Woodlands Don't Manage Themselves: Foresty Planning With Kathy Smith
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking with Kathy Smith, the program director for the Ohio Woodland Stewards Program at Ohio State University. Smith knew early on that she wanted to work outside and was interested in natural resource management. Forestry felt like a natural fit. “I appreciate being able to understand the trees and how we can utilize trees to solve problems, make things better, and also help landowners to deal with the issues that they have,” Smith said. Smith spent the first 11 years of her career working as a watershed forester with...
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Helping Students Find Their Ag Paths With Wendy Powers
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking with Wendy Powers, dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland. Powers is the first woman to serve in the role, effective July 1. She didn’t grow up in agriculture, but her undergrad experience at Cornell University made her interested in the field. Since then, Powers has studied and worked in agriculture at land grant universities, coming to Maryland from Washington State University. “I am tremendously loyal to the land grant mission,” Powers said. “When I look at the...
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Aquaponics and Giving Back to the Community With Yemi Amu
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking with Yemi Amu, the founder and director of , an outdoor aquaponics farm and education center in Brooklyn, New York. Amu is originally from Nigeria and belongs to the Yoruba ethnic group. Her Yoruba roots have influenced much of her work in the U.S., from the name of her operation to the style of farming. Oko is a Yoruba word that loosely translates to farm, but in fact has a deeper tie to agriculture. “The true meaning is a place where agriculture is the center of life and activity,” Amu said. “And that’s...
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Encouraging Equine Enthusiasts of All Ages With Fran Severn
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking to Fran Severn, a writer and equestrian whose passion for horses inspired her to write “” Severn grew up in downtown Baltimore where horses and barns were scarce, but that didn’t stop her from developing an affinity for all things equine. “I think loving horses is in your DNA and I always wanted horses in my life,” Severn said. She began riding after college and, as her journalism career expanded to covering the Kentucky Derby and events at the Kentucky Horse Park, she eventually purchased her first horse....
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Growing Wholesale Flower Bouquets With Michelle Elston
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking to Michelle Elston, who owns in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Elston sells most of her flowers wholesale to grocery stores and local shops. She also offers bulk flower buckets and has a bouquet club flower CSA. Her 10-acre farm produces more than 25,000 bouquets for stores and 450 party buckets for events. “I really truly never imagined Roots to be the farm that it is today,” Elston said. Elston’s journey to Roots started when she studied plant science at Cornell University. She and her husband later moved to...
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Welcoming Visitors to the Farm With Kathy McCaskill
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re joined by Kathy McCaskill, co-owner and operator of in Rembert, South Carolina. McCaskill originally hails from upstate New York, where she grew up on an out-of-operation dairy farm. After marrying, she and her husband bought their South Carolina property and began slowly but surely setting up a livestock operation that sells directly to the local farmers market and from the farm store. Tragedy struck the farm in 2007, when the farmhouse burned down, but McCaskill now sees it as part of a larger plan for her family....
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Building the Real Organic Project with Linley Dixon
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking to Linley Dixon, an organic vegetable farmer in southwest Colorado. Dixon co-created the , which is a label farmers can add onto the USDA’s certified organic label. “The Real Organic Project is a very grassroots effort,” Dixon said. “Many farmers felt like the USDA organic seal was no longer reflecting the way that they farmed. It started as sort of a rallying cry to make sure that soil health was still fundamental to what could be certified as organic.” The project focuses on growing crops in healthy soils...
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Experimenting With Whole Milk in Schools With Krista Byler
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking with Krista Byler, the food service director at Union City Area School District in Pennsylvania whose whole milk study caught the attention of the dairy industry. Byler’s district had been offering fat free and 1% milks with student lunches, but thanks to a study conducted by the student council, Byler was aware much of the milk students bought ended up in the trash. On top of that, many students weren’t buying milk at all. “It was kind of a double-edged sword. We had students no longer taking milk and a lot of...
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Digging Into Climate-Smart Dairy With Carolyn Beans
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking to Carolyn Beans, a freelance science reporter with a focus on food and agriculture. Beans is currently an MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellow. Through the fellowship, she is writing a series on climate-smart dairy that is being published in Lancaster Farming. “The fellowship is designed to support journalists who are working on stories that explore environmental solutions specifically for local audiences,” Beans said. The term climate-smart is a bit of a newer buzzword, but Beans said despite the new...
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Empowering Women Through Education With Annie's Project
FarmHouse
This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking to Doris Mold, co-CEO of , a national nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering women in agriculture. Annie’s Project was founded in 2003 and named after Annette Kohlhagen Fleck, a woman who married into farming in 1947 and went on to take care of the business side of the farm. Annie’s Project honors her legacy by providing women with the knowledge and confidence to manage farms and agribusinesses successfully. The organization offers a mix of workshops, courses and online learning aimed at educating...
info_outlineThis week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we’re talking with Yemi Amu, the founder and director of Oko Farms, an outdoor aquaponics farm and education center in Brooklyn, New York.
Amu is originally from Nigeria and belongs to the Yoruba ethnic group. Her Yoruba roots have influenced much of her work in the U.S., from the name of her operation to the style of farming. Oko is a Yoruba word that loosely translates to farm, but in fact has a deeper tie to agriculture.
“The true meaning is a place where agriculture is the center of life and activity,” Amu said. “And that’s sort of what we’re trying to to build at Oko Farms.”
Amu was drawn to aquaponics in part because water conservation, which is a pressing issue in Nigeria, is inherently integrated into its farming methods.
“I was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, and water conservation was huge for us,” Amu said. “So type of aquaculture that centered as a type of agriculture, food production that centered water conservation, was a big deal for me.”
Oko Farms grows a variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs, which are sold at farmers markets. It also grows fiber-producing plants like flax, which, along with indigo and dye plants, has drawn people interested in textile and fiber arts to the farm.
The other side of the aquaponics operation is the fish. Oko Farms features a variety, including carp, catfish and tilapia. Some of the fish are used solely for farming while other are used for food, sometimes at farm-to-table meals or given away to community fridges.
Community is at the heart of Oko Farms, which strives in its mission to educate the public. The farm offers classes on wellness, culinary education, textile arts and, of course, aquaponics.
Amu and her team welcome visitors to the farm for tours and classes on how they can use aquaponics to grow food for themselves — even if it’s on their windowsills or countertops. It’s all about sustainability and addressing food justice.
“Anyone, anywhere in the world should be able to grow food for themselves if they choose to,” said Amu.