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Four-Season Farmer Eliot Coleman to Keynote 2008 Horticulture FieldFieldKerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture Notes NotesVol. 33, #4 • Winter 2007 Four-Season Farmer Inside Eliot Coleman to Keynote This Issue: 2008 Horticulture Industries Show Eliot Coleman at HIS 1 – Wylie Harris Kerr Center Receives New RMA Grant 2 rganic farmer and author Eliot Coleman is the keynote speaker at the 27th Excerpts from O Closer to Home: Annual Oklahoma/Arkansas Horticulture Healthier Food, Farms and Families in Oklahoma. Industries Show (HIS), January 4-5 at Tulsa A Centennial Report. Community College’s Northeast Campus. A New Way To Look at Food and Agriculture: 4 This year’s theme, “Celebrating Horticulture: Community Food Systems Four Seasons of Success,” honors Coleman’s Good Food for Good specialty, growing fresh vegetables throughout Health: Combating Poor the year. Nutrition and Obesity 5 Intended for existing, new, and potential pro- with Fresh Locally Grown Foods ducers, as well as horticulture-related businesses, in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and surrounding states, Direct from the Source: the HIS stretches over two days packed with edu- Direct Market Produce 11 Eliot Coleman from the Crows' Farm cational programs and trade show activities. The show consistently provides the latest Local-plicity: The Large information on vegetables, fruit, herbs, The Voice of Experience Economic Multiplier 14 Effects of Small Farms Christmas trees, farmers’ market crops, sustain- Eliot Coleman has been farming organically able agriculture, and public gardening issues. for nearly 40 years, raising everything from field Calendar 16 Coleman will deliver keynote addresses on and greenhouse vegetables, to rotationally both days of the HIS, discussing “Labor Saving Photo Credits: grazed cattle and sheep and range poultry. Pg. 1: Chelsea Green Tools to Make the Job Easier” on Friday, and An author as well as a farmer, Coleman has Publishing “Organic Production Practices for Market made his lifetime of experience in organic Pg. 10: Emily Oakley/Mike Gardeners” on Saturday. Appel farming available in print. In The New Organic Pg. 11: Maura McDermott In addition, Coleman will present two ses- Grower, he wrote that “in terms of both efficiency sions during the regular Farmers’ Markets/ and profitability, smaller can be better.” Happy Birthday, Oklahoma! Sustainable Agriculture track on Saturday: The book, which has sold over 45,000 “Successful Market Gardening in the Northeast” copies since 1988, covers such topics as farm- and “Conversations on Market Gardening.” He generated fertility, movable greenhouses, will also be available for a book signing after “plant-positive” pest control strategies, and Friday afternoon’s sessions. winter gardening. continued on page three The Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture offers progressive leadership Providing Risk Management Skills to Oklahoma Producers: and educational programs to all those interested in making farming and ranching environmentally friendly, socially equitable, Kerr Center Receives New Risk and economically viable over the long term. The Kerr Center is a non-profit foundation Management Agency Grant located on 4,000 acres near the south- eastern Oklahoma town of Poteau. It was established in 1985. The Kerr Center has received a new Ware. “Currently, the demand for local For further information contact us at: grant from the USDA Risk Management produce by the schools exceeds the pro- P.O. Box 588, Poteau, OK 74953 Agency (RMA), to help educate Oklahoma duction levels,” he says. 918/647-9123 phone, farmers and ranchers about managing the The Kerr Center will also conduct 918/647-8712 fax [email protected] risks inherent in agriculture. another organic field day as part of the www.kerrcenter.com Major commodity crops like corn and RMA Commodity Partnership Grant Overstreet-Kerr Historical Farm wheat benefit from widely available crop program for 2008. 918/966-3396 insurance. However, RMA “priority com- Finally, the new RMA grant will also [email protected] modities,” including specialty crops such fund a livestock basic health care work- PROGRAMS INCLUDE: as fruits and vegetables, usually lack such shop. Meant for cattle and goat ranchers, • Oklahoma Producer Grants a safety net. this workshop will address such issues as • The Stewardship Farm • Rural Development and Public Policy To fill that gap, the Kerr Center’s new nutrition, parasites, vaccinations, and • Communications/Education RMA Commodity Partnership grant, breeding. • Overstreet-Kerr Historical Farm “Providing Risk Management Skills to For an overview of 2007 Kerr Center STAFF: Oklahoma Producers,” will focus specifi- programs conducted in partnership with James E. Horne, PhD., cally on the needs of specialty crop pro- RMA, visit the Kerr Center website at President and CEO Simon Billy, Stewardship Ranch Technician ducers such as vegetable growers, and www.kerrcenter.com/RMA-projects2007.htm. Jessica Castillo, Office Coordinator underserved commodity producers such Additional partners in the RMA Barbara Chester, Corporate Secretary as livestock and forage producers. Commodity Partnership with the Kerr Center Jim Combs, Development Manager, “Underserved and small-scale, spe- for 2008 include Langston University, the Overstreet-Kerr Historical Farm cialty crop producers need information Oklahoma Farmers’ Market Alliance, the Wylie Harris, Contract Communications Specialist about innovative methods of reducing Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, George Kuepper, risk,” says Alan Ware, Oklahoma Producer Food, and Forestry, the OSU Extension Sustainable Agriculture Specialist Grant Program Director. and Ag Leadership Class, the Oklahoma Maura McDermott, Communications Director Land Stewardship Alliance, the Oklahoma Lena Moore, Administrative Assistant A Full Calendar Farmers Union, and the Oklahoma Mary Penick, Research Assistant The educational programs funded by Landowners and Tenants Association. Anita Poole, Assistant to the President/ the Commodity Partnership Grant will run Legal Counsel all year long and throughout the state, David Redhage, Director, Southern SARE On the Web PDP Program, Natural Resources Economist reaching as large an audience as possible. USDA Risk Management Agency Liz Speake, Business Manager The Kerr Center’s biennial Future www.rma.usda.gov Doug Walton, Community Foods Coordinator Farms conference will return again to USDA Community Foods Projects Alan Ware, Director, Producer Grants Oklahoma City in August. This year’s Program/Stewardship Farm www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/cfp/ Melanie Zoeller, Executive conference theme is “Reducing Risk cfp_synopsis.html Administrative Assistant through Effective Planning.” Buy Fresh, Buy Local Oklahoma Field Notes is published quarterly and In addition, the Kerr Center will put www.kerrcenter.com/buy-fresh.htm is sent free to subscribers. Address corre- on four of its popular Farmer Field Days at spondence to: Maura McDermott, editor. Oklahoma Sustainability Network different locations around the state in oksustainability.org Copyright 2007 by the Kerr Center for 2008. This year’s Field Days will focus on Sustainable Agriculture. Newsletter arti- Closer to Home: Healthier Food, marketing fresh fruits and vegetables to cles may be reprinted if credit is given Farms, and Families in Oklahoma and a copy is sent to the newsletter editor. local school districts. www.kerrcenter.com/publications/ Design by Argus Designworks This is a vital need for the state’s new closer_to_home/index.htm Printed by Calvert-McBride, Ft. Smith, AR Farm to School Program, according to 2 FIELD NOTES WINTER 2007 Food Sciences Department will lead off diverse selection of topics: “Polite Fences: continued from page one with, “Your Road to Riches: Marketing Privacy with Plants,” drip irrigation, home Another of Coleman’s books, Four Organic Products.” pesticides, hydroponics, honeybees, ver- Season Harvest, delves further into the Dr. Jim Shrefler will follow with a miculture, and still more. season extension techniques that have progress report the Lane Research The vegetables track will cover an won him wide renown in the organic Station’s 4-year old organic research equally broad range: everything from growing community. The book explains program (see Field Notes, Summer 2007), labor-saving equipment and farm labor how to use cold frames and tunnel and the Kerr Center’s George Kuepper issues to plasticulture and specialty crops greenhouses, with no supplemental will brief the audience on the nuts and and breeding, along with information on heat, to keep fresh vegetables going bolts of becoming certified organic. the resources available to growers from strong all winter long. In keeping with Eliot Coleman’s phi- the Kerr Center, the Noble Foundation, Putting those ideas into practice, losophy of “authentic” food, lunches on and ODAFF. Coleman and his wife Barbara Damrosch both days will feature locally produced, The Kerr Center’s Doug Walton will sell fresh salads and vegetables from seasonal foods. The Upper Crust, a Tulsa appear in the farmers’ markets track with October through May, grown in unheated catering service, will prepare and serve an overview of resources available to both and minimally heated greenhouses on the meals. The Upper Crust’s owner-oper- producers and market managers. Other their Four Season Farm, in Maine. ator, Chef Fuad Baitari, has over 20 years presentations in the track will include a Over the years, Coleman has of catering experience drawn from his discussion of crop choices and rotations, devised a complete system of tools and travels
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