The Farmer's Share - Trailer

This episodes gives you an introduction to the show. Learn whos your host, the reason for the show, and what types of farmers will be interviews. 

Transcript

Hi there I’m Andy Chamberlin and the host of The Farmer’s Share.  

As soon as I started to visit farms through my job with UVM Extension I was blown away by the knowledge that farmer’s were willing to share. They are innovative, exploratory, and have built businesses to support their families and others. 

Farmers wear so many hats that they are overflowing with lessons learned, trialing different systems and techniques to make it work in all aspects of life. I found these visits to be really inspiring, energizing and motivating. I also have observed that the average age of farmers is right around retirement age, and the best way to learn is from experience; or to glean that from your peers. 

As a beginning farmer myself I am curious, and thrive on learning from the experts in the field,  literally, in-the-fields of agriculture. I’ve also experienced the loss of some amazing farmers and have been reminded that life is often too short, and the experiences they have learned leave with them. Farmer’s don’t have the bandwidth to be educators, despite being excited to share what they’ve learned - so that’s where I come in. Attempting to capture just a snippet of the life lessons these role models have obtained to share with other growers and help the next generation of farmers. 

I’m from Vermont, and the North East is made up of mostly “small” farms. Small is a general term in the realm of agriculture. Most of my conversations are with fruit and vegetable growers, and pretty much all under 100 tillable acres.  Most of the people I talk with arent farming the entire town as you might encounter with the traditional row crop or large scale ranching operations. 

These “small” farm’s aren’t only in the Northeast though, they are scattered into communities all over. There is a good chance that’s you,  or maybe you know someone not to far away trying to farm in a similar manner. 

Sustainable Agriculture is much more than soil health and this podcast likes to talk about all three aspects or the triple bottom line of sustainability. Social, economic, and environmental. Or People, Profits and our Planet. 

Social: includes the community, education, resources, health, well being and quality of life that impacts the farm. 

Profit: is a necessity, the cash flow has to balance out or you don't have a business. 

And environmentally is often what gets focused on in agriculture because it's easier to talk about and fun to get nerdy discussing the tools we use to cultivate the natural resources, manage land use, conservation, water and air quality. 

If you don’t have one of these three things the farm will fail, and it’s a struggle to juggle work/life especially when your income is dependent on our ever changing climate. 

So with that I introduce you to The Farmer’s Share. A behind the scenes podcast where we visit with farmers and learn what it takes to be a sustainable produce grower across people, profits and our planet.

Welcome to the show and thanks for listening.