Wyoming PBS's Farm to Fork Wyoming premiered in May with a half hour pilot feature exploring some of the surprising bounty harvested from Wyoming's "Zone 4" landscape. Producer Stefani Smith takes a trip to Haderlie Farms of Star Valley to meet owner/producer Curtis Haderlie. You'll learn a little about the valley's agricultural past and what makes a farmer rethink the conventional approach.
Meet Frank Wallis, whose herd supplies milk to more than Wyoming families spread from Buffalo to Sheridan and Gillette. At the Wallis family's EZ Rocking Ranch beauty and nature's logic abound. Also, nutrition expert and educator Monica Corrado.
Community Supported Agriculture is not new to Wyoming, but few of us know the thrill it offers - a weekly box of surprises, straight from the farm spring through fall. Maggie McAllister makes this obscurely named enterprise work in Daniel, Wyoming. We’ll also learn about the art of fermenting vegetables with Diane Saenz, UW Extension Educator.
Fourth generation Wyoming ranchers, Bobby and Brendan Thoman, return cattle to the family operation - using an elegant logic of healthier soil and a focus on both the cow and customer. Middle Fork Lander restaurant owner and chef, Matt Sissman is also featured.
Wyoming has long been a prime source of top grade honey - but pollinator services, also known as migratory beekeeping, has kept our commercial honey producers in business for decades. We'll explore the subtle life of bees through the eyes of Jack States, long time member of Wyoming's beekeeping legacy, and Laramie urban beekeeper Rene Sollars.
“School Lunch” - Sheridan Cty Sch. Dist. 1 has taken a bold step in getting local foods into the 2014-15 school lunch program. After years of deliberation over budgets, federal nutrition guidelines and a jigsaw puzzle of ill-fitted standards, School District 1 ultimately abandoned the entire federal lunch program on the belief that they could feed their students better meals.
Organic farmer Scott Richard calls his farm “bio-friendly”, for now, as he restores a former dairy site from a depleted state to a deeply rich, organic haven of vegetable productivity. Four years into the process, the evidence of his ingenuity is breathtaking.
With ‘The Wyoming Food Freedom Act’, Wyoming’s local food economy has gone from one of the most regulated, to the leader in deregulation of direct-to-consumer farm and cottage foods. We explore the larger implications of ‘Food Freedom’ for Wyoming. Part 1: the controversy surrounding some of foods we eat and the contentions behind the conflicts and what it means for the small scale farmer.
With ‘The Wyoming Food Freedom Act’, Wyoming’s local food economy has gone from one of the most regulated, to the leader in deregulation of direct-to-consumer farm and cottage foods. We explore the larger implications of ‘Food Freedom’ for Wyoming. Part 2: meet some producers and cottage food artisans to explore the re-emergence of traditional farm foods that have evolved over 100’s of years.
An innovative food rescue program in Jackson Hole.
How is it the plants we often call weeds are among our most potent healers? Explore Medicinal herbal use and harvest in Wyoming. We’ll meet some of Wyoming’s Herbalists and Ethnobotanists to explore herbal remedies that stand out. From Native American traditions to modern day applications for Lyme disease. Discover how this ancient craft is evolving in the modern era among the changing philosophy.
Once upon a time in Wyoming, poultry was part of most every family farm and our self sufficient way of life. Today, hobby farmers call chickens the ‘gateway drug’ for the next generation of small producers. But there’s only a handful actually raising enough chicken and eggs to sell in the local market. How are these producers making it work? Farm To Fork explores local poultry in Wyoming.
Across Wyoming innovative diversion is going on in all varieties of settings. Various methods are converting valuable ‘waste’ back into rich humus, the building block of good soil and farming. We’ll explore these varied and elegant methods and meet the clever folks leading the way in this episode of “Farm to Fork Wyoming.”
Across Wyoming innovative diversion is going on in all varieties of settings. Various methods are converting valuable ‘waste’ back into rich humus, the building block of good soil and farming. We’ll explore these varied and elegant methods and meet the clever folks leading the way in this episode of “Farm to Fork Wyoming.”
“Wyoming Apple Project” - We’ll explore this ancient cornerstone of the agrarian farmscape and learn about the restoration efforts of Wyoming’s 140 year old heritage apple orchards.
Wyoming is fortunate to have a few determined fruit crop producers - And these are not merely whimsical pursuits - We’ll explore how these labor intensive berry crops are doing in Wyoming and meet some of the folks who keep it going. From commercial scale Raspberry production to exotics like Aronia and Goji - and the dilemma of pests that goes along with these delicate perennial crops.
In Wyoming battles between sheepherders and cattlemen are legendary and harrowing. With that turbulent history it is a little surprising that the daughter of an old Wyoming ranching family is a leading force behind weed management with goats today. We’ll learn about the clever niche Lonie Malmberg and her son Donny have carved for goats in the heart of Cheyenne city limits.
Venture into the mountains with regional wildcrafters - herbalists who harvest medicinal plants from the wild - to learn about plant medicines.
Bison, long absent from the Wyoming landscape, are slowly growing in numbers. We’ll explore a spectrum of ideas around bison in Wyoming, from tribal healing, restoration and conservation efforts, to the sustainable agriculture movement’s ranchers who are repairing their landscapes with the help of the bison.
Seeds are the genesis of most every grain and vegetable crop every year… From the humble saved seed, civilizations have been anchored and thrived, while unique, regional foods flourished. Just a few decades ago, the act of seed saving was something every farmer knew. But this skill is quickly vanishing and taking regional food diversity with it.
Wyoming is fortunate to have some wonderful civic minded gardeners - Explore with us Sheridan’s Food Forest. We’ll also visit Tara Farm and Nursery, a permaculture landscape project near Casper, Wyoming- where we’ll learn about permaculture, an ecosystems approach for creating enduring plant communities.
We’ll visit Pumpkin Patches where we’ll learn how these plants are about so much more than fall festivities. They also provide local seasonal jobs, nourishment, and extend the growing season. But, even more importantly, we’ll learn more about the deep cultural ties Native Americans today have to some of their most impressive ancestral gifts to the world: corn and squash.
Sheep are an ancient companion that once were the most abundant livestock upon the Wyoming landscape… In recent years the sheep market has floundered but as local foods broaden America’s palate again, the market for sheep is making a comeback. We’ll visit a mother/daughter operation in Lovell raising crossed Dorper/ Katahdin hair sheep, both relatively new breeds, but gaining in popularity in Wyoming.
Forging year round local food access where none has existed since the rise of the supermarket... Rebuilding the local food supply in sparsely populated Wyoming is a heavy lift, but we Wyomingites are not easily daunted. Nearly every corner of the State has a network striving to make local food a year round reality. We’ll visit stand-out projects in Gillette, Worland, Cody, Wheatland and Laramie.
Across the country and now in Wyoming the demand for local meat processing facilities is on the rise as the last of our master butchers and artisan sausage makers are disappearing…. We’ll explore Wyoming’s role in the modern day beef industry and who the world is changing around us. What opportunities does new technologies like Beef Chain and the push for more in-State processing facilities?
Highly attuned to their partnership with man, livestock herding and guardian dogs are powerful and essential forces in the balance of nature and predation for today's Wyoming rancher. Farm to Fork Wyoming is back with a new episode centered around the life of a working dog.
In this age of industrial diets, Food Sovereignty is a growing concept around the world. But there are few for whom food sovereignty has greater significance than the indigenous people of the Americas. Voices rise from the Wind River Reservation as Shoshone and Arapaho people are joined by other tribes to share the spiritual and cultural importance of ancestral foods.
Wyoming is onboard for the craft brew movement - but not just beer. Venture around the state as we meet some unique community based artisan fermenting crafters from Cider, to Mead and Beer. These resourceful businesses are elevating their crafts, and sharing something uniquely Wyoming!
With public safety and uncertainty reshaping every part of life during the COVID-19 pandemic, local food producers and farmer's markets are rising to the challenge. For many it has driven a move to online sales. Explore how this 'new normal' might be helping to improve our local food marketplace.
Schools all across Wyoming are adding greenhouses to provide a living laboratory for kids to learn the mechanisms of nature.