2015 Farmbook [#070 Special]

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R E S E N T S

2015

Meet members of the PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE working to bring fresh, delicious food to local eaters

Z Farming A Farm of One’s Own

Women

Special Issue

Hitch Your WAgN: Network encourages women farmers and cultivates community Homesweet Homegrown o Dove Song Dairy o o Blooming Glen Farm MEET THE WOMEN BEHIND:

Tom Murtha with his wife, Tricia Borneman, of Blooming Glen Farm

Take pride in your food Certified Naturally Grown means Real food

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Plowing Ahead Women are shaping the next generation of farmers

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here is much to give thanks for as we gather to share a meal, especially when taking a moment to think about the many hands that have helped cultivate the good food we eat. The hands that raise our food are most likely weathered by the sun, wind and hard work that goes into nurturing seeds into plants, milk from udders and grains into flour. Often, when we talk about the diversified farms that feed our local communities, those hard-working hands belong to women.

This fact is no longer novel—women have been

shaping the landscape of sustainable agriculture for decades. It is more recently, however, that we have begun to celebrate them as visionaries and leaders in their field.

This issue of Farmbook highlights women who represent a greater movement. They are inspiring our domestic and global communities to place more value on the decisions that affect the food they eat, including its place of origin, production values,

environmental impact and, most importantly, how food choices affect the hands that grow it.

As innovators, entrepreneurs and educators, women are not only shaping the next generation of farmers, but also the ways in which we view, purchase and appreciate that which we eat.

I hope you enjoy this issue of Farmbook, dedicated to women in agriculture.

Jennifer Halpin, PASA Chair of the Board Dickinson College Farm Director

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SUPPORT SYSTEM

At left, Sara Runkel, who manages Great Bend Farm, says PA-WAgN allows women to find mentors to connect with. Below, Patty Neiner, left, and her partner, Lyn Garling, run Over the Moon farm and enjoy PA-WAgN’s camaraderie.

Equal Footing The Pennsylvania Women’s Agricultural Network aims to elevate, support women who farm by sara schwartz

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n the past 40 years, the number of women in the U.S. recognized as a farm’s principal operator—the person running the show—has more than doubled. This is progress.

Though the numbers have grown, women still make up just under 14 percent of the overall number, and continue to face issues most male farmers do not. There can be expectations within the family about managing childcare, or the struggles of working with equipment designed for men. And then there are the hard-to-pin-down disadvantages that result from being part of a minority that may not be taken seriously by some. To address this, the Pennsylvania Women’s Agricultural Network (PA-WAgN) was formed by a group of women farmers and Penn State researchers in 2005, working to support, educate and empower the women who wish to farm.

Patty Neiner, the educational program associate of PA-WAgN, says there are over 1,600 people who have joined the organization. She and her partner, Lyn Garling, run Over the Moon farm in Centre County, Pennsylvania, and were part of the founders in 2005. Neiner recommends that any woman considering a career in farming take advantage of the support system and camaraderie that PA-WAgN offers.

“Many states have organizations similar to PA-WAgN, women should find an organization close to them and get involved right away if they are interested in farming at any scale,” Neiner says.

Sarah Edmonds, the Metzgar Environmental Projects Coordinator and Manager of LaFarm, one of several sustainability initiatives at Lafayette College, adds to Neiner’s advice.

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“Find someone who can be a mentor, so you just don’t get into a farm job,” she says. “Try to find a farm internship, one day a week, to see if you like it. Be selective, try to find someone with the same values.”

Edmonds has been an active member of PA-WAgN for three years and places a high value on the support it provides: “I get to go to the networking events, field walks, breakfasts, community dinners—which is awesome.”

Sara Runkel, who manages Great Bend Farm in Port Clinton, Pennsylvania, joined PA-WAgN in 2011 and volunteers on the steering committee. She cites an issue that hit home with her last year—balancing working on a farm with family life.

“We just had a kid in April, and it has been quite the challenge to navigate being the primary farmer and a new parent,” she says. “There are ways to make it work. I think a big part of that is having a supportive network and mentors you can connect with, people who can help you through some of the challenges you might face balancing family life and running a farm.”

Beyond that, she adds that many people might not realize that a lot of farm equipment is designed for men—making it difficult or even unsafe for women to operate. “I think there’s an opportunity for education for women farmers around how to use equipment safely for their bodies for long-term use,” she says, adding that some equipment requires a certain weight on the seat to run it. “And maybe being able to pick and choose from equipment that will do the thing you need it to do, but is easier to manage if you don’t have the upper body strength to wrestle things around.”

But Runkel says this shouldn’t discourage anyone. “If what your passion is, is growing food, you can do it. You can be the one out on the tractor running the farm.”

P HOTOS COURTESY SARA RUN KE L AN D PAT TY NEI NER

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Dakota Borneman Murtha, the daughter of Blooming Glen Farm farmers Tricia Borneman and Tom Murtha, smells freshly pulled fennel.

Growing Together Blooming Glen Farm is a labor of love for farming couple

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by shaun brady

• photos by daryl peveto

sk Tricia Borneman and Tom Murtha of Blooming Glen Farm here that their dreams are attainable, but you have to keep moving forhow they met, and the couple credit a well-crafted mixtape. ward,” Borneman says. “We just kept putting one foot in front of the But almost 20 years since they first got their hands dirty other, accumulating knowledge, but you can never know everything together while urban farming as college students in Philadelphia, it’s you need to know about farming. It really took getting to the level where clear that farming has been a strong thread running throughout their we felt confident enough to do it on our own to know when we had to relationship. take the plunge.”

“I think we were just looking for something to do outside together Blooming Glen grows vegetables without synthetic fertilizers, pesthat felt meaningful and that we were passionate ticides, herbicides or GMOs, and uses compost, cover about,” Borneman says. “The ideas of working for crops, mulching and crop rotation to ensure the longourselves and working with the earth gelled together term health of the soil. Last fall, the farm was certified in farming.” organic. As complicated as the certification process Before leasing the 35 acres that comprise Blooming was, Murtha says, keeping the extensive records reGlen Farm in upper Bucks County in 2006, Borneman quired ultimately helped them as business people.

Perkasie, and Murtha spent several years as nomadic farmers “We realized as we went through the process that it Pennsylvania learning their craft at a variety of farms, moving from makes you a better grower,” Murtha says. “Everyone Philadelphia to Connecticut to Oregon to New Jersey, needs to stop thinking of farming as this romantic nos p ec i a lt y CSA produce and eventually back to Bucks County. Through it all, tion. Not that it isn’t, but it’s really an entrepreneurial Murtha says, “The dream was out there.” business venture. We’ve always been very passioninfo@ That dream—operating their own farm—was ate about making sure that our farm is a sustainable bloomingglenfarm.com realized with Blooming Glen, which now serves a business.”

300-share CSA, three farmers markets and wholesale Borneman calls Blooming Glen’s CSA “the backPASA member since 2006 customers. “We always tell people who come to work bone of our farm,” and emphasizes it as an example of

Blooming Glen Farm

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“We’ve learned to love our red earth,” says Blooming Glen farmer Tricia Borneman. “If you can grow it in this area, we try.”

their commitment to the local community.

Twice a month, the farm’s Chef Educator, Kristin Moyer, does cooking demos during CSA pick-up hours to help members figure out what to do with their crops. In addition to the twice-weekly farm-to-table lunches Moyer provides for the farm’s crew, she also hosts activities and educational opportunities for children of CSA members.

On the late September day when we arrived, she was handing out samples of a delicious squash tortilla soup.

Colleen Clemens, an English professor at Kutztown University, has been a CSA member for five years. “I’ve learned to use all kinds of things that I never imagined I would eat,” she says, mentioning bok choy as a recent success. “In the beginning, joining the CSA was about being able to come and see my food being grown. But I’ve come to know the people that own the farm, so there’s almost a social element to coming. I like to bring my daughter to play and pick. She ate her first strawberry and her first cherry tomato here.”

On weekends, Blooming Glen can be found at Headhouse Farmers Market in Philadelphia as well as the Wrightstown and Easton farmers markets. They also do wholesale business through Zone 7, a year-round New Jersey-based distribution service that connects farmers with restaurants, grocers and institutions. Partnering with Zone 7 allows them to concentrate on growing more of a few items that they do particularly

well, as opposed to their core CSA business, which requires growing a little bit of everything to please their weekly customers, especially core crops like carrots that don’t grow easily on the farm.

“Ten years in, we’re getting to a point where we actually know how to farm this farm pretty well,” Murtha says. “It’s amazing to think about how different everyone’s farms are.”

“We’ve learned to love our red earth,” Borneman adds with a weary chuckle. “If you can grow it in this area, we try.”

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Homesweet Homegrown owner Robyn Jasko grows all of the peppers in her sauces.

Spicing Things Up Robyn Jasko’s “hyper-organic” peppers ensure a farm-fresh hot sauce by shaun brady

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•

photos by daryl peveto

hen Robyn Jasko launched her Kickstarter campaign in lease a two-acre field in Kutztown adjacent to a public park and a cornMarch 2013, her husband implored her not to be upset if field, where they have almost 5,000 pepper plants. Each of the brand’s her attempt to crowdfund a new hot sauce business was three sauces features one type of pepper: Orange Crush, the Scotch unsuccessful. By the time she woke up the next morning, her $850 goal Bonnet Caribbean red habanero; Punch Drunk, the ghost pepper; and had been met, and 45 days later, when the campaign came to an end, she Aramingo, a pineapple mango-flavored sauce, the lemon drop pepper. had raised more than $53,000.

Punch Drunk is produced in partnership with Victory Brewing Com“It was insane,” Jasko says, still incredulous nearly a year and a half pany, which serves the sauce in its Downingtown brewpub. later. “I just thought, ‘Let me put this out to the universe and see what Jasko planted her first pepper plants in the community garden she happens.’ I never thought this company would take off like it has.” founded at Kutztown University shortly before embarking on a book Jasko and her husband, Paul David, both now work full-time productour for Homesweet Homegrown in 2012. She returned to find 300 plants ing Homesweet Homegrown hot sauces from their home in and hundreds of pounds of peppers, which Kutztown. Their products can now be found in more than went into her first sauces. She began selling 100 retail stores, including the Fair Food Farmstand, Harthe sauce at book signing events to positive vest Local Foods and Volta Market. The endeavor grew out of reactions, and then at farmers markets in Jasko’s 2012 book, Homesweet Homegrown, which was itself Berks County. an offshoot of her website, Grow Indie (goindie.com/grow).

While Homesweet Homegrown is not Kutztown, Both encouraged readers to grow their own food no matter certified organic, Jasko describes their Pennsylvania where they live. Jasko grew up gardening with her father methods as “hyper-organic.” They don’t use and kept up the habit even when space and circumstances pesticides in the field or artificial thickens p ec i a lt y proved challenging. ers in the sauces. They even forgo using Hot sauces and “I’ve always been interested in the DIY mentality of learnblack plastic in between the rows of pepper peppers ing how to make, grow and do everything myself, so I’ve alplants, instead opting to use organic paper robyn@ ways tried to grow something,” she says. “Even if it’s just a mulch. That’s an anomaly in their locale, homesweethomegrown.com windowsill basil plant or a garden on a fire escape. It just which is dominated by farmers growing tastes better, and when I learned about the political and enPASA member vironmental aspects, it became our way of living. Now it’s since 2014 exciting to see people really get behind it.”

Jasko grows all of the peppers used in her sauces, rare among even artisanal hot sauce producers. She and David

Homesweet Homegrown

Almost 5,000 pepper plants are grown for Homesweet Homegrown at a two-acre field in Kutztown.

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“I’ve always been interested in the DIY mentality of learning how to make, grow and do everything myself, so I’ve always tried to grow something.” — R O BY N JA S KO genetically modified (GMO) corn and soybeans.

Jasko says that the presence of a female farmer in the community was a bit of a novelty for what she calls the local “good ol’ boy farmers,” but her methods were met with even more head-scratching than her gender.

“A lot of them expect us to fail because we’re not using pesticides, but I refuse to listen to naysayers,” she says. “I think people are curious to see how it works out.”

Homesweet Homegrown hires community members and college students to help pick the peppers three days a week. One regular at the field is Jeri Carroll, a local Community Service Officer who met Jasko when they both served on the Kutztown Environmental Advisory Commission. “We’re pretty environmentally conscious in Kutztown,” Carroll says.

“This property was just GMO corn, but Robyn took it over and was able to take it more organic. It’s a small piece, but everything makes a difference.”

Jasko has ambitious plans for her newly minted brand, beginning

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with taking their hot sauces national and eventually introducing new products. With her Kickstarter success and her background in journalism, marketing and web design, she intends to keep social media an integral part of those plans.

“I love that the walls have come down,” she says. “The Internet makes it possible for people to connect with others around the world, and together we can make anything happen.”

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SHE’S THE BOSS

Dove Song Dairy farmer Lena Schaeffer says she encountered some resistance to being in charge of the farm, but that’s changed: “Now no one thinks twice about talking to the boss, which is me.”

Below, baby goats are bottle-fed.

erty; and the fact that their two daughters were lactose intolerant but could digest goat’s milk.

The children share their mother’s enthusiasm for goats. Just like her mother, Emily, Schaeffer’s youngest daughter, asked for a goat on her eighth birthday.

“Her name was Saddle, and soon enough she had a baby,” says Emily, who still lives and works with her parents on the farm. “It seemed like we went from two to 200 At Dove Song Dairy, raising goats in no time at all.” is a multi-generational calling Schaeffer has become downright evangelical about goat’s milk, exby shaun brady • photos by daryl peveto plaining that the nutritional value is equivalent to that of cow’s milk, and that it’s easier to digest. “We supply a wildlife rescue center that has fed hen Lena Schaeffer turned 15 years old, her father asked [goat milk to] everything from bats to baby bunnies to fauns,” she says. her what she wanted for her birthday. Her answer: “A The farm’s 200 pasture-raised Alpine and Lamancha goats are milked goat.” Her birthday wish was granted, and decades later, twice daily. The Schaeffers use no hormones or antibiotics and don’t feed the goats corn, soy or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). goats still hold a special place in her heart.

Schaeffer, now a grandmother, keeps 200 goats on her farm, Dove As one wanders the pastures (while attempting to avoid the occasional Song Dairy: “They have awesome personalities. You can pick them up head-butt or shoelace-gnawing from the endearing but insistent goats), on your lap and hold them when they’re babies.” the farm is revealed as a testament to Schaeffer’s resourcefulness. A Adorable though they may be, goats have become a serious business rusted school bus has been repurposed as a chicken coop; an old cement for Schaeffer and her family. The Schaeffers have been milking commixer doubles as a grain bin. Seeing an elderly neighbor save the fat dripmercially since 1996 on their 47-acre farm in Bernville, Bucks County. pings from her cooking for a year to make soap inspired Schaeffer’s latest In addition to their raw goat milk, the farm offers a variety of products, endeavor: goat milk soap that she markets under the label “Aunt Lena’s.” including yogurt, cheese and soap made from goat milk; pastured eggs The Schaeffers’ initial plan was for Rodney to work full-time while and meats. They also raise chickens, pigs, ThanksgivLena ran the farm for the first five years, to establish ing turkeys, Christmas geese and guinea fowl. financial security. But after a little more than a year, his The colonial-era farm was founded by ancestors employer closed up shop, leaving the farm as the famof Lena’s husband, Rodney, but after two generations, ily’s sole means of support. Lena has continued to manthe family sold it. Lena’s parents purchased the farm age Dove Song, with Rodney sticking to manual labor shortly after World War II and she and Rodney, who and working a part-time job with the local township.

Bernville, had grown up together in the area, bought it from them Schaeffer says she encountered some resistance to Pennsylvania after they married. a woman being in charge during the farm’s early years, s p ec i a lt y Upon purchasing the property in 1996, Rodney and but has seen a change over time. “When we first went goat milk Lena decided to turn Dove Song into a goat dairy farm into farming, the sales reps always wanted to talk to for several reasons: Lena’s lifelong fondness for the my husband. He’s a very quiet kind of person and he info@dovesongdairy.com animals; the size of the farm, which the family deemed hates paperwork; it’s the grunt work that makes him too small for a cow dairy farm because the couple was happy. But now no one thinks twice about talking to PASA member since 2003 determined to raise their own feed grain on the propthe boss, which is me.”

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