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Organic Production Support in Kentucky
98 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, we have a special guest: Sarah Geurkink, Organic Production Specialist at the Organic Association of Kentucky. She will share with us her new role and how she helps organic farmers in the state. Tune in to hear more!
Organic Association of Kentucky
Center For Crop Diversification Organic Resources
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction to Hort Culture
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture. Hello, welcome. I have big news. Are you guys ready to hear
Humor and SodaStream
00:00:19
Speaker
it? Yes, I'm ready.
00:00:21
Speaker
All right. Huge, huge in my life. I just got a SodaStream. So life has now changed forever. Are you well carbonated? Is that what you're saying? You're very well carbonated. That's why, that's why when you ask if I'm going to bring the sparkle. Yes. Because it's just like when it's your bubbly personality. I'm so, you know what? I've been described that by multiple people. I'm just so bubbly. Oh, I was wondering. Is it explaining like the burping?
00:00:50
Speaker
There's lots of burping happening. Is that why that's good? Yeah, I see. But we actually have somebody very sparkly and bubbly and wonderful. And I would like to just continue to describe you as sparkly, Sarah, because I feel like that's not a compliment used enough.
00:01:05
Speaker
I thought you were talking about Josh at first. Yeah, same. Josh is shiny. It's different. I don't know that that's the same thing.
Meet Sarah Gerking
00:01:18
Speaker
I can't confirm for sure that we are joined by Sarah Gerking of the Organic Association of Kentucky today. Sarah, how are you? Hello. I'm doing great. How are you? How's the weather where you are?
00:01:36
Speaker
Hmm, rainy. We look like a mile apart from each other, so. Maybe, maybe half a mile. So if one of you guys yell real loud, are we going to hear like a reverb in the background where it's going to like walk out his door and give a big yell? Just someone walk up to him and be like, cacao. And you'll see the picture fall off behind Sarah. Yes, do the cacao, just like Alexis said. You're not going to get any weird looks from the neighbors. It's going to be fine.
00:02:04
Speaker
It's how you used to find people in the store when you're looking for them, because you might know there might be 30 Josh's in the store, but if you go, ta-ta, he's going to get the right one. Especially if it's a Dollar General, that's where we congregate. We have our medias. I see. There's a lot of Dollar Generals now, so how do you guys pick which one is the one?
00:02:22
Speaker
Alexa, you may know this, but Reed and I, my 10-year-old son, I'll just say, where are you?
Sarah's Role and Onboarding at OAK
00:02:28
Speaker
And he's like, I'm so sorry. Yeah, he'll do that in any store. He'll do that in any store. I like that. Yeah. We get this whole emo vibe going in any place we're at. It's awesome. You can tell everyone that has that, you know, has that background. Parenting hack for Sarah. Yeah. Sarah, I hope you're taking notes. That's very true.
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah, you're going to figure it out. Something from the King and I, maybe, if you want to have it. Yeah. I don't know why that came to mind. Any music sound of music? I mean, that'll do right now. Yeah. So, Sarah, we didn't invite you here just to talk about show tunes and Blink-182. Musical theater. We really did. Musical theater.
00:03:14
Speaker
to also talk a little bit about hort culture and horticulture and agriculture and your role in it. And so you've taken a new role not too terribly long ago. How's that been going at the Organic Association of Kentucky, AKA Oak? What have you been up to?
00:03:31
Speaker
Yeah. Hi, it's been great. I manage a new program at Oak called the Organic Production Assistance Program. I'm the organic production specialist. It's a resource for farms in Oak's network and it's.
00:03:50
Speaker
Yeah. Oak's always gotten a lot of production related questions from
Sarah's Past Roles and CSA Benefits
00:03:54
Speaker
farmers. So now we have the funding and official capacity to, to field those questions. So kind of a field position. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. You're spending time on farms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As part of my onboarding, I've been to like six or seven farms already. And yeah, I'll be traveling around the state.
00:04:15
Speaker
That's exciting. It's much better than sitting at a desk or something or being on Zoom all day. It's like getting out there, touching some soil, getting into it. I'm so excited. I love getting on farms. Yeah, that's got to be awesome. How long did you say you've been there in that capacity, Sarah? How long?
00:04:31
Speaker
I started in mid-October, so six weeks. Yeah, I was thinking, yeah. So six weeks and you've already been on farms. That's awesome. Uh, so you cover the entire state. Is that correct? Just, just you right now. Gotcha. Awesome. Yeah. I mean, I'm in a team that also includes Kenya Abraham, who is managing organic transition for, for folks who want to want to do that, as well as a mentorship program.
00:05:01
Speaker
So yeah, there's been a lot of new positions. Oh, sorry. I'm just, I just, every time I get to go to a farm, I get to pet a really cool dog. Usually I'm the serious one on the podcast, but today I'm thinking about puppies.
00:05:21
Speaker
Yeah, we'll put that to a vote among the listeners. Come to a consensus on that. Would you, you all have had or have added or Oak has added a pretty, and is in the process of adding a decent amount of new positions, new initiatives and all that kind of stuff. It's a pretty exciting time to be there, I'd imagine. Very exciting, yeah.
00:05:45
Speaker
Lots of really cool people and our capacity is increasing exponentially. We're busy, but it's really fun to see what everybody's up to. That's awesome. Well, you and I first met because you used to work over there in the Barnhart building in the Department of Ag Economics. That was your first kind of role since you had come to Kentucky, right? Is that right?
00:06:11
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. When I first moved here, I worked in the agricultural economics department. I represented UK in the CSA innovation network and did outreach and networking around community supported agriculture or CSA in a food as medicine context and like CSA as a wellness strategy for universities and employers.
00:06:39
Speaker
Just curious, that's interesting. Do you find that there's a lot of employers that kind of are interested in that? I mean, obviously think that's an awesome long-term strategy as far as keeping people healthy through, you know, the food we eat and things like that. But there are lots of folks interested in that. Or is it something you're trying to make them aware of?
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah, so now Katie Harvey at Oak is doing a lot of this kind of outreach around Kentucky. And I think that the popularity of CSA is growing, so more people know what it is. So the concept of the triple benefit of your employees are healthier, your healthcare costs decrease, and farmers are benefiting.
00:07:30
Speaker
a pretty exciting one. It's a way to stand out as an innovative employer and do some corporate social responsibility stuff. So lots of good benefits to it.
00:07:41
Speaker
Might I add a fourth benefit, which is this butternut mac and cheese is incredible. That would be one of my experiences as a CSA member. Yeah, it's really cool because for those listeners who aren't really familiar, UK, Oak, others played this role in getting this program off the ground where we as UK employees are eligible to receive a voucher toward a CSA subscription.
00:08:10
Speaker
So in other words, if I want to go, I was a CSA member back in the past, but then now that the vouchers available, it's a whole new world for me because I get to save a little bit of money on that share and still get that local weekly share of fresh fruits and vegetables from a
00:08:30
Speaker
a cool farm in Kentucky. It's very neat and Sarah mentioned that. I think they've done a lot
Farm Management Experiences
00:08:36
Speaker
of work. Sarah and others have done a lot of work to advance that model of like, hey, we give you a Fitbit or we do things to try to get you to move or to maybe meditate or give you chair massages or something. Why don't we give you some tasty food with a
00:08:53
Speaker
some carotenoids and other tasty antioxidants and stuff and get that in your body and see how things go. At the very least, you're gonna be eating good. I know that Sarah's a great cook.
00:09:06
Speaker
and that highly values the food side of the food production world. Like many of us. I just wanted to throw it to the, uh, work helping any of the, uh, the materials, but, uh, I'd be happy to give a testimonial about mac and cheese. Yeah. Yeah. You've spread by saying mac and cheese, even off the rails already here. So, so before you came to Kentucky,
00:09:35
Speaker
You were in Michigan immediately before that, but you also had some other experience in farming. Can you take us through the nickel tour of your farming experience? Sure, yeah. I managed diversified vegetable farms for 13 seasons in both commercial and educational farms. I started out at a commercial farm in West Michigan. I worked there and managed
00:10:05
Speaker
It was, was a farm manager for three years. And then I moved to Seattle, Washington, or I managed the University of Washington farm. It's run like hand scale market garden in Seattle's urban campus. It's Seattle or UW's urban campus in Seattle. Uh, it's a really cool program, brings a lot of undergraduate students through, has a CSA and sells to dining.
00:10:33
Speaker
And then I went to Michigan State University.
00:10:40
Speaker
in 2017. They have a horticulture farm much like the UK does here at the South Farm that has an organic unit called the Student Organic Farm. And we did a new and beginning farmer training program, a certificate program for sort of non-undergraduate students. And then we also worked with undergraduate students
00:11:06
Speaker
in a variety of capacities. And then we managed something called the Farmer Field School, where we collaborated with farmers around the state who were particularly good at one aspect of production and had them teach like a day long workshop. So yeah. So education is kind of your base. But you were also doing that. You were also doing some, you had your own place, right, in the midst of some of these adventures you were
00:11:35
Speaker
tearing stuff out and doing all kinds of renos and fences and I don't know, I can just say that. Yeah. Right? You were doing that too. Yeah. I owned a small farm outside of Lansing, Michigan. We raised livestock, so hogs and sheep and turkeys and chickens and bees. Nice. And it was really fun. In 2020 it was,
00:12:05
Speaker
Not a great year, but it was very fun to be out of the year. Yeah, totally. What's some cool experiences? You said, did I hear you right when you said that you worked on both educational and production type farms? It's got to be an interesting experience with the different objectives there that you were working under, I bet. That sounds really cool that you've actually done both. That's awesome. Yeah, it's definitely
00:12:36
Speaker
super different experience, but the priorities are sort of different. It might be faster for the student who already knows how to do the thing to do it, but probably I should get a different student to learn how to do that thing. Yeah, efficiency probably takes on a different kind of a different role there in a learning form, I bet. Yeah, for sure. Awesome. I figured as much as possible. But it was also a good way to keep
00:13:06
Speaker
Uh, our systems current and fresh and not be kind of stuck on a rut because we had to teach folks the most, you know, as good of a way to do things
Passion for Farming and Environmental Impacts
00:13:17
Speaker
as we could. Yeah. And all those experiences, I'm guessing, uh, I mean, you bring such a wide range of experiences to Kentucky and you're probably going to be able to
00:13:25
Speaker
I know you're going to be able to use all of those on farms in Kentucky as you work in your new capacity. That's pretty awesome. Which in here now that you're with Oak in Kentucky, you're mainly working with not like educational producers, but producers, just field producers across the state. Is that right? Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So, uh, sort of what I do is going to entail referrals to extension professionals or all the great
00:13:53
Speaker
TA resources in Kentucky like NRCS or Grow Up Alacha or all sorts of great infrastructure here, but also just helping folks with crop planning or scaling up their production if they have weed pests and disease management issues. Oak has always gotten production-related inquiries from farmers.
00:14:16
Speaker
We'll be able to do that. And probably from agents too, like you said, probably, I mean, I would have questions. I do have questions on organic production. So watch out now that I know that you're in that capacity. So I'm like, I'm not a producer, but I've got questions. So yeah, great to know that. So just go ahead. No, you go for it. I was just going to say that when I was in the thick of farming, I often wished I had more time to like,
00:14:47
Speaker
fully wrap my head around the production challenges I was having. But of course, you got to turn on the irrigation or you got to do the thing. So I feel lucky that now my job is to get my head around production challenges. And I have kind of the time and support to do that.
00:15:09
Speaker
I'm curious in a more general sense. We had an episode earlier in the podcast called reasons to grow other than money. It seems like a talented person such as yourself would have lots of different options for how to interact with the world professionally, personally, et cetera, and yet you keep coming back to this agriculture
00:15:31
Speaker
food, farming, focus. And I'm curious for you, what are your reasons why that you are doing that, do you think? Sure. Just a minor question. Well, I like how concrete
00:15:53
Speaker
sort of the results of your work are in farming. I like how useful it is, you know, it's pretty important to produce food, real food. I think it has a lot of implications for the environment and soil health and water quality and so how farming happens is really important.
Oak's Growth and Upcoming Conference
00:16:21
Speaker
I really like the physicality of farming. I like using my body to get stuff done and I love to eat. So producing food is... That's a great combination. You like to grow food, you like to eat food. So that's a match made in heaven. Awesome. So let's maybe dig a little bit deeper into the work with Oak now.
00:16:45
Speaker
So Oak has been around for a little while. I've worked with them ever since I started this role, my role in 2015. I was aware of them before that.
00:16:57
Speaker
I think you'll have a conference coming up, maybe we could talk, I don't know if you're much involved with that or anything like that, but we did plug it already on one of our podcast episodes. But I just really, I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are and ambitions are for this position, what you think, what types of farms, you mentioned you've been on six or seven farms so far, what types, how diverse, different those things have been.
00:17:25
Speaker
Just your, your, your vision for where you think this might be going. Um, or, or maybe you don't know, I still, I'm almost 10 years in and don't quite know where things are going. But, um, yeah, I'm just curious who your thoughts on that stuff. Whoa, that was a big question, Brett. Sorry. I want to know more about the Oak conference for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, uh,
00:17:51
Speaker
the Oak Conference. I don't know how much you've already talked about it in the podcast, but it's going to be January 25 to 27. Coming up, it's at Kentucky State University at the Harold R. Benson Research and Demonstration Farm. Early bird registration. We're lucky to have them as partners. Early bird registration is open through December 15. It's very accessible at that rate.
00:18:21
Speaker
scholarships are also available. Thanks to our generous sponsors and program partners. Woo-woo. Yeah. I know it sold out last year, and it probably will again, so reserve your tickets early. The agenda is available online. But yeah, I'm really excited about those half-day pre-conference workshops on Thursday.
00:18:52
Speaker
Those are sort of the optional a la carte events. And I'm particularly excited about the one I'm moderating, Laura Legnick's five-part series on developing a regenerative resilience plan for your farm. So the first part is going to take place during conference, and then the other four will be throughout February on Zoom.
00:19:22
Speaker
And then the main conference runs Friday and Saturday. We've got great keynote speakers and a really good lineup of folks sharing their expertise. So it'll be fun. It's like, I don't know, I've never been to that conference before, but I feel like farm conferences are kind of like summer camp for farmers. Like winter camp.
00:19:45
Speaker
So I'm pretty excited to have this opportunity to connect with folks. It's one of my favorite conferences. So like, see you there. We've had questions from local producers. It's always interesting to me. And I know that some of the producers that will come through the door in the office, I work with them and I know they're not organic producers, but they go to that conference and they say, well, they just,
00:20:11
Speaker
love to learn and they're always interested in learning those principles and applying those on their farms, but they're not necessarily organic. And I think that's pretty cool. So you don't necessarily need to be an organic producer to have an awesome time and get great farming information from that, I suppose. So it's a little bit, a little bit of something for everyone, uh, sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. We, oaks programs are, are really pretty accessible and useful to, to organic and conventional farmers as well as like
00:20:41
Speaker
you know, open to members and non-members. Yeah. Good form information is good form information regardless. Yeah. And part of your work is with people who are interested in maybe transitioning to organic, right? I mean, in the sense of certified organic, everything had to become organic at some point and it wasn't before.
Organic Certification Challenges for Farmers
00:21:03
Speaker
in with regard to the standard itself. So you are most people that you're talking to so far, are they already certified or are they transitioning or are they interested in transitioning? What's the breakdown on interest you've seen so far, the farms you visited? Oh man, I think it's been like 50-50 on the farms that I've visited and talked with.
00:21:28
Speaker
certified and not certified. Some of them are not looking to become certified and some of them are. So the whole range, there are lots of reasons why you would or would not want our needs certification. And, uh, we work with all sorts of folks. Sure. So do you, yeah, go ahead. Right. Oh, I was just going to ask.
00:21:53
Speaker
And have you ever ran into the situations where they may be interested in just like one portion of their farm or one enterprise on a farm being organic and then the rest not? I mean, I don't think I've ever ran into that, but I'm sure it exists out there, but yeah. We get lots of questions from folks that they realize that maybe, you know, hey, this crop would be a little bit easier for me to get into organic production to see if that's something that's gonna work for me and my family.
00:22:20
Speaker
But they're still conventionally farming. It seems like a lot of people that I've talked with, they seem to be in some sort of transition state of either considering organic or becoming organic. So it's interesting. Pretty exciting times. Yeah. Yeah. So I haven't interacted with anyone who's doing split production like that. Okay. But yeah, I'm excited to learn and help folks who are doing that.
00:22:48
Speaker
So the programming is open to only members or members and non members. And do you have to be transitioning or already certified to be a member? Like, is it all pretty open? What's the deal?
00:23:03
Speaker
It's all pretty open. Yeah. But you don't need to be an Oak member to receive our services or participate in our programming. There are some great benefits of being an Oak member. You get discounts to seed companies and suppliers. You get discounts to all of our programming.
00:23:24
Speaker
you support a great organization, but our program is open to folks like in the whole spectrum from certified to conventional, as well as members and non-members. Cool. Do you guys get into other things like, I mean, like basic, like the business planning behind organic or like possible funding sources, grants or anything like that, or mostly on the production side, or do you cover it all?
00:23:54
Speaker
So a lot of that is going to be referrals. So I'm developing a farmer-generated list of technical assistance and product sourcing recommendations, which I'm excited to put out there. So that would be really useful. On a state, like a state national level? Does that go beyond the state level? Awesome. That would be awesome.
00:24:18
Speaker
Anything from like where to get salad bags to where to get help making a business plan. So that's cool. Started out as just like, I need to learn this stuff for Kentucky and then became like, I think this might be useful. Yes, that would be very useful. Yeah. But KCard has great business planning. Yeah. Yeah. They do a lot of that. I know. Programming.
00:24:48
Speaker
If you, uh, when you have flower resources, that's my, it's always my biggest issue is not to make this about me, but I, I work with a lot of the flower growers around the state and a lot of them are doing organic, want to
Integration into Kentucky Farming Community
00:25:03
Speaker
be organic. They're, you know, doing organic practices, but they can't certify because they, like, there's just, there are, they probably could certify.
00:25:14
Speaker
but it would be very difficult, let me put it that way, because there's just not yet in that industry, people growing transplants organically. Pescuilis. Yeah, exactly. Boom, nailed it. I just found a dahlia grower that is an organic farm that does dahlias organically, but chrysanthemums are a big one that you can't get transplants of heirloom chrysanthemums organically, so it's
00:25:41
Speaker
It's a good market opportunity for someone to be doing that, but that's always when you find them, when you're working on those, or if you need help working on those, let me know because I've got some growers who would really love that. Yeah. I'm going to send you that list so you can add flower resources. Please. My father is Mr. Anthem Mums. Call me Chris.
00:26:03
Speaker
Oh man. You were just holding that. You were just waiting for the right opportunity. He gets so excited. He gets really close to his mic and he's like, please. When he leans in, he is going to drop some. He's here for it. Yeah. Yeah. He's here for it. Here he comes. Here he comes. Well, that's going to be exciting working directly with producers.
00:26:21
Speaker
I hear in Kentucky and I find that personally like really rewarding and you're, you know, you have a certain focus area and you've been in other states. And I'm sure that, you know, you have had some really cool experiences in those other states and I'm sure Kentucky's as you work in Kentucky is going to bring its own unique flavor with our zone six and seven and a few other little micro zones.
00:26:42
Speaker
with your weeks of already working in Kentucky, has that varied from some of your experiences in other states? I mean, you've covered a lot of geography in the US as far as your experiences go, it sounds like. Yeah, it's different.
00:26:59
Speaker
If we had this conversation, I'm getting a little bit lost in because we talked about some of these. Yeah, we talked on the side about some of these. It's confusing. I'm like, is that an echo or have we already said this? Am I going to repeat myself? Yeah.
00:27:15
Speaker
I think that what I am finding is that the world of technical assistance and farming in the US is smaller than one might think, and people are always talking to each other across extension circles and different networks of growers. I got some exposure to that working with the CSA Innovation Network, but also
00:27:41
Speaker
And even just like reading Growing for Market and being like, I know that grower. So it's pretty fun to connect Kentucky to that sort of the work of
00:27:54
Speaker
knowledge. What would you say is like kind of the most the thing you're looking forward to the most exciting thing you know is new jobs are always exciting and oak has got a lot of transition you know you've got a lot of hot new hires coming on board just came on board more you know that have been posted so if you're looking for a job and have some experience and that check out oaks jobs they look cool I've been checking them out don't tell UK
00:28:18
Speaker
I guess I just did. They look great. Take up the pace here. It's a private conversation. Whatever. I mean, it just says how awesome that they sound. But what are you, I guess, kind of most excited and like gets you up in the morning and just revs your engine.
00:28:39
Speaker
Personally, I love getting on farms, so I'm so pumped to seeing the smart ways that farmers do what they do and being able to get this good idea and share it with this other person and do that knowledge sharing is just really fun. I am so excited to learn more about farming than I probably had
00:29:03
Speaker
the time to when I was farming. But I also like the team at Oak is really just stellar folks who are so excited and optimistic and I don't know, it's a great community and it's a great community of staff, but it's also a great community of advisors and board members and farmers who are like in that
00:29:31
Speaker
I am new to Kentucky, so just like, gosh, getting to know people and connecting with folks personally is really exciting.
00:29:39
Speaker
They have a group that seems to know everyone. I feel like every time I talk to Ashton Potter Wright or somebody at Brook and they're always like, oh, you need me. And they know everybody. I mean, that's their job, right, to do that. So you'll be an expert here shortly on all the peeps and the gomens on of the organic world.
00:30:02
Speaker
Very quickly. I can't wait. I've been really impressed with how quickly you've plugged in to all the different networks and how many people know and think highly of you that's been really, yeah, it's been awesome. I think also as you were talking about your experience earlier, I was like, were your years moving at a different speed from mine? Because it feels like you fit in about three times as much stuff as I managed to fit into my years over time.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yes. How do you have a sense of how you're going to know that you were successful or what you want to try to do in the next six months or year or so? How are you thinking about that?
00:30:52
Speaker
That's a really good question. You should have sent me these questions. This is not a job interview, I promise. There's no wrong answer,
Cabbage: A Versatile Favorite
00:31:00
Speaker
except there is. If you just asked her for her long, medium, and short-term goals, I believe you did. Where do you see yourself in five years? If you were a vegetable in a refrigerator, what would you be? Cabbage. No, wait a minute. That was a really quick answer. We're going to have to unpack that a little bit. Cabbage.
00:31:20
Speaker
It's just the best vegetable. I mean, you could do so much with cabbage. Is it so much? What? Yes. Is it coleslaw? Did someone say coleslaw? I love slaw. Oh, I do too. I love kraut. Kraut. Sauerkraut. Roasted cabbage rolls.
00:31:39
Speaker
I like that it's like a vessel for flavoring. It's kind of like squash. It's like, you know, winter squash. It's just a, it's a vehicle, a carrier of cinnamon and butter and
Oak's Multidimensional Food Production
00:31:52
Speaker
all that. I think botanically it desires to ferment and it's, it's desire to ferment means that it's so readily lends itself to all those tasty fermented things that exist in cultures all over the world. That is its crowning achievement.
00:32:09
Speaker
I love cabbage even after unwrapping rotten leaves, like layers and layers and layers. Like rotten leaves. That center beautiful. Off of so many storage cabbages. Yeah. That's like a roll of cheese. You got to take the rind off and then on the inside. That's right. Distributing them to our CSA and being like, you have no idea what that looks like. I just have a new marketing term. Deconstructed cabbage. Basically, you're taking the wrapper leaves off. It's deconstructed cabbage.
00:32:35
Speaker
We have a baby cabbage. It's the center cut. It's the fillet of the cabbage. Yes, it's the center of the Tootsie Row.
00:32:46
Speaker
I like this. This is good to know. I feel like this tells us a lot about you, Sarah. Yeah, it does. I mean, you answered very quickly. You were like, cabbage. She's like, I got data to back this baby up. She was right. Well, she said, I mean, you could, she takes food seriously. So she's thought about this and I think we've talked about our love for cabbage before. We've commiserated. We have. We've talked about our love for all things food before. Swiss cake rolls to cabbage. We've covered a lot of ground on food and gravy, Josh. I see that in for you. Thanks for bringing that up.
00:33:15
Speaker
Yeah. And it sounds like speaking of food, I mean, you guys, everything you've mentioned Saturday, it's interesting that it's kind of an ecological approach or even a cultural approach to food. It's just not about producing the food. You mentioned you eat food and you enjoy growing food. You enjoy both, but it sounds like in your arena, it's
00:33:36
Speaker
Especially working directly with producers, it's a little bit of everything. It's kind of, I mean, this is horticulture, the culture of horticulture.
Challenges in Organic Farming
00:33:44
Speaker
And that really is what it is. And it sounds like with the personnel Oak is adding and your, your position in particular, you guys are addressing like multiple aspects of food production. So that's really cool that that.
00:33:57
Speaker
It seems like the organization is being fleshed out and expanded. So yeah, that's really cool stuff. The whole shebang production. Are you working with livestock producers and crop producers? Yeah, great question. I am. Yeah. Yep. I'm available for. Cool. Yeah.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah, to be clear, I'm not going to know all the answers, but I am going to know where to look for the answers and I'm going to- You're basically an extension agent for Oak, like this. Just describe it. Right. That's a compliment. I mean, I think so. From Alexis, the notably vain extension agent, that's a huge compliment. I mean, that's a better descriptor than bubbly, so. Yeah.
00:34:45
Speaker
I know that there's a ton of like great technical assistance support in Kentucky already. And part of my work is just to connect farmers to those. So extension and NRCS and KCard and yeah, I'm excited to keep meeting folks. And yeah, I get to know the farmer support community a little bit better and collaborate and hopefully foster some synergy around, uh,
00:35:13
Speaker
better equipping Kentucky farmers. And we have producers listening. I'm sure, you know, we do podcasts for both homeowners and commercial producers, but if, is there like common, not what's another word for stumbling block, but is there a common like obstacles or challenges for people to get into organic that you've ran into over the years and in this job, particularly as you work directly with producers that they need to think about first, like the big puzzle pieces.
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, it depends on if you mean using organic practices or becoming certified organic. Actually, yeah, that's a great differentiation. Certified organic, let's say. You're going to go through the complete process. Yeah. I think that record keeping is a huge...
00:36:02
Speaker
like first step and I'm working on developing some like really user friendly templates for record keeping that can either be like printed and folks can fill it out or using Google forms so that people can have them like bookmarked on their phones and like at any time they spray something or anytime they till or whatever they can like record that using their
00:36:28
Speaker
little pocket computers. And that will help too, if you have staff who are doing that stuff so they can keep track of all the records a little bit better. So yeah, I would say record keeping might be a first thing. Cause a lot of folks who are not certified organic are already not really using synthetic chemicals, fertilization or pest control, but, um, they're not really doing the record keeping because they don't have to.
00:36:57
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I mean, record can be so much fun. I don't know why people just don't, I mean, Excel spreadsheets are awesome fun on the weekends. Sorry, Josh. Yeah. Josh is over there getting excited when I'm in spreadsheets. I mean, I don't know why everybody else isn't excited by spreadsheets. Yeah.
00:37:15
Speaker
But I hear that a lot from producers, you know, when I, you know, look through some of the information of what's commonly needed for that. I'm proving out things or proving out fallow periods or so on and so forth. The history of specific fields. And it's always record keeping first. It's like, what are your records for that? Do you know?
00:37:32
Speaker
You know, not only on your farm, but every, you know, chemical or mulch or not mulch, uh, compost is on a former episode, but, uh, any compost just all the way down the chain, keeping good records and knowing where things are sourced from all of that's important, isn't it?
00:37:50
Speaker
as far as becoming actually certified organic. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That answer really doesn't surprise me. That jives with what I hear from people that approach us there at the local office and have questions. And it's like, what records do you have on these fields? And start with that. And sometimes they don't have those, at least not in that capacity of keeping them in a certain way.
Connecting with Oak for Support
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:16
Speaker
For people who are not seeking certification or not transitioning, have you noticed any kind of common questions as far as like for production that you're getting? Like it's kind of pest control or something like that that you're getting mostly about or as a common obstacle?
00:38:35
Speaker
Oh yeah, I think I, I don't know yet, but I think probably the common questions are going to be like different according to the different time of year. Right now, my common questions are about crop planning. So can you help me make a crop plan to scale up or, uh, that sort of thing. But yeah, like I made an intake form for folks who want organic production consultation and almost all of them have clicked on
00:39:04
Speaker
insects, weeds, common farming problems. Hey, Feds and Mosquitoes, welcome to Kentucky. I submit one that says, why isn't it cold yet this fall? And then I'll submit another one a couple of weeks later that's why is it so cold now? That was you? That was an anonymous problem. I'm ready here now. So you mentioned the intake form thing.
00:39:33
Speaker
If I'm a producer and I'm looking to connect and get some information and support from you, what's my mechanism? How do I do that? Yeah. So you go to oak-ky.org and then- It'll be in the show notes. Yeah. Under programs, you can go to production consultation.
00:39:58
Speaker
And that page will say a little bit about what sorts of ways we can help. And there's a button that says request an organic production consultation. And that is where the form is. And that just asks for some basic information about your farm. So you can kind of get to know what your goals are and what you've done so far. And it gives us a really good picture of sort of how to, what to look up
00:40:28
Speaker
ahead of giving you a call to talk through your requests and then just go from there. While you're there, you can find the link to register for the Oak conference as well on the site, the Oak KY site. Yeah, for sure. I was following along, yes. I bet you Josh was looking at the website.
00:40:56
Speaker
You can take the Hort Biz Quiz, find out some cool crops that might work for you, and then you can take those ideas or the other way around. But in this case scenario, we just did an episode on the Hort Biz Quiz. So you're going to take the Hort Biz Quiz, and then you're going to take some of that. You're going to go learn how to grow it organically.
00:41:17
Speaker
and marketing information and Sarah's going to point you in all the right directions to who to contact and how to get you in the right spot and in the right place and thinking all the right thoughts. We're really lucky to have, in my opinion, I think all of us would agree to have an organization like Oak who's so invested in just helping growers just grow better and supplying food and really believes in
00:41:47
Speaker
doing better for the environment and whatever way that fits you. If you don't want to certify, that's okay. They're still there to help you because they believe in the practices. You said you had a wonderful team and my experience with them have always been phenomenal. I'm excited to see all the awesome people that I'm sure are going to come on board here soon as well.
Cherished Holiday Memory and Conclusion
00:42:10
Speaker
I have one final question. This episode will come out just before the peak of the
00:42:17
Speaker
holiday season. Do you have as an admitted, I admit it on this podcast, lover of food. Gotcha. Cabbage lover. Cabbage. Do you have a particular holiday food that you're most looking forward to or that you most associate with the holidays? It doesn't have to be, it could be basic or complicated. Can't be cabbage soup.
00:42:41
Speaker
I grew up in Brazil and at Christmas, my aunt would always cut up fruit, which, you know, would be like more tropical fruits in like very decorative ways. And she would make this fruit table that was like, I mean, I can't even imagine how much money in fruit that would be here in the US, but it was like enormous table full of fresh cut fruit.
00:43:09
Speaker
And as a child, that was just like my favorite part of like, I would just like stuff myself with the sweet stuff. You're so cool. That is the coolest thing I've ever heard. A table of fruit. But I'm pretty sure if I made a table of fruit here, it would cost like $400. Yeah. Or more. Or more. Yeah. Yeah. No way. So I can't buy a box of oranges for $10. Yeah.
00:43:36
Speaker
The fact that they were decorated, that's super impressive. I mean, cut up what, cut up in unique ways and just like presented really cool. Yeah. Just like, like a papaya cut instead of like just in half, it would be like zigzaggy cut. Oh wow. Just like wild. Is that sort of a, is that sort of a kind of a cultural thing there where you grew up? Is that unique or just unique to your family? Whether it was that sort of a thing or.
00:44:02
Speaker
I don't know. That's the only place I ever did Christmas there. I feel like it was probably just my aunt. Yeah. That's awesome. Very cool. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Again, you can get on Oak's website. That'll be in the show notes below. Otherwise, Alexis, you want to take us home?
00:44:27
Speaker
Yeah. So, uh, if you love this podcast, because Sarah is amazing and this, you know, grew up in Brazil and that's like the dopest thing I've heard all day, you can leave a review saying dopest thing I've heard all day. Also cabbage lover is dope. So just use that word somewhere and we'll know, we'll know what it's from.
00:44:44
Speaker
So we love that. It helps other people find us. You can also shoot us an email if you've got questions. If you're like, I clicked the link but I got lost. Can you help me? I want to contact Sarah because she sounds so awesome. You can shoot us an email at hortculturepodcast.l.uky.edu. Or if you are young and fun, either
00:45:06
Speaker
You know in real life or imagine if that's fine you can find us on instagram at hort culture podcast you can shoot us a direct message over there and we will see that and answer.
00:45:18
Speaker
as quickly as possible to help you guys out. And you can see if you want videos, more videos of cool stuff, let us know what you like. Let us know what's fun. Let us know what's hip. What are the cool kids doing? Otherwise, you're just going to get what we think is cool. Yeah. What Alexis is saying right now is the strongest evidence that we need input on what is cool. Yes.
00:45:51
Speaker
There's a mean girl reference in there for those of you who got it I appreciate you and yes that don't show my age but any historical historical film mean girls. Thank you
00:46:00
Speaker
They're making a new one. Thank you all for joining us today. We so much appreciate it, Sarah. Thank you so much for all you do for Kentucky and we're excited to see all the awesome stuff that you will do in the future. We hope that as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us and that you will join us next time. Have a great one.