-
Black Hills Farmers Market Expands Public Access to Local Foods
The Black Hills Farmers market was chattering with neighbors catching up, live music coming from a mom and pop band playing classic folk songs, and the smell of kettle corn drawing people in from the sidewalk. The Farmers Market Supervisor, Barbara Cromwell and Ann Eads sat at the entrance to greet people and distribute…
-
Marielena Vega Returns to her Roots to Protect the People Growing Food in Idaho
In 2020, Marielena Vega met a farmworker with a disturbing story. While he was working in a field one day, he noticed a crop-duster flying close by. When he warned his foreman about it, he was told to just duck down and hold his breath. “When he questioned if that was safe, the foreman…
-
Farmworker-led Solutions for Health Equity in the Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic
In 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to sweep across the United States, the term “essential worker” did not hold the same weight and meaning as it does today. As stay-at-home orders were enacted, for the first time farmworkers were deemed essential and required to continue to work in the fields and food processing…
-
More Small Scale Farms can benefit Farmers, the Environment, and the Consumer
When Michael Lobato and his wife Sara bought their five-acre farm back in 2020, it would be hard to imagine the plot would be viable for growing food. Today, there is a half-acre garden, a field of western native grasses, and the potential to grow much more. Before it’s transformation, the land had been…
-
Farmers are an Aging Population, One Young Farmer has a Vision for Change
For years, Patrick Certain has imagined a gathering space for friends and family, where children in the community could come to learn where their food comes from, where all could join in a shared meal harvested from his garden. His farm would come to be called Stone Soup Garden, which began to take form…
-
Water saving practices make CSAs stronger and bring people closer to their food
Outside of Fruita, Colorado, the flatlands are speckled with small farms. Most of them are mere fragments of the size that farms once were. Wendy and Nevin Troyers’s farm is a handful of acres off of a country road. Since the turn of the century, Colorado has seen several years of drought, 2022 included.…
-
How one Small-Scale Meat Processor in South Dakota found Success in a time of Corporate Consolidation
Even before Lemmonmade Butcher opened in January of 2019, the small-scale processor had three months worth of work lined up and has continued to operate at capacity since. Lemmonmade, named after its roots in Lemmon, South Dakota, has been extremely successful considering corporate consolidation has put 40% of small-scale processors out of business since…
-
Wes Davis | A Vision for Tribal Sovereignty through Sustainable Energy
The Turtle Mountain Community College sits in the heart of Turtle Mountain Reservation just a few miles south of the Canadian border. Each morning, Wes Davis, the facilities manager scans a chart he refers to as “the heartbeat of the college.” The sensors that have been installed in the school track when doors open…
-
The Voice of the Lakota Nation runs on Renewable Energy
On the road that leads into the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota there are farm fields layered with hay bales and horses, some of which escape on the occasion and trot gently alongside passing vehicles. On the outside of the main town of Porcupine, KILI Radio Station sits on top of a hill…
-
Bison Reintroduction | Nature’s Best Tool
In several locations in the West, bison reintroduction has begun to revitalize indigenous culture, increase food sovereignty, and heal the land. The Fort Peck reservation, in northern Montana, is one such place. The Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes are leaders in buffalo restoration and have continued the expansion of their buffalo program since…