Papa Bear’s Plantation: Many Hats and licenses Ocala, Florida Ask Mark Wagner about the best insurance to survive Florida hurricane season: wear more than one hat. Pecan, sheep and small animal farmer. Small animal auctioneer. Licensed nuisance trapper. These are some of the hats Mark wears on his farm, Papa Bear’s Plantation outside Ocala, Florida. […]
Mo’ Better Food and The Mandela Farmers Market
West Oakland, California In 1999, a class-action suit by America’s black farmers won what some called the biggest civil rights award in United States history. The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that the USDA had systematically discriminated against black farmers in awarding loans and other government assistance. The judge estimated that $2 billion […]
Whole Farm Cooperative
Birth of a Cooperative Nation Whole Farm Cooperative (WFC) arose in response to the large corporate-run conglomerates that threaten the small farm way of life. Comprised of about fifty family farms throughout Central Minnesota, the Co-op draws from a strong history of livestock, dairy, and vegetable farmers marketing goods cooperatively. Begun in a basement, which […]
Badgersett Research Farms
Growing Nuts in Canton, Minnesota To most people, the term “woody agriculture” is an unfamiliar concept. Woody agriculture refers to the growing of domesticated woody perennial crops such as in the accompanying image of a hazelnut plant on Badgersett Research Farm. The nuts can be harvested annually as a staple commercial foodproduct. Domesticated plants and […]