Trading Pencil and Paper for Seeds and Soil - the Rodale Institute Farm Training Program
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we hear from Justin Barclay, the Farm Education Manager at Rodale Institute. Rodale Institute has been a global leader in organic agriculture for over 70 years. Justin shares the ins and outs of the Rodale Institute Farmer Training Program, or RIFT.
Learn more about Rodale Institute:
rodaleinstitute.org
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[00:00:00] Rory: Welcome to the direct farm podcast. I'm Rory your host for today's episode. We've got a great conversation for you today with the Rodale Institute, Rodale is a nonprofit dedicated to growing the organic movement through rigorous research, farmer training and consumer education, widely recognized as a founder of the modern organic movement. Rodale Institute has been a global leader in regenerative, organic agriculture for over 70 years. I'm delighted to welcome Justin Barclay, the farm education manager at Rodale, for Rodale Institute's Farmer Training program or RIFT. Justin also runs the veteran farmer training programs, a subset of RIFT, where in this role, Justin organizes and coordinates curriculum, lecturers, and field trips to a class of participants, providing them the skills and experiences necessary to operate a highly diversified certified organic farm.
[00:00:50] Welcome Justin, it's great to have you here. Obviously Rodale's a staple in the organic agriculture world, and the ag world in general, like we mentioned 70 years, but could you maybe start by giving us some of the background behind Rodale Institute and how it came to be.
[00:01:05] Justin Barclay: Sure, thanks so much for having me on today. So I'll jump right in. So Rodale Institute has been around for quite a while. It was started in 1947. It was originally known as the Soil and Health Foundation. So this year they will be celebrating its 75th anniversary.
[00:01:22] So It was originally established with J I Rodale he's the founder of the Rodale Institute. And then over the years, it's transitioned to his son, Bob Rodale, who purchased the farm, where we are currently located at they're located just outside Cookstown, Pennsylvania. And then it's also turned over to his daughter, Maria, and then her daughter, Maya is also the chairman of our board of directors.
[00:01:47] But one of the main focus areas within the Rodale Institute actually has three focus areas: organic research, farmer training and consumer education. So those are the three pillars that really support the mission there at the Rodale Institute and a very long time ago, you know, one of the things that was written on the Blackboard that we still try to practice today is that healthy soil equals healthy food equals healthy people.
[00:02:13] So that's really our mission, Rolled up in a nutshell with the main focus there with those three pillars. So we have a lot of great research activities there. We have world-class scientists there conducting a lot of fascinating research. We have a lot of a farmer training that's going on there at the moment, and we also do some consumer education.
[00:02:32] So that's pretty much the main focus areas. And my main focuses within the farmer training aspect there at the Rodale Institute.
[00:02:40] Rory: That's awesome to hear and really cool that it's so focused on those three areas. I love that idea too, of healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people. So you started to get into it there of what does Rodale do today, and obviously it encompasses a lot, but I was wondering, could you maybe talk about what's the impact of that work and what is the impact of Rodale's voice really in the world of organic farming?
[00:03:03] Justin Barclay: Sure. So one of the key things is our voice. We have a very great reputation within the world of organic and especially within organic research, just because it has been our focus for so long. And, we have very critical projects, whether it's our farm systems trial, which has been going on since 1981. So it has over 40 years of continuous data comparing conventional crops and organic crops grown side by side. It has a sister project, the vegetable systems trial, which has a similar focus, but more focused on vegetables versus the farm systems trials, more of a focus on the commodity crops like corn, soybean, wheat, and those type of, main commodity crops.
[00:03:45] But yeah, the, just the cool research that has been going on there. Again we have a lot of very big brain PhD scientists that are doing some great work. And we've also done a lot of good work, recently with expanding the education part. 2021 was when we actually launched our virtual campus, so we actually have some additional online courses that I help run through one of our learning management systems, in addition to the workshops and webinars that we've been doing for several years now. And then, the main focus right now is I get to focus a lot on the farmer training aspect.
[00:04:17] Rory: Yeah that's really cool to hear too, that you guys are adapting. Definitely 70 years ago, the world of sharing all this data and resources was a very different place. So adapting to that, that digital world. We've touched on those three pillars, but what is the kind of direct mission that Rodale has today and maybe how has that changed a little bit or has it stayed the same since its inception?
[00:04:37] Justin Barclay: Sure. One of our things that we like to focus on or that we are focusing on right now is that we want to increase the organic acreage within the US and abroad. So that's one of our main goals. Obviously our mission is still the same, we want to create, you know, healthy people and we do that by the healthy food and then backwards all the way to the healthy soil. So soil health has always at the foundation of everything that, that we focus on, but right now we're making a really big push on converting or increasing the organic acreage across the US. So we're doing that through the farmer training and education that I mentioned, but also our consultant team is doing a lot of great work.
[00:05:14] So we have a great group of individuals spread across the United States that are helping farmers transition from conventional to organic agriculture.
[00:05:23] Rory: That's really cool to hear too, because now it's almost like a requirement to have a mission statement, but I love that you guys have that almost measurable goal of increasing organic acreage in the US that it's not just let's make healthy soil, which makes healthy food and makes healthy people, but you're tying it to this, something that you can actually look at each year and say, are we accomplishing that mission?
[00:05:44] Is there more organic acreage? That's really cool.
[00:05:47] Justin Barclay: Yeah, it's almost like a two-fold thing. It's not only acreage. we also just want to increase the number of organic farmers out there too. So I know, there is obviously a correlation between the acreage and the farmers themselves, but we also believe that, creating more farmers is just important as just turning over to the acreage.
[00:06:04] Rory: Yeah, definitely. Part of creating those farmers is definitely your program and training farmers in those things, could you maybe explain your programs a little bit and how they're organized and how they contribute to that mission of Rodale?
[00:06:17] Justin Barclay: Sure. So I'll start off talking about the Rodale Institute Farmer Training program or the RIFT program as we call it. It's a continually being improved, year to year. We take the feedback very seriously that we get from the interns and it's made it a lot of great strides over the past several years.
[00:06:33] I'd say probably just go back even 8 to 10 years ago, it was very hands-on focused with a limited amount of education. Just again, focused on working directly into the fields. And then if you fast forward all the way to where we are in the current iteration of RIFT, I think we have a very good balance between education and hands-on training.
[00:06:55] So the way it's broken down within the week. Our program is generally Monday through Friday. There are sometimes, night, times and weekend chores that, that are doled out amongst the interns, but the main bulk of our training and work occurs from a Monday to Friday and out of that 40 plus hour week, 16 hours are purely set aside for just education, which I think is really important.
[00:07:17] So we really made a very deliberate effort to make education a key cornerstone of the experience that our interns have here. Dan Kemper he's the master trainer, he's done a great job over the past several years, really enhancing the curriculum and making it a professional product.
[00:07:37] So the way that a typical week looks like, Monday mornings, we do a walking field lecture. We're checking up on the crops and the animals on a week-to-week basis also, refining our task list for that particular week. Monday afternoons, we generally have a lecture provided by, it could be a Rodale staff member, some someone from our research team, one of the scientists, one of our scientists that work at some of our satellite locations that we have within Rodale Institute across the country, or we bring in outside experts to help us bring in additional skill sets.
[00:08:12] Monday is totally dedicated to education. Tuesday's kind of a regular workday. Wednesday morning, is a regular workday. Wednesday afternoons we like to do a lot of field trips. So we visit a lot of organic operations within the region here where we're located here, outside Kutztown, Pennsylvania.
[00:08:30] So most of our field trips occur within about a one to two hour radius of that. Thursdays are a regular workday. We also will start some of our market activities early there in June. So some of those markets will kick off in Thursday afternoon. Friday morning, is a workday, and then Friday afternoon we also have an additional field trip and/or lecture featuring a special guest or some type of other activity that we like to implement. So we're really proud with the way that the program is, out of that 40 or so hours 16 are set aside for education with the remaining 24 hours, within that given week that are spent with interns getting hands-on training. Right now it's a lot of working in the greenhouse and a little bit of work with the animals, but once the temperatures get a little bit warmer here in Pennsylvania, stuff will be going here in the fields in the next couple of weeks. And then it'll be rocking and rolling by the end of may. And that's when they get in to that, that run there in June and then hanging on for the rest of the summer.
[00:09:24] That's pretty much the way that our RIFT program works in a nutshell, just the caveat off of that, the veteran farmer training program is really just a subset of our RIFT program, where the veteran farmer training program was originally established in 2016. So that was the first year that we were able to have some interns or veteran interns on site. And it's really made a lot of strides over the years. It's been fully integrated now with the RIFT program, pretty much most of 2021 and here in 2022, so really the programs are melded. So if someone comes and looks, they wouldn't really be able to tell, who is in what particular program. The veterans are fully integrated with all the things that the other interns are doing within the farmer training program.
[00:10:05] Rory: That's really cool to hear Barn2Door works really closely with the Farmer Veteran Coalition. And So we've definitely seen the impact that that farming can have for veterans and the impact that veterans can have on farming. And it's really cool to see that you guys are leaning into that and helping to get more veterans in your program and farming organically with all the resources that Rodale has at its fingertips. And you touched on a little bit how you guys have balanced that shift of hands-on stuff and curriculum and learning in the classroom. What are some of the other ways that program has developed since you've been with Rodale?
[00:10:37] Justin Barclay: So one of the things that we're really proud of is that we've been able to bring in a lot of outside agencies and organizations to, to help expose the interns and help them make their agricultural enterprise that they hopefully start with when they leave here, become more successful. So obviously we have a lot of expertise in-house there at Rodale with, organic certification, talking to the research staff here, that scientists, but over the past several years, we've incorporated a lot of different organizations. We've worked a lot with kitchen table consultants, so they provide a lot of a farm-based accounting for our interns.
[00:11:11] So they get an in-depth series of afternoon lectures and homework assignments just to help them better balance their books. We also work with organizations like Agribility so even just this week we had a representative, Abby Spackman from the Pennsylvania branch of Agribility come out and make a presentation to the interns.
[00:11:29] So just, if people do have a disability or they become injured, they are able to help them remain within the field of agriculture within that industry. And then also working with different groups, like small business development centers. You know, help bring in the business aspect side of things.
[00:11:45] And, also working with Barn2Door, we have a lot of exciting things here that we hope to integrate with you guys, later on the season and expose the interns about different ways that they can market the products and different ways that they can, reach out to the customer base and increase their reach.
[00:12:00] So just bringing a lot of those outside skillsets or something that is not resonant within Rodale Institute. We're a non-profit so we're not exactly focused on you know, turning farmers into being profitable, successful entrepreneurs, but we can teach them how to farm, but we definitely need to reach out to outside experts like you guys and a bunch of other groups to give them those additional skill sets so that they become successful once they leave and graduate our program.
[00:12:26] Rory: That's really cool to hear that it's such a well-rounded education, and that you kind of acknowledge you guys definitely are the experts in organic agriculture that without a doubt, but bringing in kitchen table consultants to cover books and other resources that are available like Barn2Door which is really cool to hear that you guys are covering all the bases there.
[00:12:46] I was curious with your veterans side of the program, how have veterans responded to the program and are there any success stories that kind of come to mind?
[00:12:54] Justin Barclay: Sure. So actually the Genesis for creating the veteran farmer training program was a veteran, who I first met in 2015. And he came by and was visiting Rodale cause he was very interested in learning about organic agriculture and the program that I was running at the time was one that was partnered with the local university, Delaware Valley University, which is still a great program.
[00:13:16] The organic farming certificate program, where students and military veterans in that program would come to Rodale for their summer semester. And he had a really strong desire to learn about organic agriculture, but he just didn't want to go back through the, the full college route. So it was a light bulb moment, for me, I realized that, "Hey, we needed to come up with a complimentary program to address the needs of military veterans that want to learn about organic agriculture, but don't necessarily want to go the formalized route through university or college."
[00:13:44] So in 2016, we were able to get the first group of veterans to come through there and I guess for the past six, six years or so, the program was entirely funded through private donations from organizations and individuals. So whether it was, Newman's Own foundation, anonymous donors in the Lehigh valley and greater New York city area, Farmer Veteran Coalition who you mentioned, they've been tremendous partners of ours, providing very generous financial support for the veteran stipends over the years. But yeah, so it's a lot of veterans, they're looking or yearning for that opportunity to jump back into the world of ag or even enter it for the first time. They're able to find, some type of solace or some type of different change of life, whether they retired from the military or just exited, after a couple, enlistments or a couple of years in that they found it to be, a rewarding though, very difficult, career field, but you just find something that, that kind of fills a void that they miss, when they leave the service.
[00:14:48] So it's, we generally don't have any problem, filling our quota each year of military veterans that want to join the program. We often, for past couple of years now, have had a waiting list which is a good and bad problem, we'd love to be able to take everyone who had an interest, but they come here, very inspired, they're willing to learn and then you'll figure out what type of farming that they want to do now.
[00:15:10] Not everyone ends up in the field of agriculture, but at least, everyone who puts in an honest effort to do this program at least has enough skills to make a pretty cool, garden,
[00:15:19] Rory: Yeah.
[00:15:20] Justin Barclay: at their own house. Even if they don't end up in, the world directly in the world of ag, they, at least we give them the skillsets to accomplish that.
[00:15:27] Rory: Definitely. Definitely. That's awesome. If I was a farmer just starting out and I signed up for your program, what would my next steps look like? What were those first couple of weeks look like? Would I need to move out to Rodale for the next couple of months?
[00:15:41] Justin Barclay: Yeah, so that's one of the first things. If you're a military veteran, we have two options. We have a long season option that just started here in 2022. So our long season option is fully integrated again with our RIFT program, but it's a 35 week experience.
[00:15:56] So it normally starts around that second Monday there in March and runs through pretty much that first Friday there in November. So it's again, it's an immersive season long experience. So first is "Hey, am I able to make, this nine month commitment?"
[00:16:11] If yes, then you could apply for a long season program. And if not, we still have a short season program option because not every veteran is able to come here for nine months. A lot of them have other family commitments or other commitments that prevent them from coming here for a solid nine months, or maybe they are enrolled in one of the formalized education programs through a university, and they only have time in the summer.
[00:16:34] So we also have the short season option and that's generally between 8 and 18 weeks. And it's normally between the months of May through August is when we would like, for them to experience the bulk of their training time there at Rodale, that's our busy season. And then they get to experience at least, some of the grind, if not all of it, but at least the major part there of going through that, that summer growing season.
[00:16:55] As far as I guess the timeline, this is a competitive process, so we recommend that people submit their applications. They can submit it every time, but we really only review them in the fall. So that's, we start doing our recruitments, it's on and off throughout the season, but we really start reviewing all the applications and stuff that we get in the fall season. So we'll do our initial screening interviews there late fall.
[00:17:18] And then, we normally transition to the second round interviews, for people that are going to make the final, what we hope will be the final cuts there very late fall or sometimes early winter so that they're able to get all their affairs in order and, come here ready to roll come early March.
[00:17:33] Rory: That's awesome. And you kind of talked earlier about some of the stuff that you guys are working on at Rodale and that you're teaching the these interns, as well as some of the people that you bring in to teach, but broadly, over the course of those weeks, what are some of the primary areas of focus for these training programs?
[00:17:50] Justin Barclay: So depending on what season the veteran or even the intern is able to start. If they come there in the winter time, they'll be able to help and assist with some of the seeding stuff that occurs in the greenhouses. And then, some initial work there in the high tunnels, which allows you to extend your growing season or start it a little bit earlier.
[00:18:09] So that's pretty much what they're doing right now. It's still a fair amount of greenhouse work and some stuff in the high tunnels, a lot of it is cleaning stuff and doing some other tasks. We do, we have a small flock of chickens at the moment. So there are about 140-ish or so chickens, so they are rotating doing some of the duties with those. We have a handful of pigs on site at the moment, so they also get some work with the small livestock.
[00:18:35] We also have some other good partners that we work with. One great group is the Carversville Farm Foundation, so they're located there about an hour or so from Rodale, but they have some larger scale animal stuff and livestock stuff. They're also a great nonprofit where they donate, I think it's 90% plus of all their produce goes directly to food banks and their stuff is like restaurant quality stuff that they don't even bother giving to restaurants or selling you to build their main mission is providing food to food banks. So we like to partner with them and learn the skill sets that they have there. So that's the early season stuff.
[00:19:10] And then once we get into, to the grind, there's going to be a lot of, vegetable work there, especially come May and June our markets will start kicking off. And the primary focus of our markets is that we try to target food desert areas within Pennsylvania. So the closest ones that we deal with are Allentown and Redding. Those are both cities within Pennsylvania that are about 30 to 40 minutes from Rodale. One's kind of due east the other's kind of, due west.
[00:19:37] So we understand that they're other needs also in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but we tend to focus on more of the places that are immediate to our areas that you know, that don't have access to good, healthy, nutritious foods. So that's specifically where we set up our farmer's markets and we distribute a lot of our produce through those avenues, because we don't want to compete with other organic farmers at the farmer's markets. We're not there to, to undercut them. We want them to be able to make, as much profit as they can. So we try to specifically target those underserved areas within our region.
[00:20:07] Then once you hit the summer months, they'll be harvesting this stuff. You'll go through our processing facility you know with packing, running stuff to markets. And then you can just repeat that cycle for about the next, three to four months after that. Stuff slowly winds down there in the later months, in September October-ish.
[00:20:23] Rory: That's really cool to hear too, that you guys are targeting those food deserts and purposely not competing with other organic farmers. Then to be able to share that food that you're producing with people that might not be able to access it otherwise is a really cool aspect of the program.
[00:20:36] Justin Barclay: We are supported as a nonprofit, so we do get a fair amount of grants and private donations. So that gives us an unfair advantage or leverage over organic farms. So the last thing we want to do is be undercutting them because they're our whole mission. Those are the people that we want to support.
[00:20:52] Rory: That's awesome to hear. And you kind of touched on the research and things that are going on at Rodale. Obviously you guys have all these scientists there who are on the cutting edge, really of the organic movement. What role does that research and that level of expertise of Rodale play into your training program?
[00:21:08] Justin Barclay: I think it really serves as an attractive aspect that we're able to provide. So again, I mentioned before about those afternoon lectures, whether it's a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday afternoon. So pretty much all the research team there at Rodale will be giving at least one, if not multiple presentations to the interns there and just being able to get access to this world-class staff.
[00:21:29] These people are experts in their fields. They come from all over the world, we have scientists from China, from Lebanon, from Iran, we've had other ones from Kenya, obviously people from within the United States, Nepal, just drawing in all that great knowledge that's out there and having them all at our Kutztown location. It's a tremendous asset that a lot of places aren't able to do. And even those who are located at some of our satellite sites. We have some satellite research centers there within Georgia, within Iowa and within California. So we have other research scientists at that location focusing on different, crops or different areas where, we're not able to grow some of those things within Pennsylvania, but just having that at your fingertips or that resource is such a tremendous benefit to the program.
[00:22:16] And I think really enhances our ability to recruit or get people that are interested in the program because not a lot of places have that kind of direct access. And, just the great skillsets that our research team has.
[00:22:27] Rory: Yeah, certainly that's really great that you guys are able to tap into that resource because that's a great draw and what a great learning experience as an intern or as a veteran, just getting into farming to be able to learn from the best really.
[00:22:41] We touched on a little bit of how you tie in other organizations to help with kind of the business training and accounting, but these training programs at Rodale, how does that help beginning farmers translate these new skills and all this farming education into a career?
[00:22:55] Justin Barclay: Thinking of people who have made an impact or, people that I can think of that are highlighted over the past couple of years, one of the guys, Chuck Christianson, again, he was very instrumental in me forming the veteran farmer training program.
[00:23:07] He's now farming in Adams county, which is probably four or five counties away from where we are here within Pennsylvania, but just the fact that we still have contact with these people. He reaches back every once in a while. He's been doing a lot of work with bees lately.
[00:23:21] So he still works with Michael Schmaeling, who was our resident beekeeper there at Rodale Institute, in addition to being the farm manager at one of our satellite sites. So just being able to have that reach back is a key asset or a key tool that these farmers are able to have in their tool belt.
[00:23:36] We don't just kick them out and say, "All right, good luck. Hopefully we'll talk to you later." So just they're able to have reached back. So he's been back multiple times, working with Mike, talking about different, bee questions and different stuff like that.
[00:23:48] One of the other guys who came to mind was Wilson Allen. So he was the guy that came through the program in 2020. So he's currently working at one of our partners, The Seed Farm. So The Seed Farm is an incubator farm that's located about 20, 25 minutes from Rodale and at The Seed Farm, they provide a lot of services for beginning farmers. So they don't have to purchase all these things themselves. So an incubator farm has all that on-site and they rent those services that they need. They have tractors there, greenhouses walk-in coolers, tools, implements. So rather than, having all that capital expense upfront, we highly recommend that they go to The Seed Farm, if it works out for them within the the Pennsylvania area and start their business plan and get their entrepreneurship rolling there. It's pretty low cost way to get your plan rolling up off the ground. So that's another tool that we think people can benefit from.
[00:24:41] Sam stern, he was also a guy who was in last year, the 2021 cohort. He's doing a lot of great things. He's actually working on a seed saving agribusiness venture, so he's currently focusing on heirloom type products and seeds like that. And they're growing basically the same heirloom stuff that George Washington was growing on his property there in Mount Vernon.
[00:25:01] So he's doing some great stuff down there and the DC, Virginia area. Pat Daugherty, he took tremendous advantage of one of the programs that we have. One of our great partners is an organization called Pocono Organics. We have, an extensive, multi-month internship here at Rodale, but Pocono Organics has been very generous. They're located about an hour or so away from Rodale, but they offer an additional eight month internship for military veterans. So we're almost the basic training, if you want to look at it that way, and advanced training could be something there at Pocono Organics.
[00:25:30] So he spent an additional eight months there learning about different greenhouse operations and doing some of the good work there that they started with mushrooms and he actually got hired by Pocono Organics. So just was able to visit him earlier this week. He's doing good things up there. We took a field trip with our interns up to Pocono Organics because there's such an inspiring story and a great partner.
[00:25:51] And then, Ariel Jennings is a veteran who came through a program in 2018. And she is also up there at Pocono Organics at the moment as an intern, exploring possibilities of what she can do up there.
[00:26:00] We've had veterans from all ages. I think the youngest veteran I had was early twenties and the oldest veteran was a Vietnam veteran, Bernie, he is currently farming it in south Jersey. So
[00:26:16] Rory: Wow.
[00:26:16] Justin Barclay: It's just a lot of great, success stories and whether it's reaching back to Rodale, getting, Scholarships or grant opportunities or partners with farmer veteran coalition like in Bernie's case that helped him get some extra irrigation or Seed Farm, it's a lot of good opportunities where they're able to leverage the tools that they have made available to them, to make it work for their particular enterprise.
[00:26:36] Rory: Yeah, that's really cool to hear too, that people are leaving the program, having success, and then being able to contribute back and have people participate. Which that's obviously one of the goals. You want people to be able to go and be successful, but then come back and help you guys keep moving the needle there.
[00:26:52] What business education do you guys provide throughout the program that can lead to these types of success stories and how does that education kind of help people that are looking at selling direct to consumer from their farm?
[00:27:04] Justin Barclay: Some of the groups that we're going to be working with this season again, I kinda mentioned, Kitchen Table Consultants for getting your own kind of internal books in order. We're going to be working with you guys, Barn2Door as an outlet for helping people market.
[00:27:17] I know you guys have a lot of other resources that you're gonna be working with as well. We're also partnering with a group called a Market Maker, so they're almost a combination there between like E-Harmony and LinkedIn, just trying to marry up people who are looking to purchase agricultural products and those who are looking to sell those. Trying to make that match.
[00:27:36] We also have a, a couple sessions lined up with different agencies from USDA. So I was actually coordinating that event just yesterday afternoon with getting multiple groups from USDA, whether it's USDA Rural, NRCS, some of their marketing service teams there, just different agencies that want farmers to become successful and to have, good environmental impact on their areas and just, both veterans and the other interns aware of the resources that are out there to help them become successful farmers.
[00:28:03] In addition to all, all the field trips that we go to, we like to really focus on a lot of those people will, quote unquote made it or turn their enterprise into a successful business venture, letting the interns ask those direct questions. "Hey, what were your challenges here, setting up, your veggie CSA? What were your challenges with your small scale livestock operation, with sheep or something like that, or you small scale dairy and yogurt and creamery operation? What were the, the benefits, the things that you wish you would've known before that?" So just getting that hands-on direct, one-on-one no time to ask questions. Like even this afternoon the interns are at Peace Tree Farms, which is a wholesale organic greenhouse. This is their busy time, March and April, people are buying all the stuff from the greenhouses, but just being able to talk to these farmers and these business owners, one-on-one about the challenges and the benefits and the ways they're able to make the market work for them or some of the challenges that they faced.
[00:28:55] Rory: No, that's definitely something we've experienced as well is farmers love to learn from other farmers.
[00:29:00] It's been awesome to hear about the program. Where and how can farmers join or apply, or even just go to learn more about Rodale Institute's Farm Training Programs?
[00:29:08] Justin Barclay: First of all, if you have any type of inclination, that you're interested within the opportunities that Rodale has, I encourage you to go to the rodaleinstitute.org, go underneath our education tab. We have a, quite a bit of resources. If you live in the local area here, you can be definitely attend one of our workshops.
[00:29:26] We have quite a few of those spread throughout the spring and summer months. We have webinars that people got to get to sign up for, and then if you do miss it, we have a decent amount of archive webinars that you can go out and check, at your own leisure, even if you're not able to watch them when they're conducted live. And then we have our online courses, which are through our virtual campus. So I encourage people to check those out. We have our free regenerative consumer course, so that's free. Our other courses, do have a fee associated with them.
[00:29:54] And then if you are, really interested in participating in one of our internship programs, you can see underneath there, we have the Veteran Farmer Training Program and the RIFT Program. So just, check out those web links there and, get your applications in sooner rather than later.
[00:30:07] And, we'll be interviewing people there in the fall, late fall, and then in the early winter, for people to come here in the springtime. And if you're in the area, we encourage people to come visit. Rodale's pretty much open, from dawn until dusk, it's pretty much an open farm.
[00:30:23] People are able to come walk around or if they want to shell out a little bit of money, they can come for, a guided tour. But we also have self guided tours, so you can come and check it out at your own pace.
[00:30:32] Rory: For even farmers who are experienced or have been doing this a long time, maybe aren't looking for a training program, the amount of resources on Rodale's website is crazy. So definitely navigate over there and check those out too, with the research that they're doing really on the cutting edge of the organic movement and a lot of great minds over there at Rodale.
[00:30:52] Justin Barclay: And if there are any, farms out there that are listening to this podcast and they are not already certified organic, if they are interested in transitioning fully or becoming certified organic, just reach out to our consultant team. Sam Mallory is the director there and he's got a team of 11 or 12 people under him that are spread across the country that will gladly help current farmers from conventional or at least if they're already sustainable, if they want to become certified organic to help walk them through those steps.
[00:31:19] Rory: That's awesome. That's really great to hear. I guess as a final question, Justin, what are you and your team looking to accomplish in the year ahead and how do you guys see yourself improving these farm training programs?
[00:31:30] Justin Barclay: Yeah so we're definitely excited. So we just kind wrapped up here our fifth week with the interns for their season-long program. So they still got a long, 30 weeks to go, but it's definitely exciting here as stuff is slowly starting to turn green within Pennsylvania. We kind of had a long, hard, cold winter. A lot of stuff was brown, but now stuff is, slowly coming back to life here in the spring season. So it's always nice to see that. And we just hope that, people will take advantage of the opportunities that they have here, soak up as much of the knowledge as they can, take advantage of these opportunities and these resources here to learn. Whether it's just sitting down at lunch, with some of the research staff or some of the other farm operations team, just picking their brains with all the experiences that they've had from their time at Rodale and just, maximizing the opportunity that they have here so that people can become successful farmers by the time they roll out the door here. We were really proud of the strides that we made over the past couple of years, it was making that balance between education and and hands on training. And we're just anxious to see how it works, here in 2022. We'll make whatever tweaks we need to for 2023.
[00:32:31] Rory: That's great to hear the kind of the direction that it's headed too, and definitely a commitment to that continuous improvement, learning from mistakes. That's definitely something we're familiar with here as well.
[00:32:42] Justin Barclay: Okay. They wouldn't be farming, nobody's perfect. You always want to learn from your mistakes.
[00:32:46] Rory: Definitely. I want to extend my, thanks to Justin and his team with the Rodale Institute's Farm Training Programs. At Barn2Door we're delighted to serve farmers in all 50 states, including certified organic farms and farmers just starting out in a career as regenerative farmers for more information on the Rodale Institute's Farm Training Programs, you can visit rodaleinstitute.org/education/training-programs. And to learn more about Barn2Door including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your farm, go to barn2door.com/resources. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next week.