5 Minutes on the Farm

The Madison Cooperative Development Coalition (MCDC) – a project funded by the City of Madison and developed by the UW-Center for Cooperatives — aims to develop worker cooperatives in Madison as a way of providing equitable development, business and job creation.  Toward that end, the Madison Public Library is sponsoring “Co-Ops 101,” a series of talks to create public awareness of the opportunities available through the Madison Cooperative Development Coalition. Steve Herrick is the Co-Op Coordinator for the Madison Cooperative Development Coalition.  WORT listeners know Martin Alvarado as the host of Global Revolutions, but in his day job he works for Madison’s Central Library.  Steve and Martin joined Monday Buzz host Brian Standing on July 8, 2019.

With nearly 40 percent of all working-age Americans struggling to make ends meet, one might imagine that workers would be more than happy to receive a pay raise or promotion, but that’s not always the case. Because the struggle for basic family needs often requires the use of public assistance programs, some workers are concerned about earning more than the minimum amount required for this program. Low income workers have to make a choice whether the benefits of these programs outweighs the cost of making more monthly income. For workers, it can be hard to decide whether earning more money will make them worse off or better, which researcher Susan Crandall calls the “cliff effect.” As director of the Center for Social Policy, she studies low-income working families and their struggles for financial freedom and security.

In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie discovered Radium, the 88th element on the periodic table.   Quacks of various sorts soon attributed all sort of magical benefits to the new radioactive, element. Radium started showing up in toothpaste, hair creams and food products, with manufacturers claiming it could cure all manner of ills.  Radium also had the unusual property of glowing in the dark, and by the early 1900’s radium was used for industrial applications like watch faces. Far from curing illness, we now know that radium in fact causes radiation poisoning, as the young women painting watch faces at the United States Radium Corporation in New Jersey and the Radiant Dial company in Illinois eventually found out, to their detriment.  Kate Moore’s new book “Radium Girls” covers the tragic and influential story of these women. Kate Moore joined Monday Buzz host Brian Standing on October 8, 2018.

Madison and Vilnius Lithuania have been sister-cities for almost 30 years, providing cultural and charitable exchange between the cities. Jan interviews Debbie Kmetz and Daina Zemliauskas-Juozevicius from the Madison-Vilnius Sister-City organization about their organization and an upcoming “Singing Revolution” being held in the Capitol Rotunda on May 12th.

Jerome Dillard interviews David Liners from WISDOM, a grassroots organization comprised mostly of religious congregations of many denominations, from about 160 congregations of 19 different religious traditions. Besides criminal justice reform,WISDOM and its local organizations promote Immigrant Rights, Economic Justice, Health Care availability, Public Transportation, Workforce Housing, and more.

How will the proposed tax restructuring affect the “common man” (or woman)? Patty Lovera from Food & Water Watch talks about the history of tax cuts, trickle-down economics, how it affects the deficit… and you.

Katy Dickson was 6 months pregnant, finishing grad school in elementary education and teaching on an Indian reservation in New Mexico, when she realized she wanted to move home to Wisconsin and grow organic food. After spending about 12 years living and working across the U.S. and serving in the Peace Corps in Nepal., she ended up on land across the road from the dairy farm where she grew up.
Today,  she grows about 7 acres of organic produce and sells the eggs from about 400 pastured chickens at Christensen’s Farm near Browntown, Wisc. Her farm is west of Monroe and about 8 miles north of the Illinois border, and sits high on a hill in the Driftless region. She markets via a CSA and the Janesville and Eastside (Madison) Farmers’ Markets.
Katy substitute teaches in the winters and her husband Mark Dickson teaches physics and environmental science at the local high school. They are raising three children: Skye, 11, Mara, 9 and Milo, 7.
Katy said farming is not a job, it’s a lifestyle.  Working on the farm is never lonely, and the beauty and bounty of farming satisfies her soul. She encourages her CSA members to come to farm events and stop in for a visit.
“Joining a CSA is such a no brainer,” she says. “You can really get that good feeling knowing you’re supporting a small family farm where the farmers are taking care of the earth and working hard to grow good food.”
This is the final episode of the 2017 season of 5 Minutes on the Farm. Julie Garrett has taken a short-term communications job in disaster relief in Texas. 
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Your family food dollars are Little Green Soldiers for Good. Spend them directly with your local farmers via CSA or at the Madison farmers’ markets. Check out the Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas for restaurants featuring local food, farm listings, and farmers’ market info across Wisconsin, or Local Harvest for listings nationwide.
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5 Minutes on the Farm won a 2016 Excellence in Journalism award from the Milwaukee Press Club.
Photographs by Julie Garrett. Banjo by Cathryn Herlihey. Logo by Katie Hess.

Chelsea Chandler, 31, and Scott Laeser, 35, are finishing up their fifth season at Plowshares & Prairie Farmnear Argyle, Wisc. They met and fell in love just as Chelsea was finishing up grad school at Yale University in environmental policy. Scott had gone to Yale years before in the same program, and was already working at an environmental non-profit in Washington, DC when they met. Chelsea was heading out to a new job in Seattle. They carried on a long distance relationship for a year, then Scott joined Chelsea in the Pacific Northwest, where they became CSA members.
The two decided to complement their slow-going, abstract, environmental policy work with something more tangible and immediate — farming!
They moved to Wisconsin to land owned by Scott’s family, and started their own CSA. Today they cultivate about 2 acres and work to restore their farm’s prairie and wetlands. Land conservation is a long-term interest of Scott’s.
They market their produce via a CSA and the Fitchburg Farmers Market. They recently restored their farm’s barn — they held their wedding there just 4 days before we interviewed — and are looking forward to renting the space for events. They installed solar panels on their barn roof a few years ago through FairShare CSA Coalition’s Solar Harvest Group Buy.
This season their farm has experienced several extreme rain events. Read Chelsea’s blog post about transporting their crops by canoe.
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Your family food dollars are Little Green Soldiers for Good. Spend them directly with your local farmers via CSA or at the Madison farmers’ markets. Check out the Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas for restaurants featuring local food, farm listings, and farmers’ market info across Wisconsin, or Local Harvest for listings nationwide.
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5 Minutes on the Farm won a 2016 Excellence in Journalism award from the Milwaukee Press Club.
Photographs by Julie Garrett. Banjo by Cathryn Herlihey. Logo by Katie Hess.

Farmers Tommy Stauffer and Shawn Kuhn, both 28, started their successful microgreens and produce farm while both still students at UW Madison. Neither majored in anything having to do with farming. They had no growing experience, no idea what they were doing,  just the desire to live a passionate, fulfilled life doing meaningful work.
“We started throwing seed in the ground with no idea what would happen,” Stauffer reaclls. “Our lettuce mix came up well.”
Their lettuce mix grew. Madison Market bought it for their salad bar. That first winter, they researched everything they could on growing the perfect salad mix. They bent pipe to build their own greenhouses to save money. And in the spring, they intentionally launched their business.
Vitruvian Farms is named after Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man drawing and the principles behind it: proportionality, beauty and balance.
“Our goal was to create a beautiful farm in balance with nature,”  Stauffer said.
(And it is beautiful. Check out the field quilts in the photos above.)
Today, Vitruvian grows fve acres of produce, pastures pigs and chickens on two additional acres. and employs eight full-time workers. They sell wholesale to more than 45 Madison restaurants, and market directly to the public via a CSA and the Monona Farmers’ Market. They’re inspired by the growing momentum of Madison’s local food movement.
Vitruvian Farms farm will be a stop on this year’s Bike the Barns scheduled for Sept. 17.
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Your family food dollars are Little Green Soldiers for Good. Spend them directly with your local farmers via CSA or at the Madison farmers’ markets. Check out the Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas for restaurants featuring local food, farm listings, and farmers’ market info across Wisconsin, or Local Harvest for listings nationwide.
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5 Minutes on the Farm won a 2016 Excellence in Journalism award from the Milwaukee Press Club.
Photographs by Julie Garrett. Banjo by Cathryn Herlihey. Logo by Katie Hess.