts, going back to nation of awesome vegetable grower, team leader, the 19th century. At one time, his father and, later, his empowerment coordinator, quality control manager, brother owned the land that is now Happy Hollow. and true friend to her employees. It’s challenging In rural Missouri, there aren’t a lot of lesbian to accomplish this while holding employees to high couples settling down to farm. And in conservative standards. Ask the crew and they’ll say she’s doing it. communities, openly LGBTQ folks are a new minority.

Take Brad Fisher, Liz’s farmhand, who has worked While neighbors may not always roll out the welcome at Happy Hollow for nine seasons. “I love the people. I mat, Liz has a way of building bridges. love the work and it’s good therapy,” he said. That’s the The first surprise for the Cassils was seeing two fruit of Liz’s efforts. women move onto the place, and the second one was Brad’s story of Happy Hollow is bigger than just Farmer of the Year continues on 14 showing up every day to do what a good farmhand

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Changemakers at Sustain DuPage feed community, build connections

By Clare Hintz

MOSES is proud to honor Lindsay Zimmerman and Andrew Ruggiero Van Gorp as Changemakers.

The Changemaker recognition is a new effort, launched at the 2020 MOSES Conference, to celebrate emerging leaders in the organic farming and food movement who creatively overcome systemic challenges in order to nurture a thriving agricultural future for all.

Lindsay and Andrew are LGBTQIA2+ community organizers for Sustain DuPage, a nonprofit building agricultural and nutritional literacy on falsely ceded Potawatomi and Illiniwek territory west of Chicago, Illinois. One thing that makes Sustain DuPage unique is that they host a range of intertwined projects, such as traditional skills, policy reform, art activism, cooking, ecological restoration, and more.

They have used their nonprofit status as a platform for collective impact, hosting community organizers and their projects, so that each activist does not have to seek nonprofit status in order to work towards their goals. Each initiative links to the others under the broad vision of a resilient county. Sustain DuPage has a rich philosophy of working towards what they call a “bioregional culture shift,” addressing social justice as inseparable from environmental health. In their work, they strive to incorporate intersectionality, active listening, horizontal organizing, appreciative inquiry, and other tested methods of interpersonal sustainability, and it shows in the changes they’ve been able to make on the edge of Chicago’s urban sprawl.

Lindsay, you are the organizer of Sustain DuPage’s garden project. What has your experience been like?

This has been a life-changing experience for me; I now feel connected to my community in ways I didn’t think possible prior to this project. For many of us, myself included, this garden has acted as a heartbeat pumping a renewed sense of life into this place we consider “home.”

We focus on transformative experiences and education for our attendees, yet this project has completely transformed me as well. Hands-on education and community have always been core to our mission, and I am beyond pleased watching these things thrive in our garden through our amazing volunteers. Everyone is on equal footing donating both their time and effort to their individual ability, and through those common bonds of hard work and sharing we have created both

an amazing community and a growing space. The goal has been to grow gardeners and not simply grow food, and I consider it a success every time I inch closer to making my job redundant as the volunteers grow in experience and comfort in their skills. So many of them have branched off and helped create church and school gardens, home gardens, taught their friends, develLindsay Zimmerman and Andrew Ruggiero Van Gorp are part of Sustain DuPage, a unique oped aero and aqua“opensourced” nonprofit that supports sustainability efforts in DuPage County, Illinois. They’ll ponic home systems, be recognized as 2021 Changemakers at the Growing Stronger Collaborative Conference. or are planning their Photos submitted own farms.

Lindsay, how has the pandemic intensified your work over Right now, the biggest challenge for me is stepthe last year? ping up to meet the demand that people have for this project and growing it sustainably in 2021. I’m looking The pandemic fundamentally shifted our farmto develop more formalized training, workshare proing project in many ways. Besides what we give back grams, expanding our market, and other additions that to our community, our produce is usually given to will hopefully empower our community while honorour cooking program. However, with gatherings ing the methods and spirit that have brought us this far. restricted, we pivoted to a direct-market model instead. That pilot program was very successful and Andrew, you started Sustain DuPage back in 2013. Did you is now becoming a permanent part of our project have an idea it would grow to become what it has today? moving forward. Hands-on education is fundamental I think sometimes people believe that being a to our garden mission, and we saw a lot of new garcommunity organizer or activist is beyond their deners reaching out for information, experience, and reach, but it’s really pretty simple! If we care about training. Our garden also became a place for outdoor our community and we see a need in the community, therapy. People suffering from isolation, uncertainty, we can just ask the people we know if they’d like to and frustration found a community in being able to collaborate with us to solve that need. I am humbled have a place to come to regularly and still socialize every single day to see what can happen when we get safely outdoors. Managing the influx of new people our community together to collaborate and then (more was difficult with safety restrictions, but ultimately importantly) get the heck out of their way as they helped grow interest in our mission. launch into action! To answer your question, I guess when I started this journey, I had no idea how powerAndrew, in a lot of the photos you post of yourself in the ful community really is. I thought I knew, but I really Sustain DuPage Garden, you’re wearing a special bandana. didn’t. I’m still learning deeper and deeper that, when Can you explain what this means to you? we work together instead of competing, our potential is Changemakers at Sustain DuPage continues on 14 legitimately limitless.

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Organic Priorities — from page 1 Obama-Biden Administration, USDA published a long-overdue final rule on Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP) on Jan. 19, 2017 (82 FR 7042) that would have required all organic poultry and egg operations to provide meaningful outdoor access for chickens. Most certified organic operations already meet the standards laid out in the rule, which would have created more consistency in enforcement.

However, loopholes in the standards have allowed a few large operations to skirt the standards, to the detriment of farmers, consumers, and animal welfare.

Unfortunately, as part of a larger pattern of regulatory rollbacks, the Trump Administration delayed implementation of the rule and finally withdrew the rule altogether, effective May 13, 2018 (83 FR 10775).

This rollback sends the wrong message to consumers and a market that is reliant on public trust in USDA’s organic label. Operations that are still not compliant with industry best practices must be brought into compliance by implementing the OLPP rule to ensure consistency and to meet consumer expectations.

Finalize an enforceable Origin of Livestock Rule without delay.

Similarly, loopholes exist in organic standards with regard to the process for transitioning conventional dairy livestock into organic herds. In 2015, during the Obama-Biden Administration, USDA published a proposed rule to close a loophole (80 FR 23455).

Specifically, the proposed rule would clarify that, after completion of a one-time transition from a conventional dairy farm, all new dairy animals milked on an organic dairy farm would need to be managed organically from the last third of gestation. This rule has never been finalized.

With broad support from the organic community, Congress included a provision in the Fiscal Year 2020 Agriculture Appropriations bill requiring USDA to finalize the long-delayed Origin of Livestock rule by June 17, 2020. USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service has missed that deadline. Organic dairy farmers are suffering and continued delays in implementing this rule will prolong the dire economic fate facing organic dairy farmers.

Restore the Organic Certification Cost Share Program to the full reimbursement rates mandated by the 2018 Farm Bill.

Annual organic inspection and certification are required for all organic operations. The process of inspection and certification is central to maintaining the integrity of the USDA organic label. The federal government has historically reimbursed up to 75 percent of organic certification fees paid by organic farms and businesses, with a maximum reimbursement of $750 per operation for each scope (crops, livestock or handling). In August of 2020, USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) announced that reimbursement rates for 2020 certification costs would be cut to 50 percent of the certified organic operation’s eligible expenses, up to a maximum of $500 per scope.

This action came as a surprise to the organic sector.

It leaves organic operations – which had been counting on being reimbursed for their certification costs at the same level as previous years – burdened with an unplanned expense in the midst of a period of higher costs and disrupted markets caused by the pandemic.

The cost share program is particularly important to small and mid-sized organic farms, and those that are just starting out with organic certification.

NOC is urging the new administration to take swift action to direct USDA to restore the full Congressionally mandated reimbursement rates for the Organic Certification Cost Share Program. Given the relatively small amount of funding required to fill the budget shortfall and the beneficial impact it has on small- and-medium-scale organic operations, this action offers an excellent early opportunity to send a strong message of support for organic farmers from the Biden-Harris Administration.

Embrace organic agriculture as a key climate change solution.

While there is plenty that we do not fully understand about the relationship between agriculture and climate change, there are also some very clear connections in existing research that can point us in the right direction. Strong scientific evidence demonstrates the many ways in which organic practices are climatefriendly practices as well. Not only does organic Move expeditiously to finalize the Strengthening agriculture reduce the use of greenhouse gas emissions Organic Enforcement Rule. such as nitrous oxide, but organic standards require On Aug. 5, 2020, USDA published a long-overdue the use of farming practices that build soil health and proposed rule on Strengthening Organic Enforcement sequester carbon. In addition, organic farm manage(85 FR 47536) to comply with the 2018 Farm Bill, as ment practices make farms more resilient to extreme well as other enforcement-related improvements. The weather events associated with climate change as well.

SOE rule is the most significant revision to organic While organic agriculture is, in general, very standards since the publication of the original Organic climate friendly, there are several areas where organic rule in 2001, with many important improvements that can solidify its role as the gold standard for climatestrengthen enforcement. NOC encourages the new friendly agriculture. Organic is built on the concept administration to move expeditiously to finalize this of continuous improvement. These recommended important rule. We also encourage USDA to seek input changes to improve organic’s ability to be the solufrom the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) tion to global climate change should be viewed as as part of the rule finalization process. part of the “continuous improvement” goal that is

fundamental to organic agriculture. NOC encourages the new administration to incentivize the adoption of organic agriculture and simultaneously support improvements in organic standards to solidify organic’s role as the gold standard for climate-friendly agriculture.

Build our food system back better than before, using the lessons of the pandemic.

In May of 2020, NOC and the Organic Farmers Association (OFA) submitted detailed recommendations to the Secretary of Agriculture and to Congress about policy actions that should be taken to address challenges related to the coronavirus pandemic to help organic farmers, farmworkers, retailers, certifiers, and other businesses weather the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like all sectors of agriculture, organic operations are in crisis. Organic farms and businesses are on the front lines and face major disruptions, including loss of critically important markets and labor challenges.

Read the full letter here: www.nationalorganiccoalition.org/blog/2020/6/9/noc-seeks-feedback-fromfarmers-on-coronavirus-food-assistance-program.

Overall, NOC has found that industrial-scale food and agricultural systems have been far less resilient in responding to the disruptions caused by the pandemic than more direct-to-consumer models of agriculture, or other short-supply-chain food systems. Many organic producers fall into these latter models of production. In addition, it has been alarming to witness the degree to which the harm and recovery from the first wave of the pandemic, have exacerbated existing economic and health-based disparities between people of color and white people in our nation.

NOC encourages the new Administration to engage the U.S. food and agriculture sector in a dialogue on how we can best use lessons learned from the pandemic to build our food system back better than it was before.

As a coalition, NOC looks forward to working closely with the new Administration and a new Secretary of Agriculture to advance organic farming.

The full letter to the Biden-Harris Administration from NOC with detailed recommendations is available online: www.nationalorganiccoalition.org/ blog/2020/11/9/noc-calls-on-biden-harris-administration-to-put-organic-back-on-safe-footing.

Alice Runde is the National Organic Coalition’s Coalition Manager.

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Farmers, researchers form Grassland 2.0 to expand beneficial grassland agriculture

By Anne Nardi, Jacob Grace, & Laura Paine What will it take to make a large-scale shift to perennial grazing systems in the Midwest? Grassland 2.0, a newly formed collaboration based at the University of WisconsinMadison, aims to find out. The group is bringing together farmers, researchers, state and local agency staff, milk and meat processors, and citizen groups to seek transformative solutions to the social, economic, and environmental challenges facing Midwest food and farming systems.

According to the team, the foundation of sustainable landscapes is grasslands. “We’re going to need farming practices that simultaneously produce healthy food, support thriving communities, and restore ecosystem processes. Grazed perennial grasslands do that,” said Randy Jackson, a UW-Madison researcher who leads the project.

Research shows that well-managed perennial pastures are a productive, profitable means of raising livestock that provide many of the ecosystem services once provided by the region’s native prairies, such as water absorption and filtration, soil building, wildlife habitat, and resilience to extreme weather. Grassland agriculture also can decrease oversupplies of commodities and dependence on exports to maintain viable prices for farmers, enabling small, family-owned farms to stay on the landscape.

The Organic Pasture Rule, which requires that livestock obtain at least 30% of their dry-matter intake from grazed pasture throughout a grazing season of at least 120 days, ensures that organic livestock producers are already practicing grassland agriculture. But grazing implementation methods can vary widely and additional management may be required to obtain the full range of ecosystem services provided by a well-managed grassland.

Grassland 2.0 is sharing information and grazing resources with organic and non-organic producers who face technical or economic barriers to adopting and maintaining well-grazed pastures. Fortunately, there is a wealth of resources and information available.

GrassWorks, Inc., a Wisconsin nonprofit dedicated to managed grazing, and the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship, the first formal agricultural apprenticeship in the U.S., are just two examples of some of the organizations working to support grazing on the landscape. The region also has an extensive network of experienced graziers and that gives Jackson hope that even greater adoption is possible.

Kevin Mahalko, an Organic Valley farmer-owner and president of GrassWorks (and a MOSES On-Farm Organic Specialist), hopes Grassland 2.0 can provide some much-needed outreach and support for grazing.

“For the last 10 years, there really hasn’t been much state support for grazing,” Mahalko said. “We have a baseline level of grazing outreach, but we definitely need to expand on that to push grazing forward.”

The Grassland 2.0 project is funded by a five-year grant from the USDA National Institute for Food and

Kevin Mahalko is one of the dairy farmers participating in Grassland 2.0.

Photo submitted

Agriculture. According to Jackson, this is noteworthy in itself. “This grant is a major win for the thousands of farmers who are grazing across the state and beyond, and a major win for citizens of the upper Midwest, who desperately need incentives, expertise, and policies that promote sustainable agriculture.” Joe Tomandl, Executive Director of the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship and a dairy grazier himself, agrees.

“The fact that this project is endorsed and validated by the University means a lot,” Tomandl said. “Managed grazing has the ability to address and solve so many of our unintended consequences of large dairies. It can remediate surface and groundwater pollution and soil runoff while reinvigorating rural communities and sequestering carbon. We need to figure out the market, the workforce, and the system that will allow this management system to work. It is there—we just need to scale it.”

To bring about large-scale agricultural change, the group is looking to bring processors, lenders, policymakers, and state and federal agencies together to take a holistic approach and map transformative pathways forward. The group has collaborative teams approaching the issue from different perspectives, including policy and governance, sustainable supply chains, community engagement, and scenario development.

Tomandl is most excited about the supply-chain work.

“We need to develop market-based systems that influence how land is managed by farmers. Grassland 2.0’s supplychain team can help facilitate that process by validating ecosystem-services markets and support the formation of new markets,” he explained.

For Mahalko, policy and governance are the key to large-scale change. “I think, personally, that a lot of what is done on the land is policy and what is driven by the

government. We need to change farm policy to encourage sustainable conservation farming in general and really support grazing for not only efficient production, but also the myriad of benefits grazing provides ecosystem services. If we can shift that, that would be huge.”

Grassland 2.0’s policy team is working to understand the current status and historical trends of policies that support or constrain grass-based agriculture. This includes developing a Wisconsin Grazing Policy Profile highlighting existing organizations, policies, and funding supporting managed grazing in the state, with plans to produce similar reports for additional states.

The team also is partnering with the Pasture Project at Winrock International to develop web-based decisionsupport tools that will help users explore “what-if” scenarios, such as changing farming practices or management strategies on a farm or across watersheds.

Jim Munsch, a beef grazier and consultant, is excited to see how the decision-support tools the team is creating could influence producer management decisions.

According to Munsch, the ability to talk brass tacks at the field level can be powerful. “You will actually be able to stand there with a producer and say, ‘for this 30-acre field, you are losing this amount of soil and this amount of phosphorus. If you change your management, you can get 2.5 tons of high-quality dry-matter per acre and reduce your soil and P loss. And, if you use pasture as a food source, you can reduce the cost of raising a dairy heifer by this much.’ The power of persuasion for the landowner will be immense.”

While the project’s goals are certainly ambitious, Jackson noted that the stakes couldn’t be higher. “Last year an average of two dairy farms per day went out of business in Wisconsin. It is time for us to come together and ask: What do we want from agriculture?” Jackson added, “Profitable farms cultivating healthy people; thriving, diverse communities; clean water, flood reduction, stable climate, and biodiversity are possible; but realizing these landscapes will require all of us.”

Grassland 2.0 will be discussed at a roundtable during the Growing Stronger Collaborative Conference, which takes place online Feb. 22-27. Learn more and register at bit.ly/GrowingStronger2021.

For project information, visit grasslandag.org or contact Laura Paine at 608-338 9039 or lkpaine@wisc.edu.

Anne Nardi is Communications Lead for the Grassland 2.0 project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Jacob Grace is a grazing outreach specialist at the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems and program manager at the Savanna Institute.

Laura Paine is Outreach Coordinator for Grassland 2.0 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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MOSES Conference food donors contribute to La Crosse area food drive

By Tom Manley

For the last two decades, the MOSES community has descended on La Crosse in the final week of February.

We all look forward to being there, seeing one another, eating, drinking, and enjoying La Crosse.

La Crosse has been good to MOSES, and we have a strong affinity for the city and the region as a whole.

The incredible help and welcoming presence of our partners in La Crosse would indicate the feeling is mutual. It is for this reason and in this spirit that we thought it was important to find a way to do something for the greater La Crosse community as a small way to acknowledge all they do for us.

The pandemic and associated impacts on the economy have created an almost unprecedented level of need and food insecurity. Food is at the center of all we do, and feeding people healthy food is why we farm, and farm organically. The generous support of our food donors and sponsors is part of what allows MOSES to produce healthy organic meals for the thousands of you who have joined us in the La Crosse Center. We are hoping to tap that same overwhelming generosity in

our community and send that food to where it is most needed now, when the La Crosse area is feeling the loss of revenue from our in-person event this year.

We reached out to our friends at People’s Food Co-op to talk about what was possible. They have long been a huge part of our success in feeding our attendees, and they enthusiastically and graciously stepped up to be a part of this effort. In both People’s locations, La Crosse and Rochester, they will be sponsoring a “Buy a Bag” program from February 16 to 28. Customers and members can purchase a $10 bag, and People’s will work directly with their regional food bank partners to ensure the pledged support has the greatest impact.

As if this wasn’t enough, People’s Food Co-op has also committed to matching the generosity of their patrons.

Organic Valley/CROPP Cooperative has also pledged to help by directing the food support they normally provide for our conference menus to this effort.

We are reaching out individually to the other food donors who provide food for the MOSES Conference to encourage them to redirect that support to the food

drive as well, and the response has been heartening.

If you live in the La Crosse or Rochester areas, please stop into People’s Food Co-op and support the drive directly. We plan to provide updates on the food drive and a link to donate to the effort during the Growing Stronger Conference. If you have food to donate or want to know about other ways to help, please email info@mosesorganic.org.

We are also working with some of our partners in the Twin Cities to highlight the annual Minnesota Food Share March Campaign that takes place every spring. This is the 40th year of this wildly successful operation. We will share more details during the Growing Stronger Collaborative Conference on Organic and Sustainable Farming, February 22-27.

We also plan to share the results of the food drive in the March issue of the Organic Broadcaster.

Food is at the heart of all we do. This year we can all shine a light on that and Grow Stronger together.

Tom Manley is the Partnership Director at MOSES.

Organic farming businesses, agencies show support for Growing Stronger virtual conference The Growing Stronger Collaborative Conference takes place online Feb. 22 to 27, 2021. More than 40 organizations are contributing to the event’s success.

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Creative Solution for Farmers — from page 1 initial seed money of $50,000, and soon were able to secure more funding, including a grant from the Bush Foundation.

As of mid-October, LEAFF paid over $300,000 to 47 farmers for 148,000 pounds of produce donated to institutions and hunger-relief partners in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

With infrastructure like cold-storage, transportation, and partnerships through their CSA in place, The Good Acre was already set up to receive, process, and deliver produce to food shelves and other local hungerrelief partners. Farmers in the program received up to $7,500 to deliver the produce they were harvesting to The Good Acre. Staff there would process, organize, and deliver to community schools and food shelves.

The highest delivery week was in early September, topping out at just over $60,000 of produce delivered from local farms to local communities.

The relationships with community organizations like HAP, LEDC, and The Food Group were key to the success of LEAFF. Their effort to leverage relationships and use “word of mouth” advertising and education about the program has had a big impact on the success.

Tou Xiong, Business Development Specialist at HAP, said, “Many of the Hmong farmers in our network are a part of the vulnerable age range for COVID, and they didn’t feel safe at the farmers market with so much public contact. They were so happy to have a wholesale market alternative.” Xiong translated program information and frequently asked questions into Hmong, and was able to work extensively with HAP’s network of farmers. The biggest chunk of the produce sales, over $39,000, went to the Community School of Excellence, a PreK-10 Hmong language and culture school located in St. Paul.

From the inception of the program, LEAFF was committed to distributing the produce to BIPOC communities and urban communities affected by

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COVID-19. Another important consideration was the community commitment to healthy food distribution. Much of the deliveries went to community food relief in Minneapolis and St. Paul, including over $35,000 to Loaves and Fishes in Minneapolis, to be distributed as community meals.

Farmers Moses Momanyi and Lonah Onyancha own and operate Dawn2Dusk farm in Cambridge, Minn. They grow certified organic produce and sell at a number of farmers markets in the Twin Cities.

Originally from Kenya, Momanyi had an overall good experience with Boxes of produce from local farms arrive at The Good Acre in St. Paul to be the Good Acre and receiving LEAFF sorted and delivered to schools and food shelves through a unique program funding. He appreciated the LEAFF that’s helping small-scale farmers thrive during the pandemic while providing Photo by TJ Turner support of providing uniform boxes food for their communities. and packaging sizes for the wholesale communities who need it, we all win. We can feed our food shelves and other local hunger relief partners. institutions, community organizations, and individual Momanyi is in the process of developing a eaters healthy locally grown produce, LEAFF partners nonprofit incubator farm, providing land and trainhave shown. We just need better infrastructure in ing to immigrant farmers. Momanyi said, “Many place to get it into hands and mouths, and allocated immigrants who come to the U.S. aren’t planning on funding to pay food farmers for their hard work, the farming here. The climate is often very different from their home climate, and farming support and training partners explained.

Learn more about the LEAFF model and how it can are needed. ” He would like for the LEAFF program be applied in your community during the Growing to support more beginning farmers, not just existStronger Collaborative Conference; The Good Acre’s ing farmers, in the future. As a result of the LEAFF program, Momanyi developed an ongoing relationship Van Eeckhout and Ariel Pressman, Real Organic Project, will lead a roundtable on the topic. See the with Lakewinds Food Co-op and has a current conroundtable schedule at bit.ly/GrowingStronger2021. tract to sell them wholesale produce in 2021.

This has been one of the many benefits to come out Jennifer Nelson is a MOSES team member. She and her of the LEAFF program. David Van Eeckhout, Farm Program Director at The Good Acre, and founding family own Humble Pie Farm in Plum City, Wisconsin.

LEAFF administrative staff said, “BIPOC farmers previously unfamiliar with wholesale markets have had new experience with wholesaling through LEAFF, and they want to continue those wholesale relationships in the future.”

One of the local food myths is that there isn’t enough produce locally grown to support institutions near the Twin Cities. Van Eeckhout said that isn’t really true. “This program was so highly impactful, and really showed us how much produce is available during the growing season.”

The LEAFF collaboration has carryover funding, and hopes to continue the program in 2021. The main challenges are administration and the labor required to manage and operate processing and distribution of 150,000 pounds of produce. A lot of the labor fell on The Good Acre staff in 2020, and would need to be better systemized and allocated for the program to continue in a sustainable way, Van Eeckhout added.

Many lessons have come out of 2020, and the success and model of LEAFF is a big one. When farmers are supported and paid by multiple partners in a community to grow healthy local food that is distributed to

mosesorganic.org | 888-90-MOSES

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| 13

New guide sheds light on organic crop insurance options

By Kate Hansen

Crop insurance is an important risk management tool for many farmers. While finding coverage for organic crops was once an issue, today, more than 80 certified organic crops can be insured at organic prices, with a number of options for policies. Still, a sizable percentage of organic crops go uninsured. Farmers and agents might not be aware of all the options, even if they could be beneficial.

“Conversations from the Field: Crop Insurance for Organic Operations,” a new educational guide released this month by the Center for Rural Affairs, sheds light on crop insurance options available for organic farmers.

The downloadable guide summarizes interviews with seven organic farmers and seven crop insurance agents experienced with organic policies. Each person provides a unique perspective on the topic, from Minnesota farmer Carmen Fernholz, who reflects on crop insurance’s importance for the next generation, to South Dakota agent Megan Vaith, who specializes exclusively in organic insurance. They detail everything from the basics of federal crop insurance to insuring at organic prices, the claims process, tips for finding an agent, and what to do if a crop is not insurable in a given county. Here’s a look at some of the key topics covered in the guide.

Contract price option Federal Multi-Peril Crop Insurance (MPCI) covers the higher prices of select organic commodities with what are called “organic price elections.” However, if contracts have already been set for a particular crop, producers are eligible to insure their revenue using the contract price. If that contract price is higher, it could be of great benefit to the farmer to insure the higher revenue.

“Take soybeans, for example,” agent Megan Vaith explained. “If you’re certified organic in 2020, your price protection on crop insurance is $18.03 per bushel, but [the upper limit you can insure for a contract price] for soybeans is $31.55 per bushel. If you have a contract with higher prices for your soybeans, that could make a massive difference come claim time.”

This option is available for certified organic crops, as well as non-GMO crops during transition. If a producer has a higher-priced contract for a non-GMO grain, they could insure that higher revenue during the transition years.

For most spring crops, the deadline to sign up for this option is March 15, and contracts would need to be presented by the acreage reporting deadline of July 15.

However, signing up for the option in March does not require its use. Iowa farmer Scott Shriver, shared that he signs up for the contract price option every year simply to ensure he can use it if he so chooses. Vaith noted that, while insuring at the higher contract price increases the premium, it’s still worth doing. “You already have the contract anyway, you’re getting a higher price, and you get so much better insurance and higher likelihood to collect in the event of a loss,” she explained.

Unit Considerations Part of putting together an MPCI policy is determining how to divide up an operation to insure different land parcels or enterprises. The three most commonly used unit types for row crops are enterprise units, optional units, and basic units. Enterprise units take into account the entire crop planted and combine all fields, while optional units divide an operation by individual farms and crops, each with their own yield history. Basic units count all owned and cash-rented acres in the same county together, but each crop is separate, and if applicable, each share arrangement is separate.

Iowa farmer Eric Madsen recently made a change with his agent, and is now using basic units. “It’s a bit more in premium cost, but the benefit is, if we have a problem out on one farm, that section will be looked at individually. It could be a benefit for organic in case one farm does badly and one does well. Then, they wouldn’t cancel out.”

Whole Farm Revenue Protection For highly diversified operations, or operations producing commodities not easily insurable, Whole Farm

Revenue Protection (WFRP) may be an option. WFRP is a federal crop insurance policy that insures the revenue of an entire operation, based on tax records. Insurable commodities include organic crops, fruits, vegetables, nuts, specialty grains, and livestock. WFRP will not cover timber, forest, forest products, and animals for sport, show, or pets.

Like other federal crop insurance policies, WFRP is federally subsidized. Coverage levels are offered from 50 to 85 percent of the total revenue, and the program is set up to reward diversified operations. Higher subsidy and lower premium rates are available for operations with several commodities.

WFRP can be layered with another multi-peril policy.

For example, if a farmer grows corn, soybeans, and another crop that is harder to insure, they could layer their existing coverage for their corn and soybeans with a WFRP policy, which would cover the third crop.

Finding a Good Agent It is crucial they work with agents who are knowledgeable about organic. A farmer does not have to select an agent who is geographically closest to them, if the agent is not the best fit for the specific operation and needs.

“The individual agent is more important than the locality,” Madsen said. “They can sell in several states as long as they have their licenses. With today’s technology to communicate, distance isn’t a big deal. Having an agent that knows their stuff, especially for organic, is definitely more important.”

“Conversations from the Field: Crop Insurance for Organic Operations” is available at cfra.org/publications.

Bring your questions about organic crop insurance to the Growing Stronger Collaborative Conference roundtable “How is Crop Insurance Working for You?” See bit.ly/GrowingStronger2021.

Kate Hansen is Policy Assistant at the Center for Rural Affairs.

Reach her at kateh@cfra.org or 515-215-1294.

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Farmer of the Year — from page 6 that they were planning to “run a truck patch” on that land—something JT figured wouldn’t work. After seeing what Liz put together, though, he said, “She’s got a product that anybody would want. Her produce is beautiful. They take pride in it.”

He also was taken with Liz, who, he said, “works as hard as any man I’ve ever known.” That work habit has been a cornerstone of Liz’s ability to “fit-in” with a community that often has different expectations for who farms and what women do, and is unfamiliar with openly lesbian women.

The mutual affection between JT and Liz has only grown over the years. JT noted that Liz’s commitment to treat the land right stands out to him. “Liz takes care of the land. It means a lot to me.”

Liz has gone to JT for advice on all sorts of things— when to turn the soil, how to manage cover crops, whom to call if the well is broken, and what equipment is worth buying. JT has learned all about what vegetables a professional grower can raise in Missouri, especially under hoop structures.

The Membership Happy Hollow members are happy CSA members.

To ask them about Liz’s work is to invite expressions of deep gratitude. The food is the first thing you’ll hear about. Jeanne Heuser and her husband, Mark, have

been members since 2010. They are also Liz and Katie’s neighbors. Jeanne gushed about the freshness, quality, and flavor.

Jeremy Root, who lives in Columbia, was quick to point out that the quality of the food is connected with the care Liz “brings to everything she presents.” He and his wife, Amanda, have raised their two daughters on Happy Hollow produce. They love the exposure to new varieties, and to the rhythm of seasonal eating.

Members also shared about their connection to the farm. When she learned that Happy Hollow would be set up on neighboring farmland, Jeanne said, “I thought I had died and gone to heaven.”

Jeremy described his farm membership this way: “It’s the quality of produce and the quality of the connection. It’s the relationship with the farmer that is precious to us. It strikes a lot of different notes on the xylophone of values.”

The membership project goes even deeper, too.

Jeanne and Liz are working together to lay the groundwork for a regional food system with the formation of the Moniteau County Neighborhood Alliance. The goal is to support community health and economic wellbeing through education and advocacy. Their first project with university extension is to promote access to safe food, and build up the community of food growers in their region.

Changemaker Breckbill — from page 5

Changemakers from DuPage — from page 7

What leadership resources and skills would you like to share with other folks interested in organizing?

Most of what I know how to do is a result of just showing up to other people’s things. I’m well known in my community as the young person who shows up to things. I’ve learned a lot of organizing skills from Liz Rog. She’s one of the people who turned Decorah into the type of place that drew me in. She’s very focused on making people feel like they matter, like they belong, like they’re needed.

I want to acknowledge that there’s already community infrastructure that people have built. There’s so much potential in rural spaces for peoples’ ideas.

Taking advantage of that as a young person and using it is vital. I see a lot of young people going into rural spaces and just hanging out with people their own age. People joke that one of my good skills is sitting through meetings with older people. That has served me well in being able to make my farm into something relevant for my community. Which is honestly the most important thing to me.

Of course! Once upon a time, little 12-year-old Andrew was driving in a car with his family jamming to Moody Bible radio when the host began saying some really damaging things about belonging to the LGBTQIA2+ community and making it seem like those relationships were not only wrong in God’s eyes, but evil. I remember how distressed and sad I felt that my own God would punish me just for having a crush on a boy classmate. I was devastated. And, then along down the highway drove a little Toyota and on the back bumper there was a little stripe under the license plate. It wasn’t obnoxious—there were no words, just a little stripe of rainbow. That little stripe of rainbow saved me from some really scary thoughts that day.

It is so important for queer folks to not only be honest about who we are with friends and family, but until we live in a world where kids aren’t made to fight tears just for being different, we must ensure that we are as loud and visible as possible that it is a

The Farmer It’s clear Liz loves to farm. When Chris Blanchard launched the Farmer to Farmer Podcast at the 2015 MOSES Conference, his first episode was “Liz Graznak on the First Five Years.” Liz also appeared on Episode 100, where Chris invited Liz to interview him.

Ask Liz about farming, Happy Hollow, and organic food, and you will connect with her profound inner fire. It is a passion for the work, farm, and community she has stitched together. While she doesn’t hide or downplay the difficulties the work or business of farming bring, she also sees the beauty that comes from building a community around good food and shared health. This inner fire appears outwardly like joy in action. It leads Liz to erect high tunnels and teach classes, to deliver the best food to her CSA members in handmade cedar boxes, and to check in with her employees while they are harvesting lettuce.

This Organic Farmer of the Year points the way to a brighter food future. She lives out the reality that good agriculture requires community,. She exemplifies the role that affection for people and place play in making our communities healthy, whole, and prosperous.

Jason Montgomery-Riess has owned and operated Steady Hand Farm, a 100+ member CSA and market farm in Amery, Wisconsin, since 2015.

great thing to be gay. It is a gift from God to be gay because just like everybody else, we are sent here to share a unique and rich perspective that our communities can learn from. We get to teach people how to play with gender and laugh about sexuality in really healthy ways that most people feel forbidden to do.

So, long story short, I wear a rainbow bandana as often as I can in the garden so people inside and outside of our community can see that gay folk are here and ready to shovel alongside everybody else! I think it’s especially important for us to be openly queer in the farming community, which can sometimes be saturated with archaic behaviors of stereotyping and discrimination.

Clare Hintz runs Elsewhere Farm, a production perennial polyculture supporting winter and summer CSAs and other markets in northern Wisconsin. She serves on the MOSES Board of Directors.

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| 15

OGRAIN provides opportunities for organic grain farmers to connect, learn from each other

By Erin Silva While in-person programming has been suspended due to the pandemic, we are still finding ways to connect as an organic grain community to share experiences, ideas, and knowledge. The Organic Grain Resource and Information Network (OGRAIN) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison offers a Friday Virtual Workshop series. Held via Zoom from 12-1:30 p.m. CT, these workshops feature a different topic each week with ample time for discussion. Upcoming topics include alternative crops such as sunflowers; novel weed management strategies; and fertility, tillage, and no-till practices. See ograin.cals. wisc.edu/events/learning-opportunities-winter-2020-21.

OGRAIN also offers “information exchanges,” facilitated informal discussions around organic grain-related themes held the first and third Tuesday of each month from 12:30 to 1:30 CT. Details are at the above link.

While we are excited about these series, we are especially excited to be partnering on the Growing Stronger Conference, taking place online Feb. 22-27. This one-ofa-kind virtual conference brings together the strength of our organic industry to support organic farmers.

OGRAIN offers a great track of organic grain workshops, with speakers including Klaas Martens, Rick Clark, Joel Gruver, Tom Cotter, Jacob Bolson, and Roger Knutson.

See all the topics by searching the OGRAIN track on the workshop tab at bit.ly/GrowingStronger2021.

We remain hopeful that we can resume our on-farm field days and field clinics this summer to share some exciting new research we’ll be conducting both at the University’s Agriculture Research Stations and on organic farms throughout the region. “Taking Tillage Out of Organic Grain Crop Production with Ecology, Tools, and Technology” is a new, four-year, $2 million grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative.

The grant will help us analyze how this strategy works for other cash crops beyond corn and soybeans as well as cover crop combinations, including planting winter wheat into mulched buckwheat and sowing corn into hairy vetch, a legume. We will work closely with grant partner Cornell University and partnering farms to give a full picture of the new system’s benefits by evaluating the overall cost effectiveness and profitability of the approach.

Further, UW-Madison was awarded a USDA North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant in partnership with Purdue University, “Identifying and Expanding Integrated Disease Management Resources to include Organic Grains in Support of Organic and Transitional North Central Farms.” This project will focus on three critical diseases in regional grain production: fusarium head blight on wheat, white mold on soybean, and tar spot in corn.

Research results will contribute to the development of integrated disease management extension and outreach material aimed towards organic farmers working in Midwest grain cropping systems.

Lastly, we are excited to launch expanded efforts to facilitate on-farm research. With leadership from Anne Pfeiffer at UW-Madison, we’ll be helping organic farmers conduct experiments on their farms that answer questions related to new or innovative production techniques, particularly in the area of cover crops and soil health.

It has been a challenging year on many fronts, not only due to COVID-19, but also the sustained period of low corn prices facing organic farmers. However, bright spots remain; consumer interest in organic has increased during the pandemic, spurring market growth; prices for soybeans have remained strong; and markets continue to expand for organic food grade and cereal grains. The spirit of collaboration in the organic community—as emulated in the Growing Stronger Conference—points towards a bright future for farmers, our land, and our communities, as we learn together to improve and promote organic practices that enhance the health and diversity of all systems.

Dr. Erin Silva is an Associate Professor in the University of Wisconsin’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

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Mother Earth News offers book discounts during Growing Stronger Conference

By Andrew Perkins, Mother Earth News

The most popular and longest-running sustainablelifestyle magazine, MOTHER EARTH NEWS provides wide-ranging, expert editorial coverage of organic foods, country living, green transportation, renewable energy, natural health, and green building.

MotherEarthNews.com has a bookstore to complement the publication. During the Growing Stronger Conference Feb. 22-27, the bookstore will feature exclusive offers on these titles and more.

that are a standard part of conventional agriculture, switched to no-till planting, started planting diverse cover crop mixes, and changed his grazing practices.

Dirt to Soil

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Once a staple in homes across the world, and found along every highway and hedgerow, the forgotten elderberry is making a comeback. Its popularity as medicine is surging, its choice as an edible landscaping plant is growing, and its use for wine-making and crafts is being rediscovered.

Spanning history and geography, The Elderberry Book takes you on an adventure, deepening your appreciation of a plant that has played a crucial role across the world for thousands of years. This definitive guide to the many uses of elderberry covers cultivating, foraging, and preparing syrup, wine, and dyes.

$19.95 | 223 pages | Softcover 2018, Chelsea Green In desperate financial strain, farmer Gabe Brown and his wife, Shelly, started making bold changes to their farm. In an effort to simply survive, Brown began experimenting with new practices he’d learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture. In Dirt to Soil, Brown tells the story of that amazing journey and offers a wealth of innovative solutions to our most pressing and complex contemporary agricultural challenge: restoring the soil. The Brown’s Ranch model, developed over 20 years of experimentation and refinement, focuses on regenerating resources by continuously enhancing the living biology in the soil. Inside, you’ll learn how Brown dropped the use of most of the herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers

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Such a system not only offers the promise of ecological regeneration of the land, but also an economical livelihood and even the ability to farm extensively while buffering the effects of a changing climate: increased rainfall, longer droughts, and more intense storm events. This book is your go-to guide to learn how to integrate a silvopasture system on your land, from managing grazing animals to bringing trees into the pasture. You’ll learn that the systems may take several years to establish, but the long-term benefits include healthier animals and soils, greater yields, and the capacity to sequester atmospheric carbon better than forests or grasslands alone.

Agritourism: A Manual for Diversifying Your Farm Income

By Matt Stephens* $19.99 | 224 pages | Softcover 2021, New Society Opening your barn doors to people is much more than sharing holiday hayrides, farm tours, and bottle-feeding lambs with friends. It is also a means of reconnecting people with their food and diversifying your farm income.

Packed with decades of sustainable tourism experiences, Agritourism: A Manual for Diversifying Your Farm Income is an experience-based guide to connecting with the public and developing multiple, sustainable income streams on your farm. Chock-full of case studies, Q&As, pros and cons, solutions, priorities, and actionable items from agritourism farms that succeeded and failed.

If you dream of opening your farm to the public, engaging with people, and developing a diversified, sustainable income, then this A-to-Z toolkit for sustainable tourism is for you. *The author will present a workshop at the Growing Stronger Conference. See bit.ly/GrowingStronger2021.

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Growing Stronger Collaborative Conference The Growing Stronger Collaborative Conference on Organic & Sustainable Farming is bringing together the organic and sustainable farming community to share ideas for stronger farms and food systems. This 5-in-1 virtual event Feb. 22-27 combines the MOSES Organic Farming Conference, GrassWorks Grazing Conference, OGRAIN Organic Grain Conference, Midwest Organic Pork Conference, and Organic Vegetable Production Conference. With more than 60 workshops, 25 roundtables, and 70 exhibitors, it provides a rich conference experience from the comfort of home. Admission is $125. See details and register at bit.ly/GrowingStronger2021.

Farmer Speed Presentations The virtual Growing Stronger Conference offers a unique opportunity to showcase organic farms through Farmer Speed Presentations. These 5-minute presentations give everyone the chance to learn from others’ experiences and ingenuity. Have an innovative growing practice, a tip to make a farm chore easier, a cool tool or favorite piece of equipment? Show it off in a short video or slideshow! Or, give us a virtual tour of your farm. To participate, submit a video or slideshow by Jan. 31. See details and speed presentation tips at mosesorganic.org /farmer-share-speed-presentations.

NEWS BRIEFS Grower Groups MOSES is helping farmers form groups around specific areas of interest to make connections and share ideas. The current list of groups includes Growing Wellness for mental health support, women in sustainable ag networks, anti-racism, and Queer and Trans on the Land. To learn more about these groups, how to join one or how to start a group focused on your area of interest, see mosesorganic.org/grower-groups.

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developed to help farms of any size manage their financial situation and plan for the future. The tools include farm financial planning, financial analysis, business and transition planning, land rental agreements, and more. The free workshops take place at noon CT on these dates: March 10: Planning for the road ahead: business and transition planning March 17: Taking charge of your finances March 24: Navigating farm financial information March 31: Negotiating land rental arrangements Register at z.umn.edu/Empowered.

Crop Insurance Update USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) is extending crop insurance flexibilities for producers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Producers with insured organic crops may report acreage as certified organic, Wisconsin Women in Conservation or as acreage in transition to organic, when the policyholder certifies that they have requested a written Wisconsin Women in Conservation (WWIC), a certification or other written documentation from a new program led by Michael Fields Agricultural certifying agent on or before the Acreage Reporting Institute in partnership with MOSES, Renewing the Deadline of June 30, 2021. Policyholders must continue Countryside, Wisconsin Farmers Union, and E Resources Group LLC, aims to connect women farmers to use generally recognized organic practices in accordance with their policy. This relief also applies to the and landowners in Wisconsin with information and resources about conservation practices to improve their Whole-Farm Revenue Protection policy. land. Two online workshops, March 2 and April 6, Dicamba Update 2021, will cover details about Natural Resources After a U.S. court banned the use of dicamba in Conservation Service (NRCS) programs to support conservation practices on their land. Register for a free 2020 due to volatile drift, the Environmental Protection Agency has now issued new guidelines that mean workshop at mosesorganic.salsalabs.org/Wisconsinnon-organic farmers will be spraying the herbicide women-in-conservation. again in 2021. The new guidelines include adding a Farm Financials Workshops buffering agent to lower volatility, and downwind buffers of 240 feet and a buffer of 310 feet where listed The University of Minnesota’s Center for Farm species are located. Over-the-top application of Financial Management is partnering with MOSES to dicamba on soybeans is prohibited nationwide after present The Empowered Farm Financials workshop June 30, 2021. series. The workshops will focus on topics and tools

10 x 4 November

Organic

Compost & Fertilizer Scan to Learn More

•Rich in Organic Matter and Nutrients •Helps condition and enrich soil •Available in Bulk, Totes and Bags

For decades, our family has used the manure from our laying hens as a crop fertilizer on our farm.

Today, we are pleased to offer a variety of composted layer manure and dry, granular fertilizer blends for use in organic crop production

Contact: Duwayne Grabenstatter • duwayneg@krehereggs.net • Phone: (716) 512-3857 www.krehereggs.com

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January | February 2021

Conservation Reserve Program USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) has opened the application period for the popular Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) now through Feb. 12, 2021.

The competitive program provides annual rental payments for land devoted to conservation purposes.

The CRP Grasslands signup runs March 15, 2021, through April 23, 2021. Contact your local FSA office.

For additional insights on CRP, see the National Sustainable Agriculture’s guide at bit.ly/Guide-to-CRP. Urban Agriculture Advisory Committee USDA is seeking members for a new advisory committee on urban agriculture. The 12-person committee will advise the Secretary of Agriculture on policies and outreach relating to urban, indoor, and other emerging agricultural production practices as well as identify barriers to urban agriculture. The committee will include producers and representatives from Extension or higher education, a nonprofit, and a supply chain business. Nominations are due by March 5, 2021. See bit.ly/USDA-UrbanAgCommittee.

Emerging Farmers Conference The 2021 Emerging Farmers Conference, a multilingual virtual event, takes place Jan. 29-30, 2021. The conference is free for farmers, $50 for non-farmers. See details at bigriverfarms.thefoodgroupmn.org/about-efc.

CSA Farm Resources The CSA Innovation Network has created social media and print promotional templates to help CSA farmers promote early CSA member renewals and sign-ups. The package includes customizable Facebook and Instagram posts, printable flyers, and other graphics. The promotional package is free to download at www.csainnovationnetwork.org/csa-renewals.

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NEWS BRIEFS Renewable Energy Funding The USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) provides grants and loans to farmers and rural businesses interested in improving energy efficiency.

The program supports the purchase of wind, solar or other renewable energy systems, and provides grants to help farmers with renewable energy development.

Grant applications are due March 31, 2021. For details, see bit.ly/USDA-REAPgrant.

Grains to Institutions The Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has received a USDA grant for a project called “Grains to Institutions: Expanding Value Chains and Cultivating Resources for Upper Midwest Grain Growers.” CIAS will collaborate with the Artisan Grain Collaborative and Upper Midwest grain producers, processors, and Wisconsin partner institutions to develop a suite of resources to accelerate procurement of local grains and continue to build farm-to-institution efforts.

einkorn. In addition, the project aims to benefit organic vegetable growers by providing them with diverse crop options that they can rotate with highvalue crops, such as food grains. Partners include the Artisan Grain Collaborative in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois, and South Dakota State University, among others. See details at bit.ly/Cornell-Partners-on-Ancient-Grains.

Cornucopia Institute Leader Melody Morrell has been named executive director of the Cornucopia Institute, a nonprofit consumer education and watchdog organization. She had been the organization’s operations director.

Bugs Below Zero Researchers at the University of Minnesota have a citizen science opportunity for farmers and outdoor enthusiasts. Participants simply spot midges on the snow and submit photographs. Learn more and sign up at www.bugsbelowzero.com.

Farming Music Videos The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) has released a pair of music videos highlighting key themes of the growing farmer interest in building soil health. The two songs-of-the-soil, “Got Cover Crops” and “Back to Soil,” were commissioned from Austin, Minn., native and singer-songwriter Bret Hesla and performed with the band Six Feet Deep. The music videos are available for public use at landstewardshipproject.org/soilmusic.

Ancient Grains Cornell University is leading a $2 million USDA Farmer’s Tax Guide grant to help turn diverse and ancient grains into The Internal Revenue Service has published its staple foods throughout the Northeast and Midwest.

2020 guide to help farmers complete their tax returns.

The project focuses on developing infrastructure to See www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p225.pdf. establish an organic industry for grains such as bread wheat, naked barley, hulless oats, rye, emmer, spelt and

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ORGANIC FERTILIZERS FOR ALL YOUR CROP’S FERTILITY NEEDS Manufactured from animal proteins like feather meal, meat meal and bone meal, Nature Safe offers dry pelleted and wettable powder solutions for your crops.

Use Nature Safe as a starter fertilizer or a top-dress for any crop you are growing. Nature Safe offers high organic nitrogen and phosphorous formulations that can meet your agronomic or economic fertility challenges.

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EQUIPMENT 60 Ft. Toolbars. Moore Built double fold and Elmers 58’ single fold that could be converted to a 60’. Toolbars only.

No row units/gauge wheels. MB is $15,000, Elmers is $3,000. $16,500 for both. 7x7 bar for your next cultivator, tine, flamer, planter, project. Call Matt (320) 296-4100.

Root barrel washer. 9’L x 3’D barrel, 540 PTO powered, 1yr old cedar planks, mobile frame. Very good condition. Can load on trailer. $2500, 48063 location. Andrzejewskifarmsllc@ gmail.com

FARMS/LAND Looking to rent. Looking for organic row crop farmland to rent in Northwest Iowa or extreme Southeast South Dakota.

Been farming organically for 20 years. 712-229-0161 FOR SALE: 11-acre parcel in Fort Atkinson, WI, suited for farm to table farm. Contact Jim at 920-728-5998, 920-563-5742, or email jmsmerriman@gmail.com.

FORAGES Certified organic oat straw and alfalfa hay. Big squares 3x4x7 first and second cutting. Alfalfa with a 4 way grass mix and a little clover. Located SW Iowa. 515-669-8044 MOSA certified organic baleage. First and second year transitional baleage and oatlage available as well. Various cuts and qualities. RFQ ranges from 120 to 180 depending upon the cutting. All forages are a mix of red clover, timothy, and alfalfa. All baleage is individually wrapped, rotocut, 4x5 round bales. Analysis and delivery are available upon request.

Located Near LaCrosse, WI. 608-792-2952.

CLASSIFIEDS Place an ad online or call 888-90-MOSES. mosesorganic.org/organic-classifieds

Organic baleage for sale. We have various cuts and lots of dairy quality with no rain. Prices per ton are based on feed tests and 15% moisture. There are various combinations of alfalfa, clover, and grass. Delivery available. Call 715-921-9079.

GRAINS Organic Rye for sale. Cleaning available. Sno Pac Farms, Caledonia MN. 507-725-5281.

For Sale: Organic Corn/Hay/Oats. Will grind corn. Organic hay, big bales, wrapped and dry. Organic oats. Can deliver.

SW WI 608-574-2160.

JOBS Check the Jobs page at mosesorganic.org/job-postings for dozens of farm-related posts. Here’s an example: Field Crew Manager at PrairiErth Farm, Atlanta, Illinois Ensure daily and weekly tasks are complete. Fieldwork including transplanting, seeding, weed-management, mowing, trellising, mulching, pest management, maintaining irrigation.

Email interest to PrairiErth@gmail.com.

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MISCELLANEOUS Organic Fish Fertilizer 15-1-1, 100% dry water soluble, 5-7 times more nutritious than liquid fish. Will not clog drip irrigation. One lb., 5 lb. or 55 lb. packaging. Humates OMRIcertified, liquid and dry. Can be shipped anywhere via UPS. Frommelt Ag Service, Greeley, IA, 563-920-3674.

For Sale: Tempered, insulated, double-pane glass. Large panes for sunrooms, solar homes, ag buildings, greenhouses or ??? One hundred fifty thousand sold since 1979; 32” x 74” x 1” double-pane only $69.00. If you need glass, now would be a good time! Arctic Glass, www.kissourglass.com, 612-860-8083.

OMRI 15-1-1 & 7-7-7 dry soluble fertilizers. 3-3-3 clean liquid organic fertilizer. Sold by the ton, tote and tanker. Call Dan Beck at 308-940-2020. Nature Safe Organic Fertilizers.

Place your ad to be seen by 15,000 readers! $20 for up to 30 words; $5/additional 10 words New ads posted weekly online: mosesorganic.org/organic-classifieds

Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection Division of Food and Recreational Safety A Wisconsin program to implement the Food Safety Modernization Act’s Produce Safety Rule. Promoting a preventative approach to produce safety: • Produce Safety Alliance Grower Training (with UW Extension) • Free On-Farm Readiness Reviews • Technical assistance and community outreach Web: SafeProduce.wi.gov

Email: safeproduce@wi.gov

Phone: (608) 224-4511

Certified organic hay for sale: 5x6 round bales, organic graze & chop mix from Albert Lea Seed Company. Put up dry with netting wrap. Blair, Wisconsin 608-484-1950 Certified Organic 47# Small Square Bales. Sisal twine. 2nd & 3rd crop red clover/alfalfa/ brome grass or alfalfa/grass mix.

No rain. Tarped or stored inside. $5 each. barringerfamilyfarms@gmail.com 651-755-1600.

Certified Organic Hay and Straw for sale. Dry and silage bales. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd crops. Delivery available. Sno Pac Farms, Caledonia, MN 507-725-5281.

your source for quality seed potatoes

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January | February 2021

Developing Your Agricultural Business Enterprise January 25 | 10 a.m. – Noon | Online February 1 & 8| 10 a.m. – Noon | Online Business classes applicable to a variety of ag operations.

Scheduled for Monday mornings. Hosted by SCORE Twin Cities.

Email twincities@scorevolunteer.org to learn more.

Growing Organic Expertise in Iowa Virtual Workshops January 26 | Noon – 3 p.m. | Sioux City, Iowa February 2 | Noon – 3 p.m. | Seymour, Iowa February 9 | Noon – 3 p.m. | Hazelton, Iowa February 16 | Noon – 3 p.m. | Kalona, Iowa Information from organic experts about the National Organic Program, organic certification and transition, and more for farmers and ag professionals. 515-608-8622.

Cover Crops, Herbs, and Cut Flowers for Pollination and Pest Management January 26 | 1 p.m. | Online Presented by USDA NRCS Science and Technology. Email jennifer.ryan2@usda.gov.

Grazing to Avoid Trouble January 26 | 3 p.m. – 4 p.m. | Online Join FACT and NCAT Livestock Specialist and sheep and goat producer Linda Coffey to discuss some of the problems farmers might encounter while grazing their livestock. foodanimalconcernstrust.org/webinars.

Opportunities with Silvopasture January 27 | Noon | Free | Online Hosted by Michael Fields Agricultural Institute. Learn about the fundamentals of silvopasture and learn how to use a soil health kit and about soil health training programs. MOSES sponsored event. 262-642-3303.

Crop Planning for Market Needs and Profitability January 27 | 6 – 8 p.m | $5 | Online February 3 | 6 – 7 p.m | Online Market farm workshop with Atina Diffley. Call 815-479-7618 or email sdoyel@mchenry.edu.

Illinois Conservation Cropping Seminars Webinar Series January 28 | 9 – 11 a.m. | Free | Online February 4 | 9 – 11 a.m. | Free | Online Learn about ways farmers can improve soil health, use cover crops, and remain profitable. ccswcd.com/ConservationCroppingSeminars Augmentative Biological Control in Protected Culture and Greenhouses January 28 | Noon | Online Hosted by he Illinois University Extension. Call 708-679-6889 or email zgrant2@illinois.edu.

Winter Meat-ings: Cooperative & Community Solutions January 28 | Noon | Online Hosted by Wisconsin Farmers Union, this series focuses on solutions to meat processing struggles in the state. Contact Kirsten: kslaughter@wisconsinfarmersunion.com or call 608514-2031.

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COMMUNITY CALENDAR Find details and event links online:

mosesorganic.org/community Social Media and Online Marketing January 28 | 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. | $ |Online February 4 & 11 | 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. | $ | Online Improve your understanding of social media, online marketing ideas, and tools that may increase sales. Hosted by Cornell Small Farms Program. smallfarmcourses.com/p/bf-205-socialmedia-online-marketing.

Organic Sunflower Production January 29 | 12 – 1:30 p.m. | Online Free presentation and discussion hosted by OGRAIN featuring Josh Engel, Driftless Organics. Register at ograin.cals.wisc.edu/ events/learning-opportunities-winter-2020-21.

Growing Wellness January 26 | Free | Online The farmer-led group meets monthly to provide a safe place to discuss mental health issues. This month, Mary O’Herin will discuss mindfulness and lead the group in simple stretches.

Register at mosesorganic.salsalabs.org/mindfulness.

Emerging Farmers Conference January 29 & 30 | Online The 2021 annual conference’s theme is: Reclaiming Our Voices: for farmers, by farmers, with farmers. This is a multilingual virtual event that is free for farmers. Contact KaZoua at kberry@ thefoodgroupmn.org or call 651-504-8105.

Thinking Through Return on Investment and Partial Budget Analyses February 3 | 12 – 1:30 p.m. | Online Free presentation and discussion hosted by OGRAIN featuring Bryce Irlbeck, AgriSecure Co-Founder & Owner, B&B Irlbeck Farms and Paul Dietmann, Senior Lending Officer, Compeer Financial. Learn more and register at ograin.cals.wisc.edu/events/ learning-opportunities-winter-2020-21.

FSMA Produce Safety Rule Training February 9 | 8:45 a.m. – 5 p.m. | $20 | Online March 13 | 8:45 a.m. – 5 p.m. | $20 | Online While training is required for farms covered by the Produce Safety Rule, all growers interested in learning about produce safety, Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) and the FSMA Produce Safety Rule are encouraged to attend. 651-201-6000.

DON’T MISS YOUR CHANCE TO ACCESS THE BEST ORGANIC PRODUCT LINEUP. At Great Harvest Organics, we have access to a broad source of genetics from different suppliers. This allows us to test, select, and offer a unique combination of products that work for all your organic needs.

Visit GreatHarvestOrganics.com or call 800.937.2325 for our full list of products, subject to availability.

Regenerative Grazing: Fundamentals for Farmers February 11 | 9 a.m. | $30 | Online February 18 | 9 a.m. | $ | Online February 25 | 9 a.m. | $ | Online Join The Land Connection for a 3-part interactive online series that will provide you with a broad understanding of the ins and outs of regenerative grazing. 217-840-2128.

Winter Meat-ings: State & Federal Policy Solutions February 11 | Noon | Online Hosted by Wisconsin Farmers Union, this series focuses on solutions to meat processing struggles in the state. Contact Kirsten: kslaughter@wisconsinfarmersunion.com or call 608514-2031.

Practical Tips for Solar Grazing Sheep February 11 | 3 p.m. – 4 p.m. | Online Join FACT and panelists from the American Solar Grazing Association to discuss new trends in solar grazing, best practices for shepherds and solar developers, and how you can get started.

Learn more and register.

Low-Stress Animal Handling February 11 | 7 p.m. | Online Join GrassWorks, Inc. for this free webinar with Curt Pate. Participation is free, but registration is required for each session.

Email info@grassworks.org for more information.

What is New in Organic Grain Weed Management?

February 12 | 12 – 1:30 p.m. | Online Free presentation and discussion hosted by OGRAIN featuring Lynn Sosknowski, Assistant Professor of Weed Science, Cornell University and Willie Hughes, Hughes Farm, Janesville, WI. Learn more and register at ograin.cals.wisc.edu/events/ learning-opportunities-winter-2020-21.

Spring and Summer Bulbs for Cut Flower Production February 18 | Noon | Online Presented by Illinois University Extension for small farms. Call 708-679-6889, or email zgrant2@illinois.edu.

Reducing Tillage in Organic Grain Production February 19 | 12 – 1:30 p.m. | Online Free presentation and discussion hosted by OGRAIN featuring Erin Silva, Léa Vereecke, Brian Luck, Jessica Drewry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Learn more and register at ograin.cals.wisc.edu/events/learning-opportunities-winter-2020-21.

Growing Stronger: Collaborative Conference on Organic & Sustainable Farming February 22 – 27 | Online This virtual event combines the MOSES Organic Farming Conference, GrassWorks Grazing Conference, Midwest Organic Pork Conference, OGRAIN Organic Grain Conference, and Organic Vegetable Production Conference into one 6-day, multitopic, must-see event for the organic and sustainable farming community! Learn more at mosesorganic.org/ conference or call 888-90-MOSES.