Showing posts with label Organic Dairy Initiative. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Organic Dairy Initiative. Show all posts
Friday, August 21, 2009
Videos up on YouTube
The Scheffler field day videos have been uploaded to the Small Farms Program YouTube channel!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Organic Dairy Field Day Videos!
I haven't meant to be absent from the blog for so long, but I'll take it as a good sign that I've been too busy at work to update here. Let's take it back to the end of July...
The Organic Dairy Initiative and NOFA-NY co-hosted an "Organic Dairy Farming and Raw Milk Marketing!" field day on July 23. Ed and Eileen Scheffler have a small dairy in Groton; they completed their transition to organic in 2003 and got a permit from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets to sell raw milk this year. The field day drew a good-sized crowd, including Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton; Professor Gary Fick, with whom I took Sustainable Agriculture in Fall '08, gave a talk during lunch.
I had a chance to experiment with the office's new Flip video camera and produced a grand total of 14 video clips of the day's discussions and speakers. I found that I had more editing options and was happier with the results using iMovie rather than the built-in FlipShare software.
Here are a couple examples:
The Organic Dairy Initiative and NOFA-NY co-hosted an "Organic Dairy Farming and Raw Milk Marketing!" field day on July 23. Ed and Eileen Scheffler have a small dairy in Groton; they completed their transition to organic in 2003 and got a permit from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets to sell raw milk this year. The field day drew a good-sized crowd, including Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton; Professor Gary Fick, with whom I took Sustainable Agriculture in Fall '08, gave a talk during lunch.
I had a chance to experiment with the office's new Flip video camera and produced a grand total of 14 video clips of the day's discussions and speakers. I found that I had more editing options and was happier with the results using iMovie rather than the built-in FlipShare software.
Here are a couple examples:
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Organic/Government Collaboration
Through the NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service), organic farms now have access to grant money through Organic EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program). Since NRCS staff aren't used to dealing with organic farms and since organic farms face different issues and regulations than conventional farms, members of the two communities met yesterday to develop a working relationship. As the official note-taker, I was in the ultimate fly-on-the-wall position.
This meeting was a great example of what I'd like to see happening in regards to renewable energy in New York. A gap - or should I say, an opportunity for improved communication and collaboration was identified... and people got together to take advantage of it! Organic representatives, including a NOFA-NY Certified Organic LLC certifier and a Cornell researcher, presented the organic certification process (which is much different from the conventional-farm paperwork NRCS staff are used to) and illustrated how many activities on organic farms can realize or contribute to multiple goals. The latter point will be particularly important for NRCS staff as they try to determine which projects can receive EQIP funding. Then NRCS representatives took their turns: they walked their field staff through the Organic EQIP application and approval process and conducted a role play with an organic farmer to highlight Organic EQIP's differences from the established EQIP process. (I should note that organic farms may apply through the original EQIP program; Organic EQIP is designed to create a smaller applicant pool and offer more benefit to organic farms.)
Though the program was well-organized and executed, there were signs that the NRCS staff wanted more training and information. Since the Organic EQIP program is new, some regulations and requirements aren't as exact or as stringent as perhaps they should be, and answers to some very good questions weren't available. Often the questions posed by NRCS staff went beyond the scope of the training or the ability of senior staff or organic representatives to address them. Still, it seemed to me that the meeting succeeded in orienting the participants to the new program and that all of them are now better equipped to assist farmers with the Organic EQIP process.
In addition to these observations, I came away with some questions of my own. I was stunned by the amount and specificity of the information required from a farm to become certified organic and to maintain certification. Fay Benson, my Organic Dairy Initiative supervisor and a host of the NRCS meeting, assured me that the paperwork required is far above and beyond that required for conventional farms. I'm used to thinking of farmers as independent; why would an increasing number of farmers voluntarily submit to this kind of oversight? I can speculate: perhaps it's the money they can make as organic, a desire to please consumers, or motivation to farm in a particular manner. How much of the consumer food dollar goes to the organic certifiers and the certification process? Perhaps it's this kind of regulation that some consumers are looking for. Consumers have been increasingly separated from the food production process since World War II and it seems that many have lost trust as well as touch when it comes to food producers. I'm not sure that farmers deserve the brunt of this sentiment (food processors have certainly affected the system at all points), but if consumers are reassured by stringent organic regulations I can certainly understand the appeal. There's much musing, discussing, and studying to be done here!
This meeting was a great example of what I'd like to see happening in regards to renewable energy in New York. A gap - or should I say, an opportunity for improved communication and collaboration was identified... and people got together to take advantage of it! Organic representatives, including a NOFA-NY Certified Organic LLC certifier and a Cornell researcher, presented the organic certification process (which is much different from the conventional-farm paperwork NRCS staff are used to) and illustrated how many activities on organic farms can realize or contribute to multiple goals. The latter point will be particularly important for NRCS staff as they try to determine which projects can receive EQIP funding. Then NRCS representatives took their turns: they walked their field staff through the Organic EQIP application and approval process and conducted a role play with an organic farmer to highlight Organic EQIP's differences from the established EQIP process. (I should note that organic farms may apply through the original EQIP program; Organic EQIP is designed to create a smaller applicant pool and offer more benefit to organic farms.)
Though the program was well-organized and executed, there were signs that the NRCS staff wanted more training and information. Since the Organic EQIP program is new, some regulations and requirements aren't as exact or as stringent as perhaps they should be, and answers to some very good questions weren't available. Often the questions posed by NRCS staff went beyond the scope of the training or the ability of senior staff or organic representatives to address them. Still, it seemed to me that the meeting succeeded in orienting the participants to the new program and that all of them are now better equipped to assist farmers with the Organic EQIP process.
In addition to these observations, I came away with some questions of my own. I was stunned by the amount and specificity of the information required from a farm to become certified organic and to maintain certification. Fay Benson, my Organic Dairy Initiative supervisor and a host of the NRCS meeting, assured me that the paperwork required is far above and beyond that required for conventional farms. I'm used to thinking of farmers as independent; why would an increasing number of farmers voluntarily submit to this kind of oversight? I can speculate: perhaps it's the money they can make as organic, a desire to please consumers, or motivation to farm in a particular manner. How much of the consumer food dollar goes to the organic certifiers and the certification process? Perhaps it's this kind of regulation that some consumers are looking for. Consumers have been increasingly separated from the food production process since World War II and it seems that many have lost trust as well as touch when it comes to food producers. I'm not sure that farmers deserve the brunt of this sentiment (food processors have certainly affected the system at all points), but if consumers are reassured by stringent organic regulations I can certainly understand the appeal. There's much musing, discussing, and studying to be done here!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Gearing Up
Welcome! I'm a student in Cornell's Agricultural Science major, getting ready to graduate in December. This summer, I'm working for - and blogging about - the Small Farms Program and the Organic Dairy Initiative. As an intern, I have the opportunity to learn these programs inside and out by:
I started work on May 18, but between my sister's graduation and Memorial Day weekend this week (the third consecutive week) is my first full one. Stay tuned for further adventures!
- organizing renewable energy field days and organic dairy field days;
- profiling the renewable energy strategies of farms;
- assisting with a field trial to test the incorporation of brassicas into pasture;
- profiling small dairies;
- assisting with editing the Small Farms Quarterly;
- updating relevant websites
I started work on May 18, but between my sister's graduation and Memorial Day weekend this week (the third consecutive week) is my first full one. Stay tuned for further adventures!
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