On a beautiful early summer day, more than 100 people gathered at Jody and Crystal Manuel’s Prairie Grass Ranch for a Montana Organic Association Farm Day to learn more about dryland cropping, cover-crop grazing, soil health, and control of the organic farmer’s nemesis: bindweed.
Read more: Out in the Fields – Blending Farming and Ranching in the Drylands of the Northern Great Plains
 
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Range rider Bree and her horse Shasta out for a morning’s ride. (Source: Hilary Anderson, Tom Miner Basin Association) While traditionally range riders – “cowboys” of old – were men, many of the range riders in the Tom Miner Basin today are women. Audio Interview Bree Morrison tells about her life as a 
Montana is rightfully called Big Sky Country, and it’s not unusual to drive 3 or 4 hours to attend a meeting, visit friends, or join a field day to learn about ranching or farming. On a hot and smoky day in August, Anderson Ranch in the Tom Miner Basin, near Yellowstone National Park, hosted several dozen folks who came to learn more about resilient ranching. 
We all imagine that the beef we eat came from a cow living a happy-go-lucky life, frolicking on lush green pastures until a gentle and painless end. Obviously the average American does NOT want to meet their dinner while he/she is still standing. However, the idea that you could, if you wanted, meet the farmer who raised your dinner, is not so far fetched. 
Enclosed by surrounding mountain ranges, where black cattle and white sheep graze in sunshine filtered through a slight haze of wildfire smoke, a community comes together to concentrate on healthy animals, healthy soil, and healthy families. 
When one of the world’s experts on soil health and land resilience (from Auckland, NZ, a 9,500 mile trek) is scheduled to lead a day-long workshop just 170 miles away, you do everything you can to be there! 
A newly-released e-book explores a farm owned and managed by two engineers who combine traditional low-tech methods of animal husbandry with high-tech, solar-powered solutions. Download your free copy here. 
Erick and Wendy Haakenson, and their son David and his wife Kristin, are farming in a floodplain skirted by the Snoqualmie River. An active farm nearly for 25 years, Jubilee Biodynamic Farm is home to one of the largest and oldest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs in the state. Jubilee is an intensively managed, diversified farm comprised of 14 acres of fruits, vegetables, and grains and around 35 acres devoted to beef cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks. 
While imagining that the beef they will be eating came from a cow living a happy-go-lucky life, frolicking on lush green pastures until a gentle and painless end, the average American does NOT want to meet their dinner while it is still standing. However, the idea that you could if you wanted, or at least you could meet the farmer who raised your dinner, is not so far fetched. 
Ohio this week became the first state to gain approval to sell meat from small, state-inspected slaughterhouses across state lines — a critical step toward rebuilding processing infrastructure for small-scale, regional meat and poultry producers. |
Book of the MonthFood From the Radical Center: Healing Our Land and Communities By Gary Paul Nabhan 
America has never felt more divided. But in the midst of all the acrimony comes one of the most promising movements in our country’s history. People of all races, faiths, and political persuasions are coming together to restore America’s natural wealth: its ability to produce healthy foods. In Food from the Radical Center, Gary Nabhan tells the stories of diverse communities who are getting their hands dirty and bringing back North America’s unique fare. Read on...  The Voice of Eco-Agriculture North America’s premier publisher on production-scale organic and sustainable farming. Learn more here. A Video You Don't Want to Miss!Clara Coleman, daughter of renowned farming pioneer Eliot Coleman, has a clear plan for a new collaborative farming model called the ARC Farming Project—Agrarian Resource Collaborative Farming. 
It is in response to today's particular agricultural challenges and embraces farmer entrepreneurial diversification. Watch the video here. LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW YOUR FOOD GETS TO YOUR PLATE
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