Episodes
Dec. 13, 2023
Erin Meding Grows a Farm
“I did not grow up in a farming family. I grew up in a small town in the Midwest…there's no one in my family that has ever farmed. I'm pretty sure most of my siblings think I'm crazy.” Erin and Charles Meding purchased their ...
Oct. 21, 2023
Cameron Pedigo Farms for the Right Reasons
“I'd watch the deer, how they would interact with the cows and turkeys and, you know, other animals. I've always been a keen observer of nature. That started young. That's kind of like the foundation. I didn't realize that's ...
Sept. 30, 2023
Chris & Samantha Kemnah Find Less Labor in Dairy
“Neither one of us came from a farm family or any kind of money in our background. We've just kind of done it on our good credit. We've leased the farms that we've been on. We are hoping to be able to buy the farm we're on no...
Aug. 15, 2023
Brad & Emalee Buttrey Find Real-Life Challenges
“We did have the sense to look and say, you know, God created ruminant animals to take advantage of grass and low input. You know, if we've got a grass base, and we take care of that, that's as low input as you're gonna get v...
Aug. 9, 2023
Nicole & Jeremiah Vernon Talk Time, Family and Vulnerability
“I have a specific memory of the first time we ever did sheep, I was so mad at my parents, we were going to kill the sheep. And then fast forward like an hour into it. And I came running into the house holding a sheep tongue ...
July 22, 2023
Troy Bishopp Part 2: Taking Risks and Being Realistic
Troy Bishopp web site TroyBishopp Instagram #lingergrazing On Pasture Grazing Chart link Grasstravanganza info: https://grasstravaganza.morrisville.edu/ Drop a review at www.choosingtofarm.com Join our Patreon! --- Send in a ...
July 17, 2023
Troy Bishopp Part 1: From Guinea Pig to Linger Grazing
"My buddy Rock Langone, he runs my ice cream store up the road here. Him and I were the young farmers of the county, we were the chosen ones. We had high herd averages, you know, just got out of college. We were making milk, ...
July 8, 2023
Karen Hoffman is Peaceful by Nature
"There was a guy in my office for years, who used to refer to people like me as hobby farmers. And it drove me crazy. One day I finally said, “You know what? These hobby farmers, if they are getting up every day, and taking c...
June 24, 2023
Bobbie Jean Booth Becomes an Accidental Farmer
“I got involved with sheep and farming purely by accident. Aside from a semester Work Study program at UVM dairy, I had no background in farming and no interest in sheep. Then, one cold February while I was farmsitting, 6 out...
June 10, 2023
Kate Osgood is All or Nothing
Kate Osgood of Birch Rise Farm in Sanburton, NH, along with her husband Ken and sons Hunter and Henry, loves to go all in on whatever they do. When they decided to move back to the east to raise their family, they didn’t know...
June 7, 2023
Nick Weinstock Goes from Foodie to Farmer
Nick and his family have a productive history as small business owners, investors, and planners. After getting his construction management degree from Michigan State University in 2009, Nick returned to join the family const...
May 9, 2023
Becky Harhaj Balances Calm and Chaos
From Becky: My husband and I moved our kids to a farm in rural southern Minnesota in 2016 to grow better food. We were already purchasing most of our meat from local farmers, but wanted to do it ourselves while giving our kid...
April 29, 2023
Hank & Heather LeTarte Listen to Their Customers
“We cleared eight acres and piled the trees by hand. Not the trees but the brush. We had 96 brush piles in one field. And we had no friends left, because we would say to them, ‘Come on over for the weekend. And we'll give yo...
April 22, 2023
Carly Farmer Sticks With It
“I can't express enough how just beautiful it is to watch the growth. The growth of a farm year after year where you're putting your inputs in, which may just mean your animals, they’re just fertilizing and grazing for you. I...
April 15, 2023
Matt Kovarik Thinks Outside the Box
“I think that you have to listen to what everybody has to say, and then just pick and choose different parts of their advice. That's complicated for some people; they just want a How-To Guide for starting their farm. It’s not...
April 8, 2023
Katie Steere Finds Her Dream Life
"I get a lot of people saying, you're living my dream life. I'm so jealous. I know it's a compliment. But I'm not living your dream life. I'm living my dream life. And I know what it comes with. I know all the s-h-i-t it come...
April 1, 2023
Brent Beidler Chooses Not to Farm
“I am very delightfully holding on to the things that I hold dear about myself that are a part of my life as a farmer, and not integrating that into my life going forward, where I'm not commercially farming. I really apprecia...
Feb. 9, 2023
Driving Chat: Agritourism
Here’s a quick mini-episode I wanted to share about agritourism. I recorded it while driving home from the International Workshop on Agritourism last fall. Fair warning that it’s only lightly edited. I just came across this r...
Jan. 28, 2023
Katelyn Duban Connects Rural Women
“From what I’ve learned, it's always best to learn from other people. Learn from people who have been doing this before. If you can find a mentor in the field that you are interested in, I think that's the best thing you can ...
Jan. 11, 2023
Jessica Newman Starts With Why
“I really love the sheep. They're not stupid. Nor do I think they desire to die, as I've heard on more than one occasion. I do think they require awareness. They also are so instinct driven--which makes sense, based on what t...
Oct. 1, 2022
Season 2 Trailer
Coming soon! The second season of Choosing to Farm is bringing you even more great stories of the journey into--and sometimes out of--farming. We'll talk about new models, new ways of being successful, and where new farmers a...
July 12, 2022
Ep. 19 Keeping It Simple with Jascha Pick
“I didn't have mechanical background, I didn't grow up fixing tractors. I had never driven a tractor. I wasn't good with equipment. Grazing was very approachable. It just really appealed to me. You're outside, you're working ...
May 26, 2022
Ep. 18: Learning and Leading in Business with Dallas Mount
“Go and work for a bad boss. Go and spend some time breaking somebody else's machines, losing tens of thousands of dollars on their payroll, before you're doing it on your own payroll. That timing is probably somewhere betwee...
April 30, 2022
Ep. 1.17 Is Choosing to Farm Enough? with Jenn Colby
“I think sometimes the choice to farm also means that folks choose not to have a life. They may not recognize it as that. Sometimes the choice to farm or ranch doesn't necessarily automatically set them up for that. Responsib...