Dria and Halima start seeking farmland financing with traditional agriculture lenders and the outcomes are not what they expected. We’ll also hear how some grassroots organizations are helping beginning farmers to navigate these systems and innovative ideas on how farmland financing can be approached in a more supportive and community-minded way. People featured in this episode: Dria Price & Halima Salazar, Justevia Teas, Gimbia’s Kitchen, and Mint-More Farms Jan Joannides, Executive Director & Co-Founder, Renewing the Countryside Tera Johnson, Principal Consultant, Kitchen Table Consultants
It’s a Farm Bill year, which means there’s an opportunity to change agricultural policy in the United States and the way it helps—or hurts—farmers. Right now, policies reward and finance agriculture that produce singular crops or livestock at an industrial scale, often to the detriment of communities, animal welfare, and the planet. So, what happens when farmers want to do things differently? In this episode, we’ll get to know farmers Dria Price and Halima Salazar and their diversified farm businesses. In many ways, their story is emblematic of a beginning farmer success story: their small, biodiverse farm brings in multiple revenue streams and responds to the needs of their community. But even with their successes, their journey to moving off leased and borrowed land, to owning their own farmland has not been easy. In Just Starting Out we’ll find out about some of the barriers they met and the solutions that have supported them along the way. Dria and Halima were interviewed for this podcast in December 2022 by Tiffany LaShae, host of Marbleseed’s podcast, In Her Boots (Bootless). People featured in this episode: Dria Price & Halima Salazar, Justevia Teas, Gimbia’s Kitchen, and Mint-More Farms Lulu Moyo, Co-Director of the Braiding Seeds Fellowship Program Lori Stern, Executive Director of Marbleseed