Craft beer makers from five states in the Northeast are making efforts to source their grains from regional farms. It's not only economical but also good for the planet.

Increasingly, the Sonoran and other dry places are showing us what a heat-and-drought-riddled future has in store for more of our food systems. These examples suggest that deep knowledge of dryland farming practices could blunt the impacts, giving some farmers a workable path forward. Whether conventional agriculture is willing to learn anything at all from these systems, however, is the question.

Their affordable lease in New Paltz, N.Y., negotiated in 2015 with the help of a farming nonprofit, had just ended, and they were suddenly thrust into a market where buyers were paying above asking price. “Folks who were trying to leave the city were making all-cash offers,” Ms. Morley recalled.

In order to be more resilient, the food system of the future needs to be more distributed and local. Having more capacity to gather, process, move and store food in different geographic areas of the country will provide more options for producers to create value-added products and sell locally, which will support new economic opportunities and job creation in rural communities.

In this episode, Zhorov talks to Cogswell, Lapidus, and Jensen all about how they learned to tend the fire and live by the rhythms of wood-fired sourdough baking. She also talks with Rob Segovia-Welsh, who runs Chicken Bridge Bakery with his wife, Monica, about what benefits he sees in working with fire. Throughout these conversations, she explores how baking this way offers a potential for connection to a community—and makes the baker’s life a pretty good life. 

An easy way to sample a variety of grains grown, milled, and transformed by artisans in our regional #grainshed is the Mid-Atlantic Grain Share, a Common Grain Alliance and @freshfarmdc project. Sign up for the summer session running from June through October at four D.C.-area farmers market locations.

What this says is that agricultural imports are soon expected to be greater than agricultural exports. Within the next year or so, the United States will be a net importer of agricultural products.

Of 1,059 organic farmers OSA surveyed for its report, 83 percent said organic seed mattered for the integrity of organic food production. Yet, only 27 percent of them use all organic seed. Organic vegetable farmers use less organic seed the bigger they get

A couple months ago, I posted about a common sense reform that we were trying to advance that would help Cottage Food Businesses (like us) from all across Maryland grow their operation. .Yesterday, I'm thrilled to report that I had the privilege of watching @govlarryhogan sign HB178 into law...

The Grain Revival Guide is an evolving, holistic, and comprehensive collection of resources on the Front Range grain revival movement. This guide will provide anyone from farmers, to buyers, to consumers, with the stories and science behind ancient and heritage grains, as well as offer resources on how to support the movement and participate in our growing, vibrant local grain economy.