What began 26 years ago as an organic farming school funded by yogurt sales is now a $320 million company supporting 1,400 organic farms across the USA. Stonyfield Farm co-founder Gary Hirshberg explains himself....read more
The way we see it, growing food in cities is a great way to address some of the social, environmental, and health problems faced by urbanites. Derek Denckla agrees. The Brooklyn-based green visionary helped launch the Farm City project (named after Novella Carpenter's excellent book on adventures in city farming) to explore and promote the practice of urban agriculture. Our intrepid Brooklyn......read more
Longtime farming advocate Willie Nelson lends his voice to Coldplay's "The Scientist" in this charming piece of stop motion from Johnny Kelly. The story follows the plight of a farmer who, in an effort to modernize his farm, turns it into an industrial animal factory. Seeing the error of his ways, he reverts back to a small-scale, sustainable farm. The film was commissioned by Chipotle "to......read more
Young Farmers, the latest original web series from SHFT and Lockerz, explores the growth of 'farm-to-table' values among young people today. In the first episode, we visit with Morgan and her abundant urban farm plot. Morgan's mindset about food was shifted by her experience living in France, where knowing where your food comes from -- and how it was raised -- is a normal part of life.......read more
Corbett, our newest Young Farmers subject, comes by his interest in gardening honestly. Raised until the age of six on a farm near Lake Tahoe, the teen green thumb was exposed to the practice of growing food at an early age. Now living in Los Angeles, he tends to a community farm plot right off the freeway that produces everything from corn and peppers to zucchini and tomato. Check out......read more
We're big fans of school gardens around here. They're a great way to use the schoolyard as a classroom and teach students valuable concepts about food and agriculture. Katie, our latest Young Farmers subject, leads a gardening program at an extension high school in Claremont, California, where at-risk students get a chance to grow their own veggies. By literally getting their hands dirty,......read more
Lockerz and SHFT present Young Farmers, an original web series exploring the growth of 'farm-to-table' values among young people today. In the videos, we visit with 10 budding gardeners, taking a personal look at their lives and the things they grow....read more
Is gardening an art form? Well, it's a form of creation, so it should be. The difference between growing food and, say, playing in a symphony, is that a gardener's collaborator is nature itself. In this episode of Young Farmers, we meet Aileen, a high school cellist who likens gardening to music. You work hard at both, and in both cases, something eventually clicks, and the next thing you know......read more
According to Dwight, a graduating college student and ex-baseball star, composting is just the same as making cookies. Follow the recipe, adding just the right amount of worms, food scraps and hay, then let the bacteria go to work, and the ingredients form themselves into a delicious compost. In this episode of Young Farmers, we follow Dwight to the campus garden, where he informs us how to make......read more
Our man Jeff is an expert gardener who attributes his interest in growing his own food to his family, for whom eating healthy, organic and local has always been par for the course. In this episode, we roll with Jeff to his garden plot, where he treasure hunts for potatoes and weird Siamese twin cucumbers. Then we get a glimpse of his first-rate grilling skills, as he cooks up fresh veg from......read more