They represent some of the oldest wines in North America, as the vines arrived in Italian immigrant Joe Busnardo’s suitcase in the late 1960s. Busnardo planted those Pinot Blanc and Trebbiano vines at Hester Creek Winery, and those vines are still producing fruit today. 

According to Kimberley Pylatuk, public relations coordinator at Hester Creek Estate Winery, Busnardo went through official channels. He grew up on a farm in Italy’s Veneto region; when he came to the Okanagan Valley in 1967, he saw a landscape that looked like home. He wanted to bring 10,000 vines, but the federal and provincial governments said no. They allowed him to import two cuttings of 26 separate varietals in 1968. Adding to the red tape, the government quarantined the vines before they released them. Luckily for Busnardo (and his cuttings), he was patient. 

Oliver Osoyoos Wine Country. Photography by Leila Kwok

By 1972, he had more than 120 different varietals planted on the property, all Vitis Vinifera, and long before the BC government offered grape growers $8,100 an acre to pull out the Labrusca grapes and plant vinifera—a move credited with changing the tide of the wine industry in the region.

“We consider British Columbia a new wine region. But when you look at the people that live here, there are French winemakers, Australians. People bring their knowledge, their legacies and their traditions growing grapes and making wine,” says Pylatuk. “People like Joe back in the 1960s started that. He knew how to make good wine, how to grow grapes and how to pick the right vineyard property. We look at the ancient Romans who knew to plant their vines on a hillside because of cooler drainage, and look at the spot Joe chose—it speaks to ancient traditional knowledge.” 

Oliver Osoyoos Wine Country. Photography by Leila Kwok

Busnardo sold the property in 1996 and winemakers have puzzled over where some of his vine originated since then. “We call block 13 Joe’s block. We know they came from Northern Italy, but we don’t know exactly what they are. We sent them to UC Davis and McGill University on more than one occasion and they’ve come back inconclusive,” says Pylatuk.

A few months ago, Hester Creek’s winemaker made the trek over to Vancouver Island to ask 90-year-old Busnardo directly. His response? “I’m taking that to my grave.” 

Oliver Osoyoos Wine Country. Photography by Leila Kwok

“Forty years ago, the original owners of Road 13 [Golden Mile Cellars then] identified their site as akin to what they had at home in Europe and probably thought, who’s going to check my suitcase for a couple of plants? Let’s take it back to the Okanagan Valley and see if it grows,” says Jennifer Busmann, executive director of Oliver Osoyoos Wine Country.

Lest you think Busnardo was the only vine smuggler to arrive on BC’s shores, rest assured other folks have gotten around customs laws as well. According to Alfredo Jop, assistant guest experiences manager at Road 13 Vineyards, the Serwo family brought German vines carefully wrapped in a damp towel in their luggage when they moved from Germany (where they grew grapes) to Canada in the late 1960s. There are also Chenin Blanc vines around the region that can be traced to other suitcases and intrepid travellers. 

Oliver Osoyoos Wine Country. Photography by Leila Kwok

The variability in growing seasons and diverse micro-climates of the Okanagan Valley allow many varietals from around the globe to flourish. As a result, many of the 200-plus wineries in the region have similar luggage lore. Okanagan winemaking is not just a story of pioneering farming practices but of immigrants journeying to new homes with a piece of their heritage tucked into their luggage. 

Visionary immigrants like Busnardo and the Serwo family may not have understood what they were starting at the time, but they planted the seed that grew into a wine region that produces half of British Columbia’s award-winning wines across almost 50 wineries. Busmann adds, “I believe that vision from those growers and winery owners set us on our path.” 

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The program at Organic Farm School (OFS) on Whidbey Island, Washington embraces the notion that we all eat but our food system becomes more broken every year. A rising global population, coupled with volatile commodity prices, high operating costs and the unpredictability of the weather, make farming a tenuous enterprise. In response, OFS readies future farmers to face the challenges that come with that broken system. 

Photography by Judy Feldman.

The secluded Maxwellton Valley location came to the school in a moment of serendipity. On the eve of closing in 2015, Ron and Eva Sher (local philanthropists and owners of several Seattle retail businesses) dedicated a no-fee lease of 10 acres on their 350-acre property for the school’s permanent home. 

Students connect with the surrounding community and explore diverse revenue streams through farmers markets, local restaurants, co-ops, grocery stores and a CSA farmstand. They experience all aspects of a working farm on those 10 acres, from decision-making to the minutiae of daily labor through seven-week rotations. They grow 45 different crops including basics such as lettuces, radishes and squash, and more specialty produce such as kohlrabi, beets and sprouting broccoli to sell. They also raise pastured poultry, along with the occasional sheep and pigs. All the revenue produced goes back into the training program to keep tuition affordable and allow students to see the options available when they have their own farm.

The program includes classroom work, field visits, small group work and individual sessions. The goal is to show students the varied tasks of farming as a profession and open up the floor to questions. “I’ve worked on farms previously where you hit the ground running and there’s no time for you to pick your head up,” says Anna Magnuson, assistant farm manager. At OFS, the teaching philosophy is to make space for questions that might come up after students graduate.

Assistant Farm Manager, Anna Magnuson, talks a new student through the basics of using a tractor. Photography by Judy Feldman.

OFS strives to provide a realistic experience for new farmers. Niceties such as the large walk-in cooler with plenty of sorting bins and dedicated space for both propagation and production in high tunnels and caterpillar tunnels make farming easier, but not all the equipment is top of the line. The lay-flat irrigation rather than buried water lines, Costco tables and a farm-hacked washing machine turned salad spinner represent a version of what a farmer starting out would likely be able to afford. “You have to know plumbing, electrical, crop tending, accounting—a farmer does 15 other professions besides farming, and we want them to go into that with confidence,” says Jeff Markette, farm manager. To that end, students learn how to fix their own tools, because it’s unrealistic to expect someone just starting out to have the money for brand-new gear.

“I got exposure to many basic farming principles, like understanding how to work with different planting dates in a timezone and when certain things need to be started from seed,” says Savannah Reid, former student and Orchard Kitchen head farmer. “I learned how to calculate how much fertilizer [I needed] and how to write and build crop plans. Farming takes quite a bit of math and planning to make it all happen.” Reid now organizes and plans all the produce for Orchard Kitchen’s 3.5-acre farm, farm stand and food hub orders together with the owner and chef.

Taking idealism and rooting it in realism drives the program at OFS. In the weekly field visits, students interact with working farmers around the island, hearing their stories and gleaning advice on techniques and equipment. The supportive community is something Holton hadn’t found in other professions. Asking questions, introducing themselves, making connections and being known for their work are part of the fabric of the program he appreciates. 

For Holton, the emphasis on the farmer as an educated person who not only knows about plants but also stays current with publications and research about the changing world is important. “The stereotype of a farmer as an old, uneducated person driving a broken-down truck is not accurate. You’re constantly learning.” 

Photography by Judy Feldman.

Even though there’s always something to do on the farm, farming can be an isolating profession. According to the National Rural Health Association, the suicide rate among farmers outpaces that of the general population by 3.5%. Recognizing the gravity of this data, OFS schedules visits from mental health counselors who discuss self-care and suicide prevention, letting the farmers-in-training know there’s no shame in reaching out when they need help. “You hit walls and edges you didn’t know you had. Having somebody listen and then walk them through to the other side is a great template for when they are managing a farm on their own. They realize it’s OK to hit those walls. They can pause and talk it through with someone. Farming is not one day; it’s a lifetime,” says executive director Judy Feldman.

As a lifetime career, it can also be hard on the body. Physical therapists take students into the field to simulate routine activities—such as pulling a tarp—to demonstrate where your shoulder should be and how many times you should change your position so you’re not overworking your hips, back and knees. There’s also a focus on adapting the work as you age. But an aging body is a reality, and OFS helps young farmers see ways to still work the farm as they get older, by taking over less labor-intensive tasks such as seed growing.

Physical therapists show students how to move their bodies correctly in the field. Photography by Judy Feldman.

Each day on the farm comes with a to-do list with 50 steps. But before a farmer even gets to the field, things have changed and the plan must be amended. “I appreciate that [the instructors] let us fail. They let us get into it and not be afraid of mistakes,” says Holton. “One of the most important things is learning to not be hard on yourself when things don’t go right because things are always gonna go wrong.”

Farming is challenging. “In so many trades, you get thousands of tries to get it right, but in farming, you get one try per season,” says Feldman. “We’re preparing students for real life.” 

The post This Farm School’s Primary Crop is Students appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Launched in 2021, the 1.2-acre urban farm in downtown Denver, CO cultivates everything from basil to black-eyed peas, ensuring that community members have access to crucial food. Run by Focus Points Family Resource Center, Huerta Urbana is more than just a farmer’s market. It’s an agricultural education and entrepreneurship program, offering classes and opportunities for folks who want to work in the food space.   

Participants receive training to manage a farm, pursue a career in something like environmental ag or even open their own farming business. “All participants earn while they learn,” says Matthew Vernon, chief of program operation. “Any time spent with the program is paid because the cost of childcare, transportation, rent and utilities add up. Even if you’re in a free program, you’re not making money to cover the bills at home.”

The farmer’s market is just one part of Huerta Urbana.

For Deisy Bustillos, Huerta Urbana offered an opportunity she, her mother Soledad and her sister Karen had been dreaming of since coming to Denver from Chihuahua, Mexico. Growing up, Bustillos and her sister felt the passion their mother had for gardening and fresh-cut flowers. They even had a hobby business buying flowers, creating arrangements and selling them on the side of the road for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. But they didn’t have space to plant their own flowers in Denver and grow their project into a full-time business. 

Serendipity struck in 2020. Bustillos’ mother helped with the community garden at Focus Points, and when they piloted the Huerta Urbana program, the three jumped on board. 

Bustillos took every class offered, learning how to start a farm, cultivate different plants, take care of crops, harvest and then sell them. Now almost three years later, the ladies run S & D Creations. “We grow our own flowers, create arrangements and sell them at the farmers market. We also make jewelry and other crafts with dried flowers,” says Bustillos. “The program helped us tremendously with education about urban farming and providing seven raised beds for our flower farm.”

In addition to the education component, business funding and hands-on training Huerta Urbana provides, they also offer Veggie Valet, their version of a CSA. “It’s not just [our] produce—we purchase eggs, meat, meat alternatives, flour, masa, honey and beans from East Denver Food Hub (a social enterprise that supports small farms on the eastern plains); we also partner with two neighborhood bakeries impacted by the I-70 construction. It’s a way to support the vendors while providing fresh Colorado products to our customers,” says Vernon.

With little access to healthy food and produce, the community embraced Huerta Urbana, now an easy neighborhood walk away. “Foot traffic increased by 400 percent, pounds of produce distributed went up by 500 percent,” says Vernon. “That’s thousands of pounds of produce going out to hundreds of families on a weekly basis. We operate on a pay-what-you-can model and we’re the only farmers market in the Denver Metro region that accepts SNAP and WIC.”

Although produce represents the bulk of offerings, Huerta Urbana also has tables for businesses such as Compost Colorado, so folks have access to compostable hygienic products such as toothbrushes, laundry detergent and storage bags. Family Support Services register people for SNAP, WIC, utility systems and rental assistance. Dumb Friends League distributes gently used leashes, collars, toys and information on its next free spay and neuter clinic. The goal is to offer essentials in a single stop, without the shame or embarrassment that can sometimes come from need-based programs. 

For Vernon, who has some personal history with not having what you need, eliminating shame was an important consideration. “There’s a sense of dignity that doesn’t always show up in resource offerings for families—you get in this line because you’re gonna use the token instead of regular money, and now everybody knows. We provide families with “market bucks” so everyone feels like they’re using the same currency.” This model allows customers to participate fully, and Focus Points reimburses vendors for any difference between what they collect and the market rate for their products.

Any given Friday wandering around Huerta Urbana, you can hear three or four different languages being spoken as produce flies everywhere. Children gather for storytime with Denver Public library, the smell of fresh tamales and tacos fills the air and performance artists from Project Athena (a Colorado nonprofit that empowers women through art) sing, dance and paint. There are poetry readings and face painters. Although Vernon says Huerta started to address the inequities of food access during the pandemic, the space has evolved into a social hub. More than an urban farm, it’s a cultural exchange that strengthens the surrounding communities. 

“[Living in] this neighborhood, being walking distance to Huerta, I see how much it has helped the community,” says Bustillos. “Neighbors don’t really know each other today, but Huerta is a place where we can socialize, meet each other’s families and support [one another].”

The post This Earn-While-You-Learn Model is Transforming a Colorado Food Desert appeared first on Modern Farmer.

She’s right. Bars, restaurants and concerts all have snaking lines of women waiting for a spot in the restroom but not at aquaculture events—that is, not yet.

Invisible Work

At 6:30 am on a windy April morning, surrounded by tumultuous seas, Stonington Kelp owner Suzie Flores calculates how much seaweed to take off the line as she motors out to her sugar kelp farm, located 40 minutes offshore on the Connecticut side of the Long Island Sound. “Yesterday, we brought up 100 pounds,” she says. “Next comes packaging it for orders, tagging it and putting it into refrigerators. Then the paperwork starts. I have a harvest log to fill out detailing how much I took off what area.” 

The kelp farmer also drops her product off to restaurants far and wide. “I don’t have somebody willing to come down and buy all my seaweed in one purchase on the dock. We don’t have that scale of infrastructure [in Connecticut],” she says. Not tallied in those tasks is the time she spends educating new chefs about her product, on phone calls to market sugar kelp and extolling seaweed farming’s environmental benefits to anyone who will listen.

Suzie Flores grows sugar kelp off the coast of Connecticut. Photos by Shelby Vittek.

Flores is an anomaly in the larger story of women in fisheries and aquaculture. According to FAO figures, of the nearly 60 million people involved in the primary sector of the fisheries and aquaculture industry, only 14 percent are women. But, if you look at secondary roles such as accounting, processing and marketing, women’s participation balances out. They occupy direct-harvesting and decision-making roles the least. Because most data aggregated on the industry correlates to harvest-specific operations, women’s participation in the value chain, largely constrained to pre- and post-harvest roles, becomes invisible.  

RELATED: The Future of Ocean Farming

Beyond weather and physical labor, childcare—especially during the pandemic, when so many children were schooled from home—became another issue that Flores had to  juggle. With her husband James occupied with dangerous barge work out of their marina, their kids accompany Flores on the boat when they can’t go to school. “It feels like a uniquely women-like thing where I said, ‘Hello, come to my farm, but also there’s going to be a five-year-old and a seven-year-old running around,’” she says.

Changing the Narrative

Briana Warner, CEO and president of Atlantic Sea Farms, supports kelp farmers like Flores just a couple of states up in Maine. She leans on her background in economic development and experience as a diplomat in the Foreign Service to navigate the changing waters of aquaculture. For Warner, the draw to this industry came from a desire to help communities reliant on the blue economy adapt in the face of climate change. 

And Atlantic Sea Farms’ model works. It supplies seed, harvest bags, guarantee purchase of product, pickup at the docks and provides trucks to run delivery and all the logistics. It then uses the kelp to make edible products such as fermented seaweed salad, kelp smoothie cubes, kelp kimchi, kelp and beet sauerkraut and a soon-to-be kelp burger. The farmer’s job, says Warner, “is to plant kelp and farm it excellently.” 

Briana Warner, CEO and president of Atlantic Sea Farms. Photo courtesy of Atlantic Sea Farms.

Atlantic Sea Farms recruits from the lobster industry. “We work with folks we think are leaders, good ambassadors for the health industry, good ambassadors for the future.” But like other areas of fisheries and aquaculture, that’s mostly men. Of the 27 partner farms, only three are women-owned. 

Even though diversity is not where she wants it to be in the industry as a whole, Warner’s organization features it on every level, starting with herself. “Our board is three women, two men. Our supply manager, the one helping farmers set all their gear, do their lease applications, [running] our farming network, is a woman,” says Warner. 

A recent job posting for an ocean farming technician yielded 15 applications, 13 of which were from young women. Warner believes we’re at a tipping point for gender diversity in aquaculture and maybe automation holds the key to countering some of the physical barriers. In Canada, for instance, parts of salmon farming are becoming less about physical strength and more about automation, narrowing the gender gap.

“I went to a brewery last week and this young woman came up to me. She said, ‘What you guys are doing is so inspirational. You’re showing women what they can do,’” says Warner. “And I thought that’s not what I’m doing this for. I’m doing this to help fishermen diversify in the face of climate change.” And yet, through her example, young women everywhere are seeing that they, too, can lead in the aquaculture industry.  

Adaptation and Community Building

A little more than an hour north in Casco Bay, Maine, Emily Selinger, a longtime water woman, farms oysters.

Like kelp, oyster farming helps the environment by filtering and sequestering carbon. But the autonomy of the industry is what drew Selinger in. “I realized the happiest place for me is calling my own shots,” she says. “While I have arguably more work to do in my daily, weekly life running this business, there’s none of the stress and tension of those really intense male-dominated work environments. There’s some sense of competition on a broader scale among our oyster farming industry, but at the same time, I’m not competing to make myself feel as good or as strong as coworkers or male counterparts.” 

The specific challenges some women face while hauling and tumbling large oyster bags complicated Selinger’s plan, but she adapted. “Using cages and heavy equipment doesn’t work for my body. I had to downsize everything. I use floating bags. I work in shallow water at low tide and get out of the boat,” she says.

Photo courtesy of Atlantic Sea Farms.

Beyond equipment built for men, the 2020 United Nations State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report outlined the need to “improve access to credit, finance and insurance…in particular for women entrepreneurs and operators from disadvantaged groups.” Like gear designed for a male-dominated industry, financial backing remains a barrier to equity in aquaculture.

Moving down to Florida’s Forgotten Coast, Deborah Keller works out of Oyster Bay. She came to farming later in life after a 29-year career in major donor fundraising and government relations with the Nature Conservancy. “My husband has his own business, so it was me and a boat I bought off Craigslist that I didn’t know how to drive,” she recalls. “I’m a Pennsylvania girl, thrown into the Gulf of Mexico on a Carolina skiff out there in all kinds of weather, learning the current and tides.”

Keller offers space on her leases for burgeoning farmers to plant seed and test the waters of the aquaculture industry, as well as speaking at local Chamber of Commerce events and schools to promote women in aquaculture. 

Finding Your Niche

Off Florida’s Atlantic Coast, in an area known as the Treasure Coast, Nicolette Mariano owns and operates one of just two oyster farms on that side of the state. The Indian River Lagoon, where she farms, serves as a nursery for everything from lobster to fish to bull sharks to dolphins, but hurricanes and human impact decimated the seagrass that affords structure for birthing and protection from larger predators. Her oysters help rebuild that habitat.

RELATED: Can Oyster Farming Save the North Carolina Coast?

Mariano, decades younger than anyone working around her, says, “It took over a year for the guys around here to stop asking me if I’d given up yet.” And giving up is not in her nature. After getting her operation off the ground, Mariano realized she needed to start processing her own oysters. The four-hour drive across the state to the nearest facility ate up time and gas that could instead be spent on the water.

“I’ve never wanted to be behind a microscope or in a cubicle compiling data. You’re always seeing something new out here. Last year, I found juvenile spiny lobster in our gear. I’ve seen them in textbooks, but never in the water,” she says. That drive for new experiences coupled with work that restores the estuary on which she grew up keeps Mariano grinding.

Florida oyster farm Nicolette Mariano. Photo courtesy of Treasure Coast Shellfish.

Across the state in Cedar Key, Leslie Sturmer got into aquaculture in the 1990s to help displaced fisherfolk find viable careers on the water. Sturmer, a Sea Grant agent for the Big Bend, took a position in retraining programs that introduced fish farming to fishermen put out of work due to regulations. 

The infrastructure provided by those federally funded programs launched the aquaculture industry on Florida’s west coast. The University of Florida created an extension position to support the new clam industry and Sturmer still occupies that spot today. On the weekends, though, she works the clam farm she took over after her husband passed away five years ago. 

While there are husband-wife teams on the water, she remains the only solo woman clam farmer in Cedar Key. But through her work with the Florida Sea Grant, she sees more women like her entering the field. “The National Shellfisheries Association is dominated by women and they’re doing excellent research. It’s amazing seeing all these young women getting into the business,” says Sturmer.

Imani Black, founder of Minorities in Aquaculture (MIA). Photo courtesy of MIA.

Representation Matters

Not only is it important to see a better representation of gender in aquaculture, but racial diversity matters, too. Representation poses the biggest challenge to Imani Black’s Minorities in Aquaculture members. Black started the nonprofit in 2021 to support and empower minority women who faced barriers in aquaculture because of gender and race. 

“You can’t care about something you don’t know about. Seeing yourself in a career and how you fit into that industry creates the spark,” says Black. “We’re in a really good space to be intentional about internships and opportunities for women that are economically viable. It can’t just be checking a box that we have a diversity inclusion curriculum or a diversity statement.”

Black finds hope in the community with which she’s surrounded herself. “There’s so many badass women in aquaculture right now making a path for others. We’re owners, farmers, out in the field, in the hatchery, making an impact on the industry,” she says. “When all women in aquaculture come together, we can be so powerful.”

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