Blog

    Barnraiser is the community to power the food movement, one project at a time. To learn more or check out the stories and projects, CLICK HERE!

Nearly every state has a "Right to Farm" act, which basically protects farmers from nuisance lawsuits like when your cows moo and it's too loud for your vacation-home neighbors to tolerate. This act, however, is being pushed into other endeavors concerning deregulation and agribusiness. Listen to John Ikerd lay the smack down.

Plucked from Civileats Maritime museums are nostalgic places full of black and white photographs of old sails and rugged seafarers. Ornate boats hint at centuries of technological progress and suggest that craftsmanship has suffered as a result. But the old became new again recently at the Hudson Maritime Museum in New York, when a sailboat […]

Ever heard of an in-residence program where you actually get to keep the residence??! That would be the case in this innovative new model coming out of Detroit. Write A House accepted applications from working, "low-income" writers earlier this spring, which included writing samples and a letter of intent. Whoever wins (to be announced this month) […]

from the comfort of your own home.  The Cornell Small Farms Program and Cornell Cooperative Extension offer a menu of 12 online courses each Fall and Winter to help farmers develop their businesses. These 5- to 7-week online courses cost $200 total for up to 4 members of the same farm to attend. They are an […]

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At the supermarket near his home in central Virginia, Tom Burford likes to loiter by the display of Red Delicious. He waits until he spots a store manager. Then he picks up one of the glossy apples and, with a flourish, scrapes his fingernail into the wax: T-O-M. “We can’t sell that now,” the manager […]

Cary Fowler is a man with a mission. A mission that is about securing the foundation of nothing less than earth's survival in the form of the world's smallest currency: seeds! The scientist and tireless idealist Fowler has set out to collect all existing grain types in an enormous 'cereal bank' on the Norwegian archipelago […]

CHICAGO, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Cargill Inc has suffered more than $90 million in damages from China's rejections of U.S. corn containing a genetically modified trait developed by Syngenta AG, the grain trader said in a lawsuit on Friday. The damages are a "direct and proximate result" of Syngenta's decision to sell its Agrisure Viptera […]

October 17-19th San Rafael, CA After a quarter-century, the Bioneers community of leadership has learned a thing or two about breakthrough solutions and what directions to head in. Like a magnifying glass channeling sunlight, the “Growing The Movement” theme is designed to help focalize this wealth of community wisdom, skillfulness and vision into beams of […]

Music from farm-based people! Give it a listen!  

Watch the Concert Live! If you're not joining us in Raleigh this year, you can still help celebrate from home. Watch live in HD on AXS TV starting at 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific. Or you can watch our HD webcast, Farm Aid 2014 Presented by Amy's Kitchen starting at 5pm Eastern on FarmAid.org. Willie Nelson's SiriusXM channel, Willie's […]

www.uspspropertiesforsale.com It seems like a sinister art project, but it's not. The USPS is selling off properties, trying to make up for the estimated 8 billon dollar a year in losses. By some accounts, this represents a failure of state socialism, and a need for privatization. For others it represents a moment of portentous flux, where a […]

Check out the schedule here. BREAKING NEWS FROM YOUR FAVORITE HORSE PULLED THEATER… This fall The Rural Academy Theater will clip clop its way into your back yard and heart with a full array of exciting new material to inspire, charm, divert and incite. The ambassadors of The Slow Theater Movement bring with them an […]

The Genesee County Land Bank is great model for dealing with foreclosures and vacant lots. Check them out! The Land Bank's mission is to restore value to the community by acquiring, developing and selling vacant and abandoned properties in cooperation with stakeholders who value responsible land ownership. Adopt A Lot program (pdf)  

10 Reasons to Oppose ‘Right to Farm’ Amendments  I grew up on a dairy farm and currently live in a small town in a farming area. I have spent my 50-year professional career working in agriculture, mostly with farmers and people in rural communities. I think farmers have the same “right to farm” as other […]

get all of the details HERE! Our 2014 It Takes a Region conference will be held November 11-12 at the Saratoga Hilton in Saratoga Springs, NY.  Pre- conference sessions begin November 10. This year's theme: REGION-SIZING: MAKING IT WORK!What does it take to make our food system strong, resilient and region-sized?  What does real collaboration and cooperation […]

[vimeo 102083561 w=500 h=281] more short films here

National Young Farmers Coalition and Rural Coalition: Young Farmer Mixer9/14/2014 @ 4:00 pm - 8:00 pmOld Milburnie Farm, Raleigh, NC Join us for a Farm Aid after-party with wood-fired pizza, cold brews and the company of fellow young and beginning farmers from central North Carolina and beyond. Visit www.youngfarmers.org/farmaid for more info & RSVP.

These old barns are good for more than reclaimed wood and weddingsBy Lori Rotenberk, 3 Sep 2014 for Grist Jeff Marshall rolls along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, counting barns on the horizon — 50 so far today, many of them disintegrating. Marshall heads the National Barn Alliance, a nonprofit that works with advocacy groups across the country. […]

Meet Daniel MacPhee and Corinne Wesh; farmers of seeds, trees, fruit, produce and now American guinea hogs at Blackbird Rise Farm in Palermo, Maine. They recently purchased four American guinea hog piglets to use as little tractors on their farm. These rare heirloom pigs, prized for their fatty meat (which is quite red), are rooting around to clean out the tough, […]

    Joseph E. Stiglitz, Politico July/August   I hadn’t realized when I was growing up in Gary, Indiana, an industrial town on the southern shore of Lake Michigan plagued by discrimination, poverty and bouts of high unemployment, that I was living in the golden era of capitalism. It was a company town, named after […]

Click HERE to watch the videos! The Savory Institute's Annual International Conference, was held in London on August 1st and 2nd. This central location allows our partners and collaborators from around the globe to join us and contribute to this special event. We spotlighted grasslands for all their under-appreciated beauty and value. We also foster conversations around the […]

Float on New York: A Waterborne People’s Climate Convergence August 31 - September 13, 2014  160 Miles in Human Powered Vessels in 2 Weeks A Climate Justice Flotilla   A fleet of full-scale paper boats is going afloat on the Hudson River, charting a course from upstate New York to New York City in a […]

  Fair Trade, like coffee, is complex, rich and fascinating. We now have available a new educational resource: The History of Authentic Fair Trade.  In comic book format we present a version of Fair Trade that is shared by many Equal Exchange colleagues, allies, and partners.  We hope that by presenting the material in this way, […]

Farmers, Farm owners and land trusts send us your RFPs, job openings or proposals here. Sample Farm Job/ Land Opportunities: Raw Farmland for Lease Warwick, NY (8/31/2014) Reise Farm: Request for Proposal Puyallup River Valley, WA (8/8/2014) Year-Round Vegetable Grower/Farmer Wanted to Start CSA Maitri Farm Amenia, NY (7/16/2014) Farm for Sale James City County, […]

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/92406649] Over Grow The System has been dedicated to raising awareness around our food system, sustainability, and how to live a life that is more in tune with nature. We recognize that many aspects of our current systems in place around the globe are causing much of the environmental destruction and social issues that […]

Wake Forest University Wednesday, September 10th 7-8:30 PM. FREE!  This exciting panel discussion will provide insights into the importance of biodiversity and sustainable land and water use to a resilient food system. Individually, and collectively, these entrepreneurs are contributing to the economic vitality of our region by offering value-added choices to the marketplace. !!FREE SIGN […]

Annual meeting is coming right up! The Draft Animal-Power Network is looking for volunteers for the Annual Gathering!Sept 26-28th, 2014 Cummington Fairgrounds, Cummington MA http://www.draftanimalpower.org/ The Annual Gathering brings together farmers, loggers, etc around the use of draft power - we will have horse and oxen demos, community meals, farmer-to-farmer conversations, music and more. Don't […]

Yes!  SEEDS OF TRUTH – A RESPONSE TO THE NEW YORKERby Dr. Vandana Shiva(A response to the article ‘Seeds of Doubt’ by Michael Specter in The New Yorker) I am glad that the future of food is being discussed, and thought about, on farms, in homes, on TV, online and in magazines, especially of The […]

Practical Farm IdeasThis is our 90th issue, and features another 45 innovations to add the the total 4,200 "Made it Myself" farming ideas since 1992. With a growing readership - 12,000 farmers are currently reading each issue - farmers hang on to each issue as it's published. Too good to throw away.         Grass […]

Are you a farmer with a good experience drafting a document? Or, have you worked with or helped a farmer through a positive document drafting experience?    We need stories of those who’ve developed a useful legal document firsthand- either on their own or with guidance.  We are interested in many different legal documents farmers craft […]

Are you part of the food community? Make your presence known! Nurseries, food banks, community kitchens and farmers markets are just some of the many points you could add. You can even put your backyard garden on the map. Click HERE to add your points to the map!

  There's a song for nearly everything tied to the grange and you can FIND IT HERE!  

Are women more willing to nurture their communities (and also their beet greens)? Are men preoccupied with techie farm toys like aquaponics? Is gender the reason the radio at the Queens Farm washing station is always stuck on Beyoncé and Alicia Keys? More significant, if urban ag work comes to be seen as women’s work, […]

speed dating while weeding = weed dating! check out this video about weed dating at Common Ground Country Fair in Maine. [vimeo 50341101 w=500 h=281] IN DEFENSE OF FEET is a journal of the work, thoughts and explorations of the folks behind Farmrun, an agrarian creative studio based in the Pacific Northwest.  

Calypso Farm and Ecology Center's Farmer Training Program is accepting applications now! (4 spaces currently available) Open until filled – if you’re interested, apply now! Spaces are limited. Students are selected based on their level of interest in the program and potential for future application of what they’ve learned. We also strive to select a diverse […]

Read the Emails in the Hilarious Monsanto/Mo Rocca/Condé Nast Meltdownby Tom Philpott for Mother Jones Last week, Gawker uncovered a hapless tie-up between genetically modified seed/pesticide giant Monsanto and Condé Nast Media—publisher of The New Yorker, Bon Appetit, GQ, Self, Details, and other magazines—to produce "an exciting video series" on the "topics of food, food […]

Tres Hombres is an initiative that thrives on combined passions; sailing, traditional ships, shipbuilding, crew training, a healthy environment, good harmony and of course rum! Tres Hombres stands for enjoying life. Like a message in a bottle, the ship contains a dream about reviving traditional sailed cargo shipping, a dream that has already partly been fulfilled. […]