Andy and Melissa share how they worked with New Pioneer Food Co-op to develop their skills as market farmers and to learn how to better serve the wholesale marketplace. We also dig into their CSA model, employee management on Grinnell Heritage Farm, and how they’ve changed their CSA to respond to the needs of both customers and employees.
We also learn how Andy and Melissa developed their farm infrastructure, created environmental enhancements to change the farm ecology and benefit the farm overall, organic weed control in asparagus, and how they’ve managed repeated pesticide drift incidents on their Central-Iowa farm.
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Quotes from the Show
[Andy] Getting that field heat out is so important and it's almost impossible to do without a walk-in cooler.
[Melissa] The easiest way isn't necessarily the most sustainable way.
[Andy] One of my favorite parts of this is seeing the wildlife come back to what used to be a corn and soybean field.
[Melissa] We've had several people call us over the last few years and they say, we've been drifted on. My first question is, do you have records of past yields and prices?
Show Links
Driftwatch provides a way for pesticide applicators and specialty crop growers communicate about the location of sensitive and organic crops.