Stories from American Farm Families

Image by g55 via Flickr

Five Farms: Stories from American Farm Families is an audio documentary produced by Wesley Horner Productions and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and was distributed by Public Radio International™ in 2009. The programs aired on the radio again last Sunday and I was blown away. I feel like I now know these five families who work so hard to produce the food I and my family eat every day.

Five Farms is about making connections between the food on our tables and families in New England, the South, the Midwest, the Southwest, and on the West Coast who produce it — farming people who protect the tomato from insects, harvest the orange in a California citrus grove before a killing frost, risk acres of corn and soybeans through unpredictable Iowa floods, help a struggling hog give birth to new piglets one hot North Carolina afternoon, milk the dairy herd in the New England pre-dawn darkness, or cultivate crops in an arid desert according to Native American traditions valuing conservation and protection of precious resources.

Five Farms puts a personal face on the lives and livelihoods of farmers across the country. We get to know people who work hard and make considerable sacrifices, but who also flourish, and for whom the benefits, including a deep understanding of the land they work, are rich. Through their own voices and direct experiences, we learn details of farming life and get to know members of each family — their personal struggles, triumphs, hopes, dreams, and challenges. We learn what it takes to farm and produce the food that we count on when we go to the market.” Source: About Five Farms.

Even if you missed the broadcasts, you can still listen to them online and view photos from the farms. How are you connecting to your consumers both locally and thousands of miles away?