Farmland Under Threat SUBSCRIBE TO RIVER TALKS ON APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY, OR GOOGLE Summary: Across the United States, 11 million acres of farmland have been lost from 2001 to 2016. In Tennessee, we lost around 650,000 acres with an additional 1 million acres of land projected to be converted by 2040. Much of the loss comes from […]
Food is Medicine: The Story of Reggie’s Veggies For Reggie Marshall, the connection between healthy food and healthy life has always been clear. While the Jackson, TN native grew up tending to his grandparents’ farm before earning a degree in animal science and agriculture, his career largely took place in the medical field. After retiring […]
Winding 115 miles, the Harpeth River flows northwest through Franklin and Kingston Springs through cities and past expansive farmlands to eventually reach the Cumberland River. Nearly 250,000 people call this watershed home along with fish, mussels, amphibians, birds and other critters. Over 25% of the Harpeth River Watershed is agricultural land, so there is ample […]
Cynthia may seem like an unlikely farmer, but from a young age she loved farm birds! As a city girl from Chicago, she would visit the chickens at the Lincoln Park Zoo and watch them until her mother pulled her away. But it took Cynthia many years and a career later to get to the […]
Going on the Offense with Regenerative Agriculture (featuring Mitchell Hora and Jeremiah Durbin) SUBSCRIBE TO RIVER TALKS ON APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY, OR GOOGLE Summary: Now more than ever, farmers are challenged with keeping valuable topsoil on fields, fostering soil that can retain water during periods of drought, and bringing back life to our soils so that they can […]
A CSA that Starts with the Soil Sylvia and Al Ganier have histories of farming in their blood; the tradition has been passed down through both their families. It would make sense, then, that when they reimagined agriculture on the Ganier family farm in Nashville twelve years ago as Green Door Gourmet, they set out […]
Abundantly Fruitful and Helpful to Many, Including the Environment When Lori Birkhead and her husband bought their 96-acre farm in Joelton, TN, they had to start the restoration of their property from the ground up, literally. They were drawn to the land’s immense beauty, including the quiet tributary to Long Creek that meanders through the […]
Leigh and Olin Funderburk’s 15-acre farm in Williamson County has a creek with a stone bed that winds almost through the entire farm and lends its identity to the name of their property: Stoney Creek Farm. In the spring they have about a quarter acre of yellow daffodils (otherwise known as buttercups) growing all around the creek. In the summer the […]
Before you run to the grocery store for your summer BBQ and potluck needs, make a trip to your local farmers market – like the Franklin Farmers Market! Not only are you supporting your community of farmers – your guests will feel much more excited to eat your food. Tell them about the local, grass-fed […]
Summary We all eat, yet people are often disconnected from where their food comes from and how it gets produced. We may not realize the harmful impacts of what we eat on the environment and our climate. In fact, agriculture contributes 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. However, agriculture can also be a powerful […]
