Wed, 27 May 2015
Subscribe to "The Beginning Farmer" YouTube Channel! Do you know what? You don't have to feel guilty about your prices for the products your raise and produce on your farm! It is perfectly acceptable for you to make a decent living on the farm selling your products to farm friends that appreciate the way you raise things and the values your farm has. And, did you know that some of the listeners to this show have figured out a good way to get greens to their chicks in the brooder? Those are just a few of the questions that I attempt to tackle this week. There will also be questions about labels for meat products, minerals for livestock, and how we use our rabbit pens! Thanks to all the listeners who took the time to ask questions, and if I missed your question please let me know and I'll do my best to answer!
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Sat, 23 May 2015
If you've listened to my "Hard Lessons Learned" over the past two years of "The Beginning Farmer Show" it would be very much aware of the fact that I am a beginning farmer. As you watch the video below it will also be painfully obvious that I am very much more a beginning YouTube creator! I had problems with video equipment, issues with audio equipment, and then there was the significant reality that I had know idea what I was doing ... nevertheless Lois Reichert of Reichert's Dairy Air is both a professional cheese maker and interviewee. |
Wed, 13 May 2015
I am a small-scale diversified livestock farmer who doesn't use GPS guided tractors, robotic feed controllers, or large amounts of bio-tech seeds. But, I do very much depend on technology for my farming and marketing. The rotational grazing would not be possible without the use of my polywire electric fence and hi-tech energizers with remote controlled on/off features. In some ways my plans are made every week based on the information gleaned from the weather apps on my farm. The Square App has helped make sales that wouldn't have happened if I was a cash only vendor. And, of course I am very thankful for the Podcast App on my iPhone and all the listeners that use it and other apps!
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Wed, 6 May 2015
"Despite What You've Heard, Small Farmers are Doing Just Fine". That is the title of a recent article by Brent Preston who runs an organic farm with his wife in Canada. What is so striking about this brief but compelling article is that it is completely opposite of the other articles about small-scale farming that have been making the rounds on social media over the past year. Those articles had titles such as, "Don't Let Your Children Grow Up to Be Farmers" or, "Has the US hit peak farmers' market?" (this one is actually a pretty decent read and very informative) and the most recent big splash, "What nobody told me about small farming: I can't make a living". Can an online article have a more depressing title than those! Thankfully Mr. Preston has taken some time to respond and he is offering a different picture of the small-scale farming landscape, one that I feel is a little more representative of the reality. |