The past few decades have brought changes to Gullah-Geechee communities in the Lowcountry, as ancestral land and farms have been turned into private, gated communities with golf courses as a playground for the wealthy, accompanied by higher taxes. But farming is still a big part of St. Helena’s industry, with both large farms and family operations, such as the Marshview Community Organic Farm, still in operation. 

In many cases, land has been passed down between generations, including the acreage of Tony and Belinda Jones, owners of Morning Glory Homestead Farm. It’s one of the handful remaining on an island that was once full of Black-owned farms. 

A shared journey to farming

Both with Gullah ancestry, Tony and Belinda met while attending South Carolina State University. They reunited at a friend’s wedding after Tony joined the military. 

“We were engaged in 1985. In April, we were married. It was the Anthony and Belinda Show,” she says. “From that point on, I was on the road. We were from one duty station to the next, and we have five children.” 

Tony’s job brought them to bases all over the world, including stints in Germany and Belgium. Belinda noticed that, at each place they were stationed, there was some sort of farming operation, whether a small herb garden or raised beds. She set up her own gardens to teach their kids about farming. 

“We found it very interesting that both [Tony and I] grew up with similar experiences in that our families had gardens and his grandparents had chickens and occasionally had hogs and so did mine,” she says. “I grew up helping my grandparents after school, when I was in first through eighth grade, feeding their chickens, helping with planting in their gardens, harvesting and collecting fruits from their fruit nut trees. They had pecans, black walnut trees, pomegranates, big trees, hard pears.”

The family moved back to the United States when Tony’s father’s health was failing. The Joneses started looking for land after his retirement, but one plot kept coming up on St. Helena Island. 

The 12-acre parcel was originally purchased by a formerly enslaved man in 1868 and passed down through the members of Tony’s family for generations. “His father bought it from another family member in 1968 when that person no longer wanted to be responsible for the upkeep of the property and paying the taxes and everything,” says Belinda. “But they wanted to make sure it stayed in the family.” It had been rented out to other farmers over the years but hadn’t been actively used for some time, instead doubling as a community softball field for the Seaside Sliders.

“We’ve known it’s been in his family for a long time,” says Belinda. “I guess it was more like a family investment, like, ‘Here’s something for you to consider and for your future,’ which was a wonderful thought.”

A family affair

Tony planned his retirement from the military in 2002 and his parents gifted him the family land. Unlike many of the farms on the island, Morning Glory is individually owned by the Joneses, not an “heirs’ property,” a term applied to land shared by heirs of the original owner, usually within the Gullah community and who often don’t have documents such as wills and titles. 

The Jones family cleared land and built a house, wired by Tony’s uncle. They started a small garden for the kids, who were getting involved with the 4H program, following the precision taught to Belinda by her grandfather, a brick mason.

The farm started out with chickens, selling eggs at the local farmers market. The operation has since expanded to include lettuce, okra and collards, plus pigs, goats, turkeys and ducks. The Jones farm follows traditional Gullah agricultural traditions during the island’s long growing season including permaculture, crop rotation and minimal tilling. (Although the Joneses don’t have cows, the Gullah-Geechee are also considered to be originators of free-range cattle, adapting to the landscape in a way that European methods didn’t.)

“At first, we were just doing this to feed the kids, everybody and teach them some great skills that they can always use if they have the inclination to do it later,” says Belinda. “They’re all grown now, but every now and then, they’ll put a seed or two in the ground or a container or something. And when they come back, well, they’re always interested in what we’re doing.” 

And it’s not just the Jones children that connect with the farm. Morning Glory Homestead also offers tours for school groups that bring students up close to the farm’s plants and animals. Family camp weekends allow visitors to stay on the island and learn about notable Black agriculturalists such as George Washington Carver. 

No gates, no golf

Black land loss is sadly nothing new, especially in the Gullah-Geechee communities. Hilton Head Island serves as a cautionary tale: Previously home to a large Gullah population, it is now a mostly white resort town. Officials in coastal Georgia voted for rezoning to allow an increase in home size on Sapelo Island, which residents of the Hogg Hummock community fear will attract the wealthy and force them out. And on neighboring Bay Point Island, a 2020 plan proposed an eco-resort among the unspoiled acreage, which was recently denied. It would have covered an area called Land’s End, surrounded by small farms, which was the site of a Civil War fortification that’s an important part of local history as it’s where enslaved people were freed, well before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. 

“There was a battle there called the Battle of Port Royal, where the Union Navy came up and attacked both of those facing forts and won.The Confederates left, and the Blacks call it the day of the ‘big gun shoot.’ The military term for the newspapers called it the ‘Great Skedaddle.’ So, all of the plantation owners left because now they were under Union occupation,” says Belinda. 

Attention is now turning to St. Helena, where signs around town say “No Gates, No Golf” in response to plans for a 500-acre resort. Farms are being lost to outside developers and economic hardship, especially due to these heirs’ properties. 

A sign protesting development in St. Helena. (Photo: Caroline Eubanks)

“The battle over that is still going on. There are already, within the St. Helena zip code, five golf courses, and two of them are directly on St. Helena; two are on Fripp [Island],” says Belinda. “Then, within Beaufort County, there are over 30 golf courses. So, why do we need one more?”

Family-run farms such as Morning Glory are an important way to protect the Gullah culture of St. Helena Island. Groups such as  the Pan-African Family Empowerment and Land Preservation Network, the Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation and the Penn Center’s Land Use and Environmental Education program are providing residents with much-needed assistance such as business workshops and legal services. 

For Belinda and Tony Jones, it’s not just about land ownership. They consider themselves stewards of this piece of St. Helena and want it to continue for generations as it is. 

“Don’t just kill that land out there just so people can come play on the back nine,” says Belinda. 

The post Meet the South Carolina Farmers Following Gullah Agricultural Traditions appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Three years ago, Montoya started the Pollinator Advocates program. In that short time, she’s trained nearly 50 community members in-depth about the importance of native habitat for pollinators and reintroduced thousands of native plants to yards and parks around Boulder. 

“I am positive that [this led to] an empiric increase in the numbers of insects and hummingbirds in our neighborhoods,” she says. “We are currently working with entomologists on setting up surveys across the city.”

Montoya spent decades improving the well-being of people as a physician’s assistant, treating cancer and auto-immune diseases and supporting patient recovery with herbal remedies. But since retiring in 2015, she’s become dedicated to improving the well-being of “our Great Mother.” 

She first stumbled across a native bee house at the library in 2018 on a walk with her grandson. This prompted a research deep dive, learning from local experts and taking courses at the University of Colorado, and spiraled into community activism. 

“The more I read about these native bees and plants and ecosystems, the more I realized that the reason why pollinators were so in decline is because they lost habitat,” says Montoya. She looked around her own neighborhood—densely packed with houses and “dead sod.” An ecological graveyard.

Photography by Adrian Carper.

Native pollinators need the relationships they have with native plant species to survive, like how monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed. We love songbirds, but they need healthy insect populations to thrive. Montoya points out that a pair of chickadees need 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to raise a clutch of young before they leave the nest. 

In 2019, Montoya started out by giving native plants (donated by Harlequin’s Gardens and Growing Gardens) to neighbors to encourage buy-in. She recruited volunteers to plant in “pocket parks,” small public spaces in densely populated neighborhoods, and would pass along what she’d learned about pollinators. Her Polish and Mexican Indigenous heritage helps her connect with people from diverse backgrounds, building a network of interested community members.

The city-sponsored free Pollinator Advocates (PA) program she launched in 2021 is now “bigger than I could have imagined,” she says. “Time and again, it really keeps me going that so many people are drawn to the work.” The PA program is application-based and open to adults within Boulder, with 20 people per cohort. Organizers try to choose applicants with a mix of backgrounds and experience, to ensure diversity within the group. 

Participants commit to attending a weekly two-hour lecture from June through August with local experts—including professors, researchers and conservationists—who teach about native pollinators and plants, and they spend roughly 15 hours volunteering to plant and maintain pollinator habitat in the city. In the end, graduating PAs receive $150 worth of native plants for their own yards from Harlequin’s Gardens. 

Montoya’s favorite moments are when she’s out with a group of new PAs or volunteers and a bee lands on a flower. In her experience, it’s like watching a baby being born. “You’re gonna think I’m exaggerating,” her face is lit up, joyful, “but everyone goes ‘Ah! Look! It’s a bee! It’s here! It’s working!’ So, there’s little tiny miracles that I never thought I’d get to witness happening over and over again.”

But not everything is miraculous. One of Monotoya’s biggest challenges is that people have major fears of insects. Even nature documentaries “show insects as being these weird, aggressive, pinchy, bitey monsters.” When going into communities to talk about pollinators, she starts with the less anxiety-inducing species: butterflies and hummingbirds. If the conversation is going well, she’ll pull up a picture of a native bee—from the millimeter-long Perdita minima to metallic green sweat bees or a lumbering bumble bee. Seeing these insects in less frightening ways can open people’s minds to the benefits and beauty of native pollinators.

Montoya sees her work as climate action and a way to bring life and biodiversity back to our environment. “It’s a chance to right a wrong as humans,” she explains.

Photography by Adrian Carper.

So, what can we all do to support native pollinators, especially farmers? Talk to your neighbors and advocate for pollinators, plus take these three actions. 

First, stop using chemical pesticides. “You’ll kill the very organisms both in the soil and flying around that you need,” says Montoya. She says that commercial pesticides contain toxins harmful to humans as well. She encourages people to opt for natural pest management options, such as creating a healthy ecosystem or killing invasive pests such as Japanese beetles by knocking them into a bucket of soapy water. For Montoya, the best pest management technique is creating a native habitat, as there are more beneficial insects that can prey on and outcompete harmful ones.

Second, plant regionally native plants around your garden or farm, being sure to have blooms across as much of the season as possible. “Plants that need the native soil don’t really need all the nutrients in a food garden bed,” she says, so she recommends 100 feet to 300 feet between your veggie beds and native plants so they all thrive. 

Third, leave some patches of bare soil—no mulch, no thick cover crop, no plastic—as the majority of native bee species nest in the ground. 

The post Meet the Woman Who Launched a Local Training Program to Save Native Bees appeared first on Modern Farmer.

What if these food-insecure households—more than 13 percent of the county’s population—could access the abundant provision literally dropping from trees in their neighbors’ backyards?

“Food deserts—places like Phoenix, particularly—need to be more proactive about our own generation and capture of resources,” says Jérémy Chevallier, Phoenix resident and founder of Homegrown, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making local food more accessible to the surrounding community. Through a network of volunteers, farmers markets, food banks and grocery stores, Homegrown is channeling excess fruit from homeowners’ trees to food-insecure residents in and around Phoenix.

As a 31-year-old serial entrepreneur with a background in tech and marketing, Chevallier is an unlikely candidate to propose such an earthly solution. But unpredictable food availability during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns prompted him to consider how he could gain more control over his food supply.

“I recognized that many people were starting to pay attention to not only where their food was coming from but specifically getting it from as local of a source as possible… ideally their garden or their neighbor’s garden,” he says. “And I started wondering: How close is my neighborhood to operating as a self-sustaining village?”

It’s a critical question given the state of food access in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located. The county contains 55 food deserts—areas in which residents have limited opportunities to purchase healthy, affordable food—and 43 are in Phoenix.

But despite the area’s issues with drought, the city has access to a canal system that provides a ready source of irrigation. Combined with copious sunlight and compostable waste, this system creates a “goldmine of opportunity” that Chevallier believes Homegrown can leverage to transform the area into a hub of local food production.

When properly maintained, fruit trees can maintain plentiful production for decades—production that exceeds the needs of a single household. And Chevallier quickly discovered that homeowners are more than happy to let someone take the surplus off their hands, especially when they know it’s being distributed to local residents in need.

His efforts are already paying off. During the 2023 citrus season, Homegrown’s core team of six harvested thousands of pounds of excess citrus, raised more than $5,000 for the nonprofit and sold more than $2,600 worth of fruit, juice and homemade marmalades at farmers markets. Wholesale orders from local grocers netted another $1,346.

Money from sales and donations goes directly back into the nonprofit to pay the team and purchase supplies and equipment. As its capacity expands, Homegrown will be able to deliver even more food to underserved residents in the Phoenix area. Currently, the nonprofit donates harvested citrus to partners such as Feed Phoenix, which serves 500 to 700 people every week through free community events, and the Arizona Food Bank Network, a system of food banks and pantries that feed more than 450,000 food-insecure residents across the state.

And fruit is just the beginning: Chevallier also has his eye on the Phoenix Valley’s bountiful pecan trees, olive trees and date palms. But despite the plentiful supply, he’s concerned the area isn’t ready to sustain itself solely on locally grown food—a goal he sees as essential to long-term food security.

The Homegrown team. Photo submitted.

Part of the problem lies in the city’s construction. Pavement and buildings create an urban heat island that raises local temperatures and contributes to drought conditions, making the area unsuitable for consistent food production.

Chevallier says permaculture can address the problem. Short for “permanent agriculture,” permaculture replaces traditional landscaping and gardens with “a diverse, integrated system that doesn’t look like rows of trees over here and crops over here,” he says. “It looks like a forest.” The greenery in these food forests mitigates the heat island effect and creates milder microclimates where food crops can flourish. By combining permaculture with food harvest and distribution, Chevallier hopes to usher in a future where neighborhoods can sustain themselves without the need for commercial food production.

To help the movement toward complete food security blossom in the Phoenix area, Chevallier launched Permascaping.com and started a “Grants for Gardeners” program. Interested hobby farmers and animal keepers can apply for resources to establish and support self-sustaining permaculture installations in their backyards.

“The reason Homegrown exists is to make homegrown food accessible to anybody who wants it,” says Chevallier. “[And] a lot of times, what’s holding people back from doing more [with gardening] is simply the resources.” He wants to use Homegrown’s grants to provide the money and space for local growers to feed themselves and their communities.

Chevallier recognizes that expanding his self-described “idealistic hippie vision” will take time, and Homegrown needs additional support to make it happen. He’s currently on the hunt for more distribution partners to help channel the “absurdly huge” fruit supply into the wider community. Fellow advocates of homegrown food can also make tax-deductible donations to fund the nonprofit’s efforts.

But ideally, Chevallier wants to connect with people with the resources and enthusiasm to bring Homegrown’s vision to life in communities nationwide. “What I would love to do is for Homegrown to … be a chapter-based organization,” he says. “If we can set an example of what’s possible in Phoenix, in one of one of the harder places to do this, then we know that we can inspire people and … expand that model.”

And he’s more than happy to share the processes he’s established over the last year to enable new chapters to take root and spread. “I want people to realize that this food is homegrown, that it didn’t come from a commercially managed and owned grove or orchard, but that it came from someone’s backyard,” he says. “That, to me, is the biggest impact we have the opportunity to make, to bring people together over that shared store of value.”

The post Meet the Arizona Nonprofit Working to Transform Urban Food Deserts appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Gottenborg is working to create a habitat on his ranch that sustains the elk population. The ranch sits on the migratory path of the big animals, and every winter, hundreds of them travel through Eagle Rock looking for food as they move from higher to lower elevations. You could see their presence as a wildlife management success story or a nuisance, depending on how you look at them. Maybe a bit of both. 

“Elk can provide an indicator of how well habitats are functioning,” says Karie Decker, director of wildlife and habitat for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, which works to ensure the animals have the habitat they need to thrive. “They have a direct role on vegetation through herbivory and seed dispersal, create wallows and serve as prey and carrion for many other wildlife species.”

According to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, before Europeans settled in North America, more than 10 million elk were roaming around the US and parts of Canada, but due to overhunting and habitat loss, their numbers dwindled to 40,000 at the turn of the 20th century. 

That’s when conservationists and government agencies began efforts to restore elk populations through protected areas and regulated hunting. Today, Colorado is home to 280,000 elk, the biggest population in the world. Despite these efforts, maintaining that population is a challenge.

Every winter herds of elk come through Eagle Rock Ranch in search of food. (Photo courtesy of Eagle Rock Ranch)

Threats to the elk include everything from climate change to manufactured barriers that can stifle their daily and seasonal movements, land development, traffic, increased human recreational activity, fencing and conflicts with human activities.

“In Colorado, elk and many other species had a very challenging winter in 2022-2023, with a deep snowpack for an extended period, significantly reducing the population in northwest Colorado,” says Decker. “Other challenges to elk across various states include development and the loss of habitat, lack of or low-quality forage, drought, disease and social tolerance.”

Eagle Rock Ranch has been in operation, primarily as a cow-calf operation, for more than 150 years, but Gottenborg, who runs the ranch with his wife, Jean Gottenborg, daughter Erin Michalski and son-in-law Matt Michalski, is relatively new to Eagle Rock, acquiring the ranch about 12 years ago. The elk came with it.

“My predecessor fought them for years,” says Gottenborg. “He did probably everything a landowner could legally do to chase elk off the property, with mixed results. He had propane cannons and salt and pepper shells, and he would get into these big arguments with the Forest Service and CPW [Colorado Parks and Wildlife].”

The Gottenborgs are trying to create safe passage and habitat for the migrating elk. (Photo courtesy of Eagle Rock Ranch)

Elk are not small visitors. Males can weigh up to 700 pounds and stand five feet at the shoulder, females up to 500 pounds and 4-1/2 feet at the shoulder. 

“They are very large, determined eaters,” says Kara Van Hoose, Northeast Region public information officer for CPW. “They will devour hay and other grains left outside for domestic animals and livestock. Elk are known to be destructive in their pursuit of food, toppling over containers, ruining fences and other infrastructure and eating large swaths of crops.”

Still, the Gottenborgs decided to welcome the elk, hoping to make them a benefit to the ranch. Since buying the ranch, the Gottenborgs have been working to diversify their income with the goal of keeping themselves and other ranchers on the land and maintaining the open landscapes. They’ve dipped their toes into agritourism with curated experiences, including fly fishing, ranch tours and eco-tours, and they see the elk as another income stream.

Programs such as Elk Rent in Montana, from the nonprofit Property and Environment Research Center, and the USDA’s Migratory Big Game Initiative in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana pay landowners for providing elk habitat. While there isn’t a program set up yet to do the same in Colorado, the Gottenborgs are in talks with organizations that will pay for the elk to have forage access to their pastures in the winter.

During the winter months when the elk are migrating through the property, the Gottenborgs’ cattle are in Nebraska, so the Gottenborgs don’t need to worry about cows and elk competing for food. By the time the cows are back on the ranch, the elk have moved back up to higher ground. To make it easier for the elk to graze without the risk of getting caught in their fences, they’ve started making modifications to make it easier for them to move up and down the valley. 

“The hope here, too, is that my neighbors are watching me. That they’re following what we’re doing and we can expand the concept, so, eventually, there’s 10 or 12 miles of this valley opened up in terms of easier access,” says Gottenborg.

The Gottenborgs are attempting to diversify the ranch’s income with the elk, agritourism tours and more. (Photo courtesy of Eagle Rock Ranch)

Elk-friendly fencing that can be laid down flat on the ground to support seasonal wildlife passage is expensive. Still, the Gottenborgs believe there is enough interest in the forage access that they’ll be able to make more modifications. They’re not laying down all of the fences, but they can easily track the migration patterns of the elk in the snow, so they lay down specific fencing sections while keeping their gates open.

In 2023, the Gottenborgs also installed five large, shallow-pool structures that hold fresh water with pumps powered by solar panels. The drinkers, as the Gottenborgs call them, provide water in the higher elevation pastures during the warmer months and the shoulder seasons where natural water sources aren’t present and help to distribute wildlife across the landscape better. They’re hoping to install additional drinkers this year.

“The elk have been here a long time, and we’re trying to change our approach to make them an asset,” says Gottenborg.

The post Meet the Ranchers Working to Sustain the World’s Largest Elk Population appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In 2014, a weekend gardening workshop taught by Will Allen of Growing Power changed everything. Her goal for the class was to learn how to improve her soil and figure out how to compost. “Why was my soil so bad that I couldn’t grow tomatoes correctly?” she wanted to know. 

Planting a tray of microgreens—nutrient-dense seedlings that are typically ready in three to seven weeks—and taking them home was also part of the curriculum. When her arugula tray successfully germinated, a seed was literally planted. She loved the quick results and cute miniature results. “I can do this,” she thought. So, she continued to grow them, eventually drafting a business plan, out of which Sweet Peas Urban Gardens was born. “I’m a microgreen farmer because of arugula,” she says. “The workshop turned out to be life-changing.”

She assumed chefs would be interested in microgreens’ nutrient density. She was (and still remains) surprised that they were more interested in the microgreens’ beautiful hues. “Do you have black microgreens?” they would ask. “What about blue?” 

Tami Purdue at the farmers market. Photography submitted.

Happy to have a local grower in Raleigh instead of flying microgreens in from California, many chefs she approached ended their contracts that day and hired her to grow them. Purdue adapted and experimented with germinating intriguing colorful varieties to chefs’ needs. Currently, Purdue grows around 55 varieties, including amaranth, red acre cabbage, red veined sorrel, pea shoots and cilantro flowers.

She began volunteering at the Well Fed Community Garden, where she learned more about gardening, local food systems and people making changes in the Raleigh food community. She also realized how much she didn’t know about agriculture terms. For example, she needed to learn the definition of specialty crops. “I thought it meant interesting stuff like ginger and turmeric and that microgreens were in it,” she says. What she found opened her eyes to how the system incentivizes commodity crops, which are more often grown to feed livestock, rather than to feed people. “The only [crops] that aren’t specialty are the commodity crops, which are sugar and wheat and corn and soy,” she says. “They are the ones that get the funding. It’s a screwed-up mess.”

A year after starting her microgreens business, she purchased a crop box, a modified and automated shipping container, and set it up in her backyard. One person running the shipping container five days a week for three to four hours a day produces three tons of microgreens annually, she says. 

When the pandemic hit, restaurant orders stopped and farmers markets shut down, but the changes brought a silver lining for Purdue. A business in Raleigh had previously been offering local and seasonal produce boxes, but it had pivoted to cater to customers’ desire for all types of produce year-round, sometimes importing it from other states and countries. The produce boxes were no longer representative of the local region, and Purdue saw an opportunity in the market: to provide a produce subscription box filled only with produce from local growers and offering microgreens, too. She started with 15-20 regular subscribers, and she now has more than 75. “Folks love the produce, and the added little microgreen pack in their boxes is the icing on the cake,” she says. 

She works seven days a week and laughs that she still works 80 hours a week, despite leaving her demanding former job. “[Farming] is what runs my life. It’s when I get up to when I go to bed,” she says. In addition to growing microgreens and coordinating subscription boxes, she also hosts workshops at Sweet Peas Urban Gardens on subjects such as how to grow microgreens or mushrooms, and she hosts local school visits and other events. Despite the workload, she’s all in on her second career. “It keeps me wanting to get up in the morning and do my part. I love it.” 

Part of Purdue’s passion is credited to her belief in the power of local and community-based food systems. “We can solve all of the things that are just so blatantly wrong,” she says. “Carbon footprint, food insecurity, clean food, so people aren’t sick— it’s just so in our face … It’s not rocket science to see the answer to it. [We need] more diversity in the food system and less mega food distributors.”

Purdue teaching kids how to grow shiitake mushrooms at Camden Street Community Gardens. Photography submitted.

Purdue is now in her sixties, but she’s not slowing down. She has big plans on the horizon for the next two or three years, including having the farm pay for itself and helping more farmers get paid through the produce subscription boxes. She recently received a grant from the USDA Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovation, which will help her hire a zoning expert to work with her municipality to change the rules so you can operate in your municipality. 

She says that if she can get involved in urban farming, anyone can. “I did it. I’m an old lady with no agriculture experience. You can do it, too.” 

The post Meet the Farmer Who Pivoted in Her Fifties From a Law Firm to a Microgreens Farm appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Steward runs Red Angus cattle on about 1,000 acres of land over the Crow Reservation in Montana, right at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains. She and her husband started ranching in their late 20s, and they’ve been at it for more than 40 years now. “We started with a little ranch north of Gillette, Wyoming. We had nothing—no knowledge, no equipment. We had 65 cows and a book that told us how to pull a calf.” 

Photography submitted by Mickey Steward.

Over the decades, Steward has grown her operation and is now working her third ranch. She’s learned a few things over the years and likens the perfect balance of a grassland to “Goldilocks porridge.” Keeping the ground temperature steady, maintaining adequate soil moisture, moving the cattle at the right pace…it’s a lot to keep in mind. Steward works to keep track of everything by sectioning off her acres with electric fencing and moving her cattle in time with seasonal changes. In the spring, Steward moves her cattle out to pastures that have rested over the winter, but by the long heat of the summer, she’s wary of the ground getting too hot and baking, so she maintains a good litter cover while moving her cattle into shaded areas. “We try to bring back the climax vegetation, to encourage the vegetation to return to its most productive and stable state,” says Steward. It’s a difficult job to keep grasslands across the US in the best shape possible. In part, that’s because they keep disappearing. 

In 2021, roughly 1.6 million acres of grasslands across the Canadian and US Great Plains were plowed over. Since 2012, we’ve lost nearly 32 million acres, some to development, some to the expansion of farming. It’s not the fault of any one farmer, and Steward is quick to point out that ranchers couldn’t survive without farmers. But she does worry about the loss of ranchland. “The grasslands and rangelands are like the lungs of the body,” she says. “We have to have a balance. And we have to preserve those lungs, the grasslands and rangelands and open spaces.” 

Photography submitted by Mickey Steward.

It is tough for ranchers to stick with ranching, however, when large-scale farming can often prove more profitable for the same acreage—at least, initially. “A lot of the new land that’s getting plowed up is soil that isn’t necessarily going to sustain farming for the long term. It’s marginal soil,” says Alexis Bonogofsky, manager of the World Wildlife Fund’s Sustainable Ranching Initiative (SRI). A rancher herself, Bonogofsky raises ewes on about 100 acres outside of Billings, Montana, and works with ranchers, including Steward, to restore their grasslands and make it more profitable to stay in ranching long term. “Preventing that marginal soil from getting tilled up is a goal of ours. If we can make ranching a viable economic activity on that land, we’re helping to keep that grass.”

Keeping grasslands, and ensuring they are performing at their peak, has incredible benefits to wildlife habitat, water quality and carbon sequestration. “Healthy grasslands, with good grazing, can actually increase the amount of carbon that is sequestered in the soil. The northern Great Plains is one of four intact grassland ecosystems in the world,” says Bonogofsky. It can be hard for folks to see the importance of this ecosystem, she says, especially if they haven’t really seen a grassland up close. “The prairies is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems we have. I worry that people don’t understand the value of the prairie, and, therefore, might not be interested in protecting them…Grasslands can support grass-based economies and rural communities and wildlife all at the same time.” 

And one way to keep the grasslands healthy is, perhaps, a little counterintuitive: grazing. 

Grass is meant to be grazed; it’s how the roots get stronger and more secure and how the soil quality improves. But overgrazing, which tends to happen with too many animals on too small a parcel of land, has the opposite effect. Rather than strengthening the soil, overgrazing weakens root systems, resulting in patchy plant clusters and dismal topsoil. Steward worked with Bonogofsky and the SRI program to come up with a rotational program. 

Photography submitted by Mickey Steward.

They keep their herd on a relatively small paddock for a few days, then move them, but not by much. It’s a short shift over, but it allows the grasses that were just grazed enough time to recover. “You can’t run cattle and maintain a stable, diverse grasslands environment if you don’t control how long the grazing lasts, how hard the grazing is and how much physical impact the animals bring to the landscape,” says Steward. “You’re both mimicking the natural environment and encouraging it to be the best that it can be.”

When Steward first started with the SRI program, advisors came to the ranch and did a bunch of soil sampling. At the time, roughly 10 years ago, they found an average of three perennial grasses and plenty of bare ground. Now, a decade later, Steward says there’s an average of 12 native grasses, with a solid ground cover. “It’s about a 30-percent increase in productivity,” says Steward. 

The history of ranching, says Steward, is a fairly extractive one. “There was no real thought for balanced utilization. Now, we’ve gotten ourselves to the point where we need to regenerate the landscape,” she says. “We can make it the best it can be. And I firmly believe that livestock, because it’s a grassland that evolved with grazing animals, is the best way to do it.” 

***

 Learn more about the WWF’s rangeland program, and the conditions which shaped the current state of Nebraska rangeland.

The post Meet the Ranchers Trying to Restore Grasslands appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Here are five of the  farmers, producers and gardeners who struck a chord with readers this year. Check out the full archive of Meet the Modern Farmer stories here.

The milkweed man on a quest to help monarch butterflies

We knew monarch butterflies rely on milkweed for survival, but we didn’t realize just how many people care about milkweed and are taking individual action to support butterfly populations in their own lives.

After seeing the lively discussion sparked by our profile of Steve Bushey, we know better. Bushey grew fascinated with native plant species in Maine more than 20 years ago, after moving to the region. He realized the ecological importance of milkweed, sometimes viewed as a pest plant, and turned to gathering seed pods and encouraging gardeners to plant the flower.

Scores of readers chimed in in the article comments to share stories of how they support milkweed plants and—by extension—monarch butterflies, from Nova Scotia to Florida to California and beyond. Check out the story and join in the discussion here.

The Alaskan brewers making sustainable beer in a remote city

Craft beer aficionados may be familiar with Alaskan Brewing, but this profile of brewery founders Marcy and Geoff Larson went beyond what’s on tap to shed light on the remarkable lengths to which the couple goes to build sustainability into their business.

Spurred by a desire to protect the delicate local ecosystem of remote Juneau, AK, the Larsons have effectively eliminated the majority of the waste that brewing creates, repurposing it back into the beer-making process using cleverly designed closed-loop systems to conserve and recycle resources and minimize their carbon footprint. Read about their story here.

The Indigenous engineer upcycling tequila waste into sustainable housing

Without Mother Earth, “we have nothing,” says Oaxacan engineer Martha Jimenez Cardoso, who internalized the values of sustainability growing up in a farming family in the small Indigenous village of Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec Mixe.

As director of sustainability at Astral Tequila, Cardoso took on the problem of the abundant waste created as byproducts of the tequila distillation process, made up of liquid runoff and fibrous remnants of the agave piña. She helped to pioneer a solution that combines soil with waste byproducts to create adobe-style bricks, which are then donated to build homes for people in the surrounding communities. Read about her story here.

The refugee homesteaders cultivating backyards for food justice

“It’s important to grow food, no matter who you are,” says Ibado Mahmud, who helped start a Phoenix-based collective of backyard homestead gardeners with a mission to grow both food and justice. “Let’s go back to our ancestors and create our own food.”

Mahmud is among the intergenerational group of Black Muslim refugee mothers leading Drinking Gourd Farms, which sources produce from a string of urban gardens and distributes to families who lack the money or time to grow their own healthy food. It’s about sharing knowledge, supporting an urban community, and maybe someday expanding into a farm-size parcel of land. Read about their story here.

The women making waves in Maine’s tough lobster industry

From an early age, Krista Tripp knew she wanted to captain of her own lobster boat. “But, as a girl, my parents didn’t really take me seriously,” she says. Lobstering is a grueling, physical field that’s traditionally dominated by men—but women are increasingly carving out space on the water for themselves.

Our profile introduces some of those women, from 13-year-old aspiring lobsterwoman Marina Landrith to Heather Strout Thompson, who chose the sea over the blueberry fields. “I might not do things the exact way a man does things,” she says. “But I can get the job done.” Read the full story here.

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These five are just a few of the many people we’ve profiled in 2023, and over the preceding years, who are making unique contributions to the food system. To read more, check out the full archive of Meet the Modern Farmer stories here.

Do you know of someone we should feature in the new year, or are you curious about a topic we should explore in 2024? Let us know using this form.

The post Year in Review: The Farmers and Food Folk We Met Along the Way appeared first on Modern Farmer.

It’s a lot of work and a lot of organization. But it’s work that Giroux happily chooses. From 2013 to 2016, she was the New York City restaurateur David Bouley’s farmer, growing more than 300 types of herbs in downtown Manhattan. But then in 2017, Giroux and her pastry chef husband moved to Litchfield County to start their own farm. She quickly identified problems within the distribution system. 

“Small- to medium-sized farms rely on sales just like other businesses. Growing the product isn’t the problem,” says Giroux. “The problem is finding the channels of distribution. Food hubs bridge the marketing, sales and distribution channels while taking out any middlemen.”

In a feasibility study conducted by the nonprofit Partner Sustainable Healthy Communities in 2015, the local farmers expressed a common desire for a Food Hub. 

So, Giroux started one. 

Renee Giroux. Photography by Winter Caplanson.

The NWC Food Hub brings local farmers together to create community, collaborate and understand the bigger issues they face. “It can be really challenging for small farms to hire the appropriate staff and meet the needs of our overall community,” says Giroux. The overarching goal is to bridge the gap between the food insecure, food pantries, farm-to-school projects and feeding the general population. 

“My mission is so simple: It is to raise awareness about small family farms throughout New England and beyond; to show how strong and mighty and resilient we all are; how we are the backbone and the fabric to a lot of our communities,” says Giroux. “Every morning you should think of your farmer.”

In Connecticut, small farms represent 28 percent of the total farms, many of which are first-generation farms. Small, first-generation farms are often susceptible to common business start-up issues. The NWC Food Hub aims to help the local agriculture sector’s 200 farms overcome common hurdles, such as establishing social connections and distribution channels. 

Additionally, Giroux advocates for fair farmer pricing. Whether the food is sold to wholesalers or donated to nonprofits, the farmers receive the same price for their produce made possible through grants. 

Renee Giroux. Photography by Winter Caplanson.

The local farms Giroux works with grow more than 100 different varieties of local produce, including microgreens, cut greens, corn, apples, cucumbers, collard greens, kohlrabi, tomatoes, chicory, endive and more. 

This past year, the NWC Food Hub distributed more than 100,000 pounds of produce to 16 food pantries, 24 schools and numerous restaurants and grocery stores. All produce is uploaded weekly, on Sundays, by the farms, and the ordering platform opens up Monday for nonprofits and wholesale buyers to place their orders. “Everything is fresh in, fresh out. By working together as a farm team, we post what we have available, the orders are placed and, within 24 hours, it is delivered to the consumer, on children’s plates or being handed out at the food pantries,” says Giroux. 

Crop planning and future projections are made in the offseason by larger food pantry directors. The majority of Food Hub’s funding comes through a Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program grant, with additional donations provided by local nonprofits and individuals. They are currently funded through 2025, “but, ideally, we’d like to break even by 2024 so we don’t have to rely on donations,” says Giroux. 

Finding pantries to which to donate the excess produce is the easiest part of the job, as they are small and do not have much funding to purchase fresh produce to serve their clients. According to the nonprofit United for Alice, in 2021, of Connecticut’s more than 1.4 million households, 552,710 (35 percent) had incomes below the ALICE Threshold of Financial Survival. (ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed or earning more than the Federal Poverty Level but not enough to afford the basics where they live.)

NWC Food Hub also works with ProduceRx and NourishRx to provide curated boxes of farm-fresh produce for patients with specific medical needs. Giroux coordinates with Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, CT, which focuses on getting nutritionally dense food to patients with underlying health conditions, specifically Type 2 diabetes. Numerous studies show that “produce prescriptions” (under the umbrella of “food as medicine”) positively affect patients’ diets, decrease food insecurity, increase disease management and reduce overall healthcare costs.

After seven years of ups and downs, NWC’s Food Hub model is now running smoothly. “When it started, it was just me, boots on the ground, doing everything,” says Giroux. She was the entire enterprise, handling invoicing, deliveries, taking orders and forging connections. The NWC Food Hub now has a small network of volunteers, two drivers and a coordinator to communicate with farmers as well as solve any last-minute order issues. With the NWC Food Hub running in a higher gear, Giroux’s own Subaru should get some rest. 

The post Meet the Farmer Championing Fair Food Prices While Fighting Food Insecurity appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In 2001, executive director Kanekoa Shultz, a marine biologist and seaweed expert, helped rebuild the adjacent Paepae o Heʻeia fishpond. Originally constructed by Native Hawaiians hundreds of years before colonization, the effort resurrected a 1.3-mile rock-walled lagoon used for aquaculture. Yet, when heavy rains repeatedly choked the basin with sediment, Shultz realized that the pond was but one piece of a larger ecosystem in dire need of rehabilitation.

Six years later, Shultz went on to establish Kakoʻo ʻOʻiwi (the name roughly translates to “Helping Native Hawaiians”) on an untended, 405-acre parcel located directly across from the fishpond. Since then, he’s led the incremental effort to restore the fallowed land into loʻi kalo, the traditional Hawaiian irrigation system used to grow kalo, the Indigenous name for taro.

Enlisting a staff of 16 and an army of volunteers, the organization cultivates the crop in knee-deep water diverted from Heʻeia stream. In addition to supplying the community with fresh corms and spinach-like leaves high in calcium and fiber, an on-site kitchen churns out value-added products such as poi, or taro pounded into a starchy staple, and kulolo, a traditional pudding sweetened with coconut milk and raw sugar.

Kakoʻo Oʻiwi’s efforts, however, extend far beyond promoting Native farming traditions and nourishing the community. Its farming practices also help re-establish a vital ecological role: The irrigated ponds absorb floodwater and filter sediment flowing to the sea while the crops create wildlife habitat and curb invasive plant growth. As stewards of both island culture and terrain, “we’re restoring pono—restoring balance to the land,” says Shultz.

Shultz (right) leads volunteers in shredding taro. (Photo: Naoki Nitta)

Funded largely by private and community donors, it’s a tall order for the scrappy non-profit, which operates under a 38-year lease granted by the state in 2009. The focus on conservation, however, is imperative, he adds, for undoing decades of neglect and mitigating the challenges of a rapidly changing climate.

Heavy, angry water

As a primary food source, kalo holds a reverent place in Native Hawaiian culture, playing a prominent role in its origin story. Before the prevalence of large-scale, Western agriculture, “every valley that had a stream had a kalo plantation,” says Derek Kekaulike Mar, as he helps peel piles of raw taro tagged for a batch of kulolo. A childhood friend of Shultz’s, the frequent volunteer works for a subsidiary of the Hawaiian Native Corporation, a Native-run, nonprofit community impact organization and a Kakoʻo Oʻiwi donor.

Hawaiians traditionally divided land into ahupuaʻa, or self-sustaining units of agricultural production that stretch between the mountains and the ocean. Along with taro patches, the triangular swaths encompassed a range of terrain, from upland timber forests to rain-fed crop fields and orchards in the lowlands. And in many places, they extended to a fishpond—ancient Hawaiians built nearly 500 throughout the islands—with all the pieces connected by a stream.

Recent research has shown that this agricultural system, while only consuming six percent of land, allowed the islands to be self-sufficient in feeding an estimated pre-colonial population of 1.2 million. The study, which was conducted through Kamehameha Schools, a private school system dedicated to educating children with Hawaiian ancestry, concludes that the same methods could feed 86 percent of the state’s current population of 1.4 million—a striking finding for an archipelago that now imports nearly 90 percent of its food while exporting 80 percent of its crops.

Staff member and Farmer Specialist Nick Reppun steams loʻi. (Photo: Naoki Nitta)

Within each ahupuaʻa, a network of taro ponds functioned as surrogate wetlands, regulating the flux of water and removing contaminants flowing downstream. “So the health of the kalo is an indicator of health for the whole ecosystem,” Mar explains.

Colonization and the imposition of private land ownership created seismic shifts in both Native culture and the landscape. As large-scale sugarcane and pineapple plantations began flourishing in the mid-19th century, they consumed land by the tens of thousands of acres and siphoned water supplies, eventually drying up the majority of loʻi kalo throughout the islands. 

In the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia, numerous taro fields had laid fallow since the 1940s, until Kakoʻo Oʻiwi began restoration. Those efforts, however, are integral to a greater system: They bridge the work of Papahana Kuaola, an educational non-profit that keeps upstream waters and forests free of debris and invasive, non-native flora, with the working fishpond located downstream.

Together, the triad works to maintain a clean water supply for the estuary while nourishing a range of Native crops. Besides kalo, both inland organizations cultivate ulu (breadfruit), sweet potatoes and bananas, while the ponds nurture herbivorous fish such as ‘ama’ama (striped mullet), awa (milkfish) and pualu (surgeonfish), as well as crab and shrimp.

Loʻi kalo at Kakoʻo ʻOʻiwi. (Photo: Naoki Nitta)

The traditional agricultural system also supports native fauna, including the endangered ‘alae ‘ula (Hawaiian moorhen). The red-beaked waterbird, whose population hovers around 1,000, nests in taro patches, making the loʻi kalo a crucial habitat.

Increasingly erratic weather patterns have also made taro farming central to maintaining the health of the ecosystem. The past eight years have brought “more rain bombs,” says Shultz. While rain falls with less frequency, each storm carries more volume, upping the potential for “heavy, angry water.”

Because flood pulses suffocate the estuary, the health of the fishpond and reef beyond is directly dependent on the filtration system, says Shultz. Moreover, kalo fields are remarkably effective at absorbing floodwater. “One acre can bank about a foot of water,” he says. “If you multiply that over a hundred acres—that’s over 30 million gallons of water [banked] per rain event.” Achieve that, and “now you’re actually starting to create some [meaningful] climate adaptation.”

Building a balanced system

Currently, the 50 acres of fields yield approximately 600 pounds of taro a week. Although Shultz’s goal is to triple production, scaling up has its challenges: Cultivation is a year-round, labor-intensive job that involves planting 1,000 bulbs weekly, in standing water, and harvesting an equal amount.

In addition to selling poi and kulolo, the farm is diversifying its revenue stream by incorporating non-traditional practices. “We’re taking care of the land that’s sustained us for thousands of years—in a contemporary system,” says Shultz. “It’s a balance,” much like him, he adds—a Native Hawaiian and a blend of other ethnicities. Along with a mushroom-growing facility in the works, he’s added high-value timber such as mahogany trees; 90 heads of sheep that mow down weeds and other invasive plants; and pigs that consume food and crop scraps such as tough and hairy taro peels. “We’ll be eating those buggers soon,” he says of the livestock. “We sell them, we trade them, we give them away.”

Despite these endeavors, the non-profit currently remains 90 percent dependent on grants. Still, “the biological returns far outpace our agricultural revenues,” says Shultz, and the investment in the land extends far beyond the reaches of the ahupuaʻa.

Between food sovereignty, climate resilience and reviving cultural practices, “you can put all kinds of labels” on these efforts, says Shultz. But, ultimately, they all support one goal: “It’s the ability for us to determine our own future.”

The post Meet the Taro Farmer Restoring an Ecosystem Through Native Hawaiian Practices appeared first on Modern Farmer.

As her area was on lockdown during the pandemic, Bigelow gravitated towards an old hobby from her childhood: playing The Sims computer game. Remembering that it used to take her hours to complete, she thought it was a good way to pass the empty hours. One of the tasks in The Sims Four is keeping a virtual bee box. This got Bigelow interested in real-world beekeeping, leading her to take an online beekeeping course. 

The class got her thinking about how, as a Black person, she might have to be more cautious in certain situations than her non-Black counterparts and how some parts of beekeeping were challenging in ways some might not have considered. 

While there are no current numbers on how many African American beekeepers exist in the United States, the history of Black Americans farming, and even beekeeping, runs deep. There are letters from George Washington indicating that people he enslaved kept hives to provide Mount Vernon with honey. And at one time, all students at the historic Black college Tuskeegee University in Alabama were required to take beekeeping classes. 

But today, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, less than one percent of farmers identify as African American. Compare the 45,000 Black farmers today to the almost 950,000 that existed 100 years ago in the United States. This decline also includes a decrease in rural land owned by African Americans, which profoundly impacts access to beekeeping. 

Living in a condo in Washington, D.C., Bigelow doesn’t have access to her own land and worked with the DC Beekeepers Alliance, which connects apiarists in the city with those willing to host a hive on their private property. But as Bigelow contemplated this, other thoughts came to mind. 

“I found myself … asking myself questions that I knew no one else in the class was having to ask, or at least my non-Black counterparts,” she says. “As somebody who wasn’t attached to an organization or did not have my own backyard to be able to put a hive, I found myself struggling and asking myself questions about where did I feel safe. Because at that point it was early 2021. So, my mind was still very much on a lot of the conversations that [had] been happening, especially in the summer of 2020.”

As Bigelow thought about beekeeping, she realized that her safety as an African American could be jeopardized as she went onto other people’s properties to tend her hives. Her mind kept going back to other Black Americans in the news who had done perfectly legal things in public but still had the police called on them. 

“It made me uncomfortable to actually be in a public space at that point and to feel safe,” says Bigelow. “If I go on someone’s private property, my assumption was that most of the people who would be willing to host would probably not look like me. Then there’s also the conversation of if I’ll be safe going into someone’s private property, with permission, but nervous if their neighbors would try to call the cops.”  

The lack of land and the decline of African American farmers also pose another issue: finding mentors who can guide others through Black beekeepers’ unique challenges. Mentoring in the beekeeping community is very important because beekeeping is like farming, says Bigelow. It’s not an exact science and novices can’t learn everything from a book. There’s a lot of hands-on experience that needs to take place. Having someone to walk a new beekeeper through issues is imperative to the learning process. 

Bigelow discovered one such issue in her training while using a smoker, an essential tool used to calm agitated bees. 

“As I started beekeeping, I realized that using a smoker, which is a common practice of beekeeping, isn’t great for a person who can’t wash their hair every time they use one,” she says, referring to the fact that African American hair tends to be dry and isn’t shampooed daily to help reduce breakage. “And so, I found myself encountering beekeeping in a way that very much, you know, dealt with my lived experience as a Black woman, whether that comes to my literal body or my fears or concerns for the safety of my body.”

A smoker is used to calm agitated bees. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Beekeeping While Black is Bigelow’s way of creating a community while also helping provide mentorship and inspiration to African Americans considering taking up this unique skill. 

Currently, the website houses The Honey Book, a directory of Black beekeepers in the United States. While it’s not a comprehensive list, Bigelow happily adds new beekeepers who contact her via the website or the site’s Instagram account. Future plans include a mentor matching program, along with hopefully one day taking up research and policy goals that influence beekeeping and the avenues associated with it.

Since Bigelow doesn’t currently have access to additional land, she can only maintain one hive. But that, or the fact that she has a full-time job outside of beekeeping, doesn’t deter her from supporting others. 

“What I want people to know about Beekeeping While Black is that this is a space to create community. It’s a place where Black beekeepers can get the support that they need and to be able to feel seen,” she says. “I want it to be a place where we can have the conversations that many of us feel like we don’t get to have.”

As a relatively new beekeeper, Bigelow says she still has a lot to learn from others. “I see it as a journey of being able to [provide] resources to people to the best of my ability, but . . . also being able to bring beekeepers together so that we can learn and co-create together.”

“It’s a place where Black beekeepers can get the support that they need and to be able to feel seen.” (Photo courtesy Karyn Bigelow)

Bigelow’s background also helped enhance her view of how diversity can bring a new light to an age-old craft. 

“I think [diversity in beekeeping] is also really important because we need to move towards a food system that is more sustainable. And I can say anecdotally I find that Black and brown beekeepers tend to have more sustainable practices. So, I think it’s important. I really feel like some education can be had where farmers from different backgrounds are able to learn from each other, and that includes with beekeeping.”

Bigelow hopes she’s created an online place for Black people to find content and community with others who also have a passion for keeping bees. While she knows that in-person mentorship is important, she believes that having an online support system is important, too. As Bigelow continues developing the website (there are hopes for an incubator program one day), she knows that the art of beekeeping can help people in many ways. 

“I have learned so much about life watching the bees. And one of those things that I’ve learned is about the beauty and community when the community is focused on the same mission. No one bee is more important than the other or their survival. I think that’s a beautiful showing of what a community could look like when it comes together for a common purpose.”

The post Meet the Urban Apiarist Creating Community for Black Beekeepers appeared first on Modern Farmer.