
🔊Partnering for Agroforestry, Part II: Nettle Valley Farm, Southern Ohio Chestnut Company, and Delight Flower Farm
The latest episode of our podcast features more farmers from our Partnering for Agroforestry video series! This is a project we’ve been working on for the last year or so, looking for examples of creative partnerships that people have come up with to help make their agroforestry dreams a reality. Agroforestry takes a lot of time, money, and labor up front, and it can take years to start paying off… which can make it pretty risky to do on your own. If we want agroforestry to succeed, we’re going to need examples of agroforestry partnerships that succeed. As Dayna Burtness of Nettle Valley Farm says in our first interview:
“We don’t all have to do it alone. That’s the way of the past!”
How do you handle a partnership where one partner lives twenty minutes from the farm and the other lives two hours away? Or even more importantly, what if one partner is providing all of the money and land and a different partner is doing all of the work? These are some of the questions that Chris Smyth and Badger Johnson had to think about when they started the Southern Ohio Chestnut Company.
Maggie Taylor owns and operates Delight Flower Farm in central Illinois. Maggie worked with our agroforestry technical service program and with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (or NRCS) to get cost-share funding to add agroforestry to her fresh-cut flower CSA farm. But Maggie has also developed neighborly partnerships that are less formal, but no less important, for the success of her business.
More from Perennial AF
🔊“You Should Consider Maple Syrup Production” – with Tony Johnson
Wisconsin Extension forestry specialist Tony Johnson discusses how maple syrup production can open doors for other agroforestry enterprises, and how Wisconsin woodland owners can get started. Plus, Scott Brainard and Eliza Greenman describe the benefits of persimmons as an agroforestry crop.
Eligible Farmers Invited to Apply to Participate in the Expanding Agroforestry Project
Eligible producers in the United States are invited to apply to the Expanding Agroforestry Incentive Payment Program beginning November 15, 2023.
🔊Choosing the Right Livestock with Cherrie Nolden
Cherrie Nolden has over 30 years of experience with pastured livestock management, with a focus on using goats for oak savanna restoration. Listen to her presentation from PFG2022 on how to select the right livestock for your needs.