A Love for All Plants and All-Purpose Sheep With Annie Hasz
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we spoke with Annie Hasz of Broadwing Farm. The Berks County, Pennsylvania, farm started in vegetable production but now focuses on grass-fed lamb for meat and pelts. Hasz also co-runs Rooted Home Herbalism, an annual eight-month course that teaches growing and using herbs. “We achieved our original dream and we grew loads of produce. We sold at farmers markets and through CSA and then more and more to restaurants,” Hasz said. “But I had other interests developing in herbalism. So, as time moved on, things shifted.” Hasz...
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Merging Farm Life and City Life With Lindsay Eshelman
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we spoke with Lindsay Eshelman of Plow Farms. Eshelman grew up on the Plowville, Pennsylvania, farm that specializes in Christmas trees, and while she still does work with the farm today, she spends much of her time living in New York City. “I’m kind of the leading voice in PR and marketing, and more importantly experience,” Eshelman said. “My role is to bring the experience to the farm and to create this capsule of joy and Christmas that we have.” One of the biggest ways Eshelman creates joy on the farm is its annual ....
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It's Time to Get Excited About Sheep's Milk Cheese With Julia Inslee
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking to Julia Inslee, owner of Locust Hollow Farm in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Inslee has lived on the farm since her parents purchased the property in the late 1970s. At the time, it was home to a farmhouse, a few rundown barns and several acres of untended land. Over the next few decades, Inslee’s family transformed the property. In 2010, Inslee started a dairy sheep operation and now raises East Friesians for milk and fiber. “One of the major misconceptions about sheep is that they’re all the same,” Inslee said....
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Farming Fish Sustainably and Ethically With Brittany Peachey
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking to Brittany Peachey, the aquaculture operations manager at in Hudson, New York. Peachey’s interest in aquaculture was born from an aquatic biology class in college. After earning her master’s degree in aquaculture nutrition, she came to work at Hudson Valley Fisheries, a fish farm that specializes in sustainably raised steelhead trout. Peachey was recently awarded the New York State Fair Golden Hoof Award, which is given in recognition of outstanding animal care and husbandry. She acknowledges it’s...
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Celebrating Christmas Trees and Cookies in the Festive FarmHouse
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re ushering in the holiday season with a special seasonal episode featuring an interview with Kelly Piccioni, Penn State’s Christmas tree-focused Extension educator. Piccioni comes from a family with roots in selling Christmas trees. Her great-grandfather began selling trees he bought off the Orange Car—a railway-side produce stand that opened in Reading, Pennsylvania, in the 1930s. Her grandparents continued the tradition when they bought what is now the family’s Christmas tree farm, Geissler Tree Farms. “Christmas trees...
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Building Community Through Education With Denise Bosworth
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re speaking with Denise Bosworth of Rohrbach’s Farm. Bosworth is part of the farm’s fourth generation and runs the farm market in Columbia County, Pennsylvania. Bosworth and her husband, Dan, returned to the farm in 2013 to begin a new culinary venture, Big Dan’s BBQ. In 2015, Bosworth officially took over the farm market portion of the business and her brother, Mark Rohrbach, took over the farming operation. “I like to say my brother grows the food, Dan cooks the food and I throw the party,” Bosworth said. “We all...
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Award-Winning Sustainable Farming With Casey Wisch
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking to Casey Wisch, co-owner of in Lovettsville, Virginia. Wisch’s interest in farming began in college. After graduating, she spent time in New Zealand and Australia where she first encountered permaculture and experienced being part of an agricultural community. When she returned to the U.S., she and her now husband began working toward founding Long Stone Farm. “We wanted to start this grazing operation and we wanted to produce good clean meat for our community, and we wanted to pursue a better path...
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For the Love of Farming: A 70th Anniversary Special
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re honoring the voices of farmers as we celebrate our 70th anniversary. This special podcast episode will feature a variety of voices from farmers and ag industry members who stopped by our pop-up recording studio at this year’s . You’ll hear voices of all ages — from a recent college graduate working her first job in the ag industry to a 92-year-old retired farmer who recalls exactly how his farm community came to his aid when he lost a leg in a farm accident. You’ll even hear from Pennsylvania Ag Secretary Russell...
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Dare to Return to the Haunted FarmHouse
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re returning to the haunted farmhouse for some seasonal fun and spine-tingling tales from the farm. In this episode, we’ll be sharing four spooky stories that take place on farms or in rural communities because, let’s face it, scary stories from the city just don’t have quite the same chilling effect as those set out in the country. For our first tale, we’ll travel to Robertson County, Tennessee, where the Bell family came to farm in the early 1800s. Unfortunately for the Bells, a spirit that would become known as the...
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Blending Herbs and Making Tea With Katelyn Melvin
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking to Katelyn Melvin, owner of . Melvin grows herbs and makes her own herbal tea blends in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania. Her journey into herb farming started by growing herbs in high school. She later worked on a few vegetable farms and decided to take on farming full time. The farm grows multiple acres of herbs including chamomile, peppermint, lemon balm, anise hyssop and more. The teas are made only with herbs grown on the farm. “All the tea blends come from my love of the fresh herbs,” Melvin said. She has three...
info_outlineThis week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking to Renee Wiatt, a family business management specialist at Purdue University who specializes in farm transitions.
Farm succession can be rife with challenges and hard conversations, but according to Wiatt, it’s not something farm families should wait to tackle.
The process of transitioning the farm isn’t a single event, but a process, that can last for years.
“If we look at data, on average, if we’re transferring a family business within the same family, it takes about six and a half years from the start of succession to the end,” Wiatt said.
While ownership transfer often happens upon the owner’s death, Wiatt stressed that operational transition requires a more gradual approach. That can start with farmers documenting the whos, hows, whys and wheres of their operations.
“Another thing we can do is write down job descriptions,” Wiatt said. “A lot of times farmers laugh at me when I say this. They say, I know what I do and I say, yeah, you know what you do, but does everybody else who works on your farm know what you do? No.”
She encourages farmers to start documenting month by month, season by season, the things they do that other people might not know about, as well as the locations of tools, paperwork and names of businesses or people associated with that work.
Wiatt acknowledges the conversations around farm transitions can be intimidating, especially when families are involved, and therefore advises keeping the business of the farm separate from home life.
“We do not encourage those planning conversations to happen at dinner table, at family gatherings, at family holidays. We want those to be really thoughtful and mindful conversations outside of the family setting,” she said.
It’s beneficial when the farmer can start these conversations, she added. Family members may be curious about the future of the farm but often hold back from bringing up their concerns to avoid potentially uncomfortable subject matter.
“I like to put it this way: As the incumbent, as the owner, it’s a lot easier for them to say, hey, would you like to join my party than the potential successor to say, hey, I heard you’re having a party, can I join?” Wiatt said.
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