S5 - E10: Farmers Talking with Farmers with Anthony Beery of Beery Farms, Part II

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4 The Soil: A Conversation

Eric Bendfeldt

112 episodes

6 days ago

Soil. What is it, really? It’s more than the dirt under our feet and the ground we stand on.

Soil is living and life-giving.

Listen as we unlock the mysteries of soil by speaking with people at the forefront of the soil health movement.

“4 The Soil: A Conversation” is part of the 4 The Soil Awareness Campaign led by Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Virginia Soil Health Coalition. The campaign’s purpose is to raise awareness of soil as an agricultural and natural resource critical to social, economic, and environmental health.

Hear and learn from farmers, agricultural professionals, conservation leaders, master gardeners, and many more on how and why to be 4 The Soil.

The podcast is a collaboration of Virginia Tech's School of Plant and Environmental Sciences and Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation, Virginia Cooperative Extension, On The Farm Radio, USDA-NRCS, and the Virginia Soil Health Coalition with specific funding from the Agua Fund, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and Virginia Tech’s Department of Agriculture, Leadership, and Community Education’s Community Viability grant program.

Stay tuned for the release of our first episode in October!

All content for 4 The Soil: A Conversation is the property of Eric Bendfeldt and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Science

Education,

Life Sciences

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S5 - E10: Farmers Talking with Farmers with Anthony Beery of Beery Farms, Part II

4 The Soil: A Conversation

16 minutes

5 months ago

S5 - E10: Farmers Talking with Farmers with Anthony Beery of Beery Farms, Part II

Farmers talking with farmers is key to building soil health, encouraging innovation, and expanding peer-to-peer mentoring. Anthony Beery of Beery Farms and Cumberland Hay and Straw LLC shares his journey of learning, mentoring, and on-farm experimenting with Mary Sketch Bryant and Jeff Ishee. In the previous episode, Anthony talked about how he benefitted from his father's counsel and encouragement. Anthony provides similar mentorship to his children and fellow farmers through the Virginia No-Till Alliance (VANTAGE) and Virginia's Integrated Cropland Agronomy (ICA) program so others can generate new ideas and enjoy success.

Like the majority of farmers, Anthony is constantly learning and gleaning new information through his on-farm experiments with no-till farming, multispecies cover cropping, composting, and observing the soil and plant ecosystem. As a self-described general gleaner, Anthony recommends talking with other farmers, attending conferences like the Annual VANTAGE No-Till Conference, and reading books and publications available through USDA's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) and agricultural partners. In Anthony's work with multi-species cover crops, he uses Green Cover Seeds' SmartMix Calculator as one of his reference tools.

As always, we encourage you to talk with other farmer mentors and follow the four principles of soil health: 1) Keep the Soil Covered -- Cover crops are our friends; 2) Minimize soil disturbance -- Practice no-till or gentle tillage in your field or garden as much as possible; 3) Maximize living roots year-round -- to improve biodiversity and life in the soil; and 4) Energize with diversity -- through crop rotation and/or livestock integration. Yes, soil health is a great conversation starter since we can all be 4 The Soil!

To enjoy the recent 4 The Soil blog posts and We Are 4 the Soil song created by the Flip Charts, please visit https://www.4thesoil.org/blog and https://www.4thesoil.org/#we-are-4-the-soil-video. For questions about soil and water conservation practices and outdoor educational activities for youth, call or visit a USDA Service Center, a Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District office, or your local Virginia Cooperative Extension office.