Archive for the ‘Farm Business’ Category

October 11, 2009 – Front Page News, Part II

Last Sunday the local paper had the first in a three-part series centered around the program Linda started at MCC.  This Sunday was another above the fold front page story.  There was also another article about a local food system meeting that builds on the work Linda has done.

Creating homegrown food
MCC runs crop trials, begins ...Read more.

September 6, 2009 – Heirloom Tomato Tasting at Grinnell Heritage Farm

We took some time away from our farm and visited an heirloom tomato tasting event and farm tour at Grinnell Heritage Farm.  It’s a 5th generation, yet new farm reinvented as a diversified organic farm with vegetables, animals, hay, and hoophouses.

Here owner Andrew Dunham begins the farm tour.

They planted 30 varieties of heirloom tomatoes to ...Read more.

March 8, 2009 – Sunday Afternoon Class

The last eight Sunday afternoons Linda’s been part of a team that is teaching a class for aspiring new farmers.  It is designed as a quick start/introduction as opposed to a two-year degree program.

After completing this class, the graduates will be able to rent a portion of the college farm to start their farming enterprise.

The ...Read more.

January 20, 2009 – Local Foods Move to Mainstream

For many years, many small farmers have championed the benefits of local food production based on claims of supporting the local economy, freshness, and quality. Recent books by Michael Pollan and others have given the concept a wider audience. Now, I believe the biggest producers have noticed and will soon be marketing their products ...Read more.

June 2, 2008 – Linda Passes the Torch!

As many of you know, Linda met a long-awaited goal a few weeks ago. While teaching full-time, she managed to create a new academic program and get it certified by the State, converted 140 acres of cash-rent land to certified organic production at the college farm, and raised around $600,000 for some infrastructure (including ...Read more.

February 2, 2008 – Iowa Network for Community Agriculture Meeting

Today we ventured to Cedar Rapids for the 13th annual Iowa Network for Community Agriculture annual meeting.  The morning’s speaker was tangerine farmer and film-maker Lisa Brenneis from Ojai, California.  You may ask, what is a California farmer doing in Iowa talking at a local food conference?  Quite simply, if you followed yesterday’s blog entry ...Read more.

January 23, 2008 – It’s Cold, That Only Leaves Accounting!

The deep mid-winter is time to catch up on the pile-o-receipts from the past tax year. It’s not really too bad – I do a fairly good job of saving all pertinent materials in three-ring binders and entering sales as they happen, but the bill receipts get stuffed in a plastic pouch in the binder and ...Read more.

March 21, 2007 – Committee Work

Today, I attended two meetings in Ames. One with Practical Farmers of Iowa to talk to them about the system design of their new food cooperative. It is one of the missing links in a local food system. The press release about the project follows:

Practical Farmers of Iowa to launch Iowa Food Cooperative
AMES, Iowa—Iowa consumers ...Read more.

December 4, 2006 – Gift Boxes

It’s now time for the shameless commerce portion of the blog. This year we’ve decided to offer gift boxes of products from our farm – various combinations of pure beeswax candles, hand made soap, and jams.

This is the big sampler box.

This is the medium sampler box.
You can look at all the boxes at the high ...Read more.

November 4, 2006 – Politics Gone Wild!

I’m not sure what the political climate is around where you live, but in Missouri it was a whole ‘nother level. I realized certain things are taboo around here. One is political signs/advertising by businesses. It seems that putting up a political signs would offend about half your customers. In Missouri, lots of businesses had ...Read more.

November 3, 2006 – Small Farm Conference

Today, we drove down to Columbia, Missouri to attend the National Small Farm Conference and Tradeshow. We’ll also use it as our “annual meeting” of high hopes LLC. The conference is a real interesting mix of people, some so far around each end of the political spectrum that they meet up here.
It was a nice ...Read more.

August 2, 2006 – Mobile Grocery?

O.K., the biggest thing that is missing from a local food system is a distributor. Someone to gather the product from farmers who don’t have time/inclination to market and ramp up quantities and sell to local outlets, like grocers, hospitals, etc.
We got to thinking about the 2,000 people or so who work in my ...Read more.

July 26, 2006 – A Time for Dreaming

Last week Linda went to Athens, Ohio to tour ACEnet, one of the nation’s most successful incubator kitchens. An incubator kitchen is a place where a person or aspiring company can process food for retail sale, or ramp up a recipe in a batch food environment before building or taking it to a food ...Read more.

March 4, 2006 – Tax and Newsletter

It’s a drizzly, foggy day – a day for indoor work. Getting tax stuff ready and working on spring high hopes newsletter. As this is our first year filing as an LLC, I’m filling out the forms best I can, then taking it into the tax guy to finish.