Skip to main content
AgSci Interns

Week Three: Garlic Scapes and Farm Auctions and “Wait a Minute Mr. Postman!”

June 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This past week has been the most busy so far. Monday I was in the Cornell Cooperative Extension office in Washington County, and I found out that they were given a grant to work at the local prison creating a garden with the inmates. I was able to help plant the garden with seeds and various plants like basil, tomatoes, onions, rosemary, cucumbers, and even flowers with four of the inmates. It was hard to believe that they do not get to go outside. The people who were participating in the garden program were all very kind, and one man took leadership in the group, telling us how the layout of the garden should be and the best ways to plant things. It is a great opportunity for the inmates to learn about growing their own food and supplement their kitchen.

Then on Tuesday I met up with another CCE intern and a CCE employee to go to a Farm Auction. The plants and produce and hay being auctioned off looked great. There were a lot of Amish farmers there. The horses they use all seemed so strong and beautiful.  It was neat to see how the auction worked, and just incredible how fast the auctioneer talked! I had to remember not to raise my hand accidentally, or else I would be bidding on something! It must be hard to be there and see your product up on the table and have your profit, break-even or loss, be decided upon by others.

Gorgeous flowers being sold at the auction

Gorgeous flowers being sold at the auction

Later that day we visited a beautiful garlic farm that used to be a dairy farm. They now used one of the barns for drying the garlic out, and the farmer was looking into putting together a ventilation system for the garlic with fans. It was cool to learn about garlic raising and be a part of the process of figuring out the ventilation system. We even got a taste of some of the most potent garlic scapes I have ever tried!

Super delicious garlic scape! So garlicky!

Super delicious garlic scape! So garlicky!

That day we had lunch in a beautiful park and it was great to be outside and enjoy the sunshine.

DSCN0018

Lovely park

The rest of the week was just as exciting. Wednesday I spent most of the day finalizing mailing list, the survey and cover letter. It was quite a process going through the final population list that has been randomly selected  and making sure I had all the right names, addresses, zip codes, numbers, etc. for all of them. On Thursday everything was printed and I got to see how everything worked in the office. There is a great machine that folds the paper to go into the letters, an automatic stapler, and even this goo to help you turn pages instead of licking your fingers! It was awesome! But we also soon found out that the mailman was leaving at 3:00, and it was 2:30 and we had not printed the labels out, or finished stuffing the envelopes! With three of us working like a well oiled machine, we were able to each focus on one task and get the folding, stuffing, and labeling all done. We got the final stack of letters done at 3:04 and literally ran down the hallway after the postman to get them in on time. It was so nice to be done with that portion of the project. There were high-fives all around.

Thursday I did my first survey! It was exciting to see real numbers in the tables and blanks all filled in on the pages, and commenting on the process. I also sat in on a meeting about a great new program called Schoharie Fresh. It is still a work in progress, but the idea is to have a website store where farmers update their products weekly and you can see pictures and read detailed descriptions of each one. Then early in the week customers can order whatever they would like. The order will then be filled in the middle of the week and ready for pick it up at one main location at the end of the week. It was cool to sit in on the meeting and hear about the process of making it all happen.

Filed Under: Rosy Cohane-Mann

Week Two: Putting Together a Population for the Local Agriculture Study

June 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The second week of my internship was quite intensive! On Monday I ran my first polycom, which is sort of like skype for businesses, so you can do a video conference call between a few different locations. It was an experience figuring out how to plan the agenda and run the meeting, and it all felt very futuristic. We got some great input on the survey and cover letter and it was really nice to know that people are interested in the project and willing to help. My goal for the week was to put together the population for the survey we are doing and to finalize the survey and cover letter so that I can mail them out as soon as possible. It has been really awesome to drive around the Capital District and see gorgeous landscapes and so many farms. The clouds and mountains were lovely on the drive to Troy on Monday.

DSCN0008

The hardest part of this week was gathering all the information about farms from all 11 counties.  We are surveying farms of all sizes, with all types of products from dairy to meat to vegetables to maple syrup, and all types of farming practices as well. Cornell Cooperative Extension employees were instrumental in helping me get a population together for the survey. I am so grateful for the time many people spent organizing and emailing me lists of farms and addresses and various other contact information. From this final list, a random sample will be taken from the population, around 200 farms, and I will mail them the survey. It will then be my job to call each farm and set up interviews to get the data. The survey is intense, and it will definitely take some time to get all the information we need. Despite how hard it may be to get the responses we need in the busiest time of year for farmers,  I am excited to start the surveying process and to get to meet so many farmers.

I think that the organization of interviews will be the most challenging part of the the rest of the summer. With such a large area to cover, and only a few days in each county, it will be quite a process! I have a total of around 35 days to get all of the surveying done, and friends to stay with along the way when I am hours from home. With luck I will get the survey process rolling smoothly and mailings out promptly!

Filed Under: Rosy Cohane-Mann

Powwow

June 22, 2011 By 1 Comment
Every month at Organic Valley’s headquarters, there is a P&W, which stands for Powwow, an event that circles around CEO George Siemon’s “State of the co-op” talk that updates everyone on the happenings of the co-op and the organic market in general. The P&W is an hour and half long and gathers about 500 employees down into cafe for the event. This month, I was also on the agenda. I spoke for a half hour on the enterprises and practices of my family’s farm and  outlined Generation Organic, the project I am working on this summer and have been involved in since 2008. This month, the news was that Organic Valley projects a 13% growth rate for the year, which would put gross sales around $7 million.  Organic Valley is growing very quickly, perhaps a little too quickly for some, as a few parts of the business end at the HQ need to be optimized. In a nut shell, there are cases of work overlap.  As the company grows, it will have to streamline and become more efficient.
I am working on a bunch of projects. Today, we laid out the framework for a video contest for our Gen-O farmers.  We want our farmers to make a fun, original video about their farm, a day of chores, or something that makes their situation different than other farms.  It would act as a marketing tool for co-op and as a chance for our young Gen-O farmers to get some publicity about their farm.  We want to offer a really cool first prize, something like a SLR digital camera or a Flipcam to create a large enough incentive for our farmers to make a video.  The videos will be 2 to 4 minutes long. Transparency is a hot button topic in the food world, so what many companies are doing, namely Organic Valley and Stony Field, is creating bios and videos about their farmers to really connect eaters with their food, to demonstrate that there are real family farms providing for the company.  When total transparency becomes the norm, Organic Valley will be ahead of the curve.
Last February, I was accepted to attend the TEDx “Changing the way we eat” conference in New York City.  They just put out a request to attendees from last year asking them to submit applications to become a speaker for the 2012 conference.  They want the speaker to highlight a project they are started or are involved in that has caused an impact on the way that a community eats.  I am going to apply to be a speaker, citing the Generation Organic “KNow your farmer, own your food, drive your future” bus tour from Fall 2010 as a project that caused the impact they desire.  The Gen-O bus tour was a two week trip around the Northeast with stops mostly at college campuses to talk with students about the importance of knowing where their food comes from and knows who grows their food.  We made over 8.2 million media impressions, so I think it stands a chance at winning the contents, especially with the “truck farmer” that spoke last year.
Speaking of the bus tour, we are moving forward with the West Coast Bus Tour that is happening this fall.  It leaves Wisconsin on September 28th and ends at the Bioneers conference on October 17th.  The tour dovetails with Cornell’s Fall Break, so I will be on the last 7 or 8 days of bus. This works out nicely as I am one of the speakers at Bioneers on Friday October XX. Generation Organic is gaining traction every day, and I get so excited to go into work I can hardly stand it.

Every month at Organic Valley’s headquarters, there is a P&W, which stands for Powwow, an event that circles around CEO George Siemon’s “State of the co-op” talk that updates everyone on the happenings of the co-op and the organic market in general. The P&W is an hour and half long and gathers about 500 employees down into cafe for the event. This month, I was also on the agenda. I spoke for a half hour on the enterprises and practices of my family’s farm and  outlined Generation Organic, the project I am working on this summer and have been involved in since 2008. This month, the news was that Organic Valley projects a 13% growth rate for the year, which would put gross sales around $7 million.  Organic Valley is growing very quickly, perhaps a little too quickly for some, as a few parts of the business end at the HQ need to be optimized. In a nut shell, there are cases of work overlap.  As the company grows, it will have to streamline and become more efficient.

I am working on a bunch of projects. Today, we laid out the framework for a video contest for our Gen-O farmers.  We want our farmers to make a fun, original video about their farm, a day of chores, or something that makes their situation different than other farms.  It would act as a marketing tool for co-op and as a chance for our young Gen-O farmers to get some publicity about their farm.  We want to offer a really cool first prize, something like a SLR digital camera or a Flipcam to create a large enough incentive for our farmers to make a video.  The videos will be 2 to 4 minutes long. Transparency is a hot button topic in the food world, so what many companies are doing, namely Organic Valley and Stony Field, is creating bios and videos about their farmers to really connect eaters with their food, to demonstrate that there are real family farms providing for the company.  When total transparency becomes the norm, Organic Valley will be ahead of the curve.

Last February, I was accepted to attend the TEDx “Changing the way we eat” conference in New York City.  They just put out a request to attendees from last year asking them to submit applications to become a speaker for the 2012 conference.  They want the speaker to highlight a project they are started or are involved in that has caused an impact on the way that a community eats.  I am going to apply to be a speaker, citing the Generation Organic “Know your farmer, own your food, drive your future” bus tour from Fall 2010 as a project that caused the impact they desire.  The Gen-O bus tour was a two week trip around the Northeast with stops mostly at college campuses to talk with students about the importance of knowing where their food comes from and knows who grows their food.  We made over 8.2 million media impressions, so I think it stands a chance at winning the contents, especially with the “truck farmer” that spoke last year.

Speaking of the bus tour, we are moving forward with the West Coast Bus Tour for this fall.  It leaves Wisconsin on September 28th and ends at the Bioneers conference on October 17th.  The tour dovetails with Cornell’s Fall Break, so I will be on the last 7 or 8 days of bus. This works out nicely as I am one of the speakers at Bioneers on Friday, October 16. Generation Organic is gaining traction every day, and I get so excited to go into work I can hardly stand it.

Filed Under: Casey Knapp

Finally, a post!

June 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Hello, all!
My name is Marissa, and I’m interning in Geneva, NY as an intern for a researcher named Thomas Bjorkman.
Thomas primarily studies cool things about broccoli, such as heat stress, but my loyal compatriot co-worker Liz and I primarily assist on several different projects, which I will explain!
Thomas works on figuring out the effects of cover cropping on soil and soil microbial communities. It’s pretty cool, and as you can imagine, a pretty long study as well. One of the primary cover crops included is buckwheat, which is used in products such as Kasha (for all you Eastern European Jews out there!) and buckwheat noodles, called Soba, in Japan. Another study researches the effects allelopathic plants on vegetables such as pumpkin. The specific plants he’s looking at are mustards, which contain a compound called Isothyocyanate. It’s a cyanide-like compound which can spell trouble for a lot of different plants, but has some pretty cool effects in the field.
Specifically, Liz and I do things such as set up research plots with stakes and flags (which is a lot harder than it sounds), transplant plants such as broccoli, cabbage, and peppers, collect biomass data on plants, test soil conditions using a penetrometer, and take care of plants in the greenhouse. Our job never gets boring because we do something different every day. I have to admit though, it might get dry without Liz, but I really enjoy what I do.
Just a few days ago, Liz and I got certified to drive a tractor! Coming from a background that doesn’t involve agriculture at all, it was a really fun experience for me. I may not be very good at backing up an actual car, but I did it nearly perfectly on my exam. I was really proud of myself! Safety perimeters are a lot more intense on tractors though; because their center of gravity can get off easily, the potential for them to tip over is pretty great. It’s not hard to feel unwieldy on one of them.
So, before I depart from this post, I’ll attach a picture of Liz and I transplanting cabbage on tractor/planter. Lots of fun! 251380_1920602658300_1339050462_32122850_8206115_s

Filed Under: Marissa Angell

Week One – On To It

June 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Organic Valley is a company I have been familiar with since 2001, when was 13, after they started buying and marketing milk from our farm. In 2008, I began marketing activities with the co-op. I represented them as farmer-ambassador and went to consumer events and trade-shows to talk about my farm, the cooperative model of business, and the ideology of Organic Valley. After internalizing dozens of talking points and having various types of media training, I possess considerable knowledge of the how the co-op works. So, upon beginning my internship, I had a significant advantage as I already understand the co-op spirit and ideals. I understood entering the project though, that the day to day running the coop would be different and would surprise me as someone who had a considerable connection with the coop from the “farmer’s side”. I have been surprised, admittedly, at how much work the employees complete to make sure that things look like they’re going smoothly from the farmer’s end. In the world of marketing, some opportunities present themselves far in advance, giving employees lots of time to prepare. Others fall on the doorstep and demand that the marketing department scramble to ensure Organic Valley’s presence.

What I am doing
I have been tasked with running something a little bigger than a simple marketing project. This is not how to get consumers to know the coop, this is not to increase the brand value. I am working on the Generation Organic program. This is Organic Valley’s initiative to usher in the next generation of young farmers. Gen-O provides current OV farmers and the sons and daughters of OV farmers with resources to educate themselves in the real world market of organic food, leadership and professional development, and a network of young farmers to connect with. However, this is not a living project that I had placed in my lap with no prior knowledge. In 2008 I joined the leadership team of Gen-O as a representative from the East Coast. Since then, we have organized three regional meetings and launched a bus tour around the Northeast with other Gen-Os. Since March, I have been acting as the East Coast Regional Director. For a rather new program, it has gained lots of recognition within the coop as a viable marketing tool as well as a way to bring new leadership to the coop. The problem with Gen-O is that while the leadership has been officially placed with the young farmers from around the country, the organizing has been left to HQ staff, which are generally overburdened with other jobs.

As an intern already with considerable knowledge of the program, and with 8 hours a day to devote to moving this projects within Gen-O ahead, I feel only motivation and optimism to draw from my past and the resources of the co-op to move the program ahead. Currently, I have a few main projects. The Gen-O West Coast Bus Tour, the Gen-O Newsletter, and a grant proposal for Gen-O to receive more funding over the next three years. The bus tour will take place this fall, after my internship ends, but I will be on the tour and speaking at a conference where the tour makes a stop. Although I am excited for the what the tour will bring, I do not look forward to organizing it. Not because it will be hard, simply because it will be a kind of organizing that might not be a wise use of my time, from my point of view. But these are only my expectations, and expectations don’t usually turn out as one predicts. The Gen-O newsletter will be getting people to write about what they are doing on the their farms, what sorts of news things are happening in their area, and what interesting projects they are taking on. I look at it as a way for Gen-Os to get some exposure of their own, and for others in the coop to see that Gen-O is really cool. The grant proposal is something that has needed to happen for a long time. Gen-O was plopped into the hands of young farmers busy with their own farms or high education. It needs concrete direction, and having a staff member at the HQ is the way to move things like this forward. Gen-O needs some starter fuel before it can burn on its own.

There are 14,000 organic farms in the United States, and 1,636 of are members of the Organic Valley cooperative. Undertaking the project to train and prepare the next farmer-leaders for an organization that leads more than 10 percent of the nation’s organic farms is intimidating. But the nature of the mission garners only support, both within Organic Valley and in the organic market place. I have a cubicle (with a window, apparently a luxury in cubicle world), a computer, and resources to make these things happen. I have been part of Gen-O for a while, so it is exciting to see these things taking place as a result of my knowledge and hard work. It is a bit unconventional, but I think that I am going to make a really good impact during my time here. The first week has gone by, and I am receiving praise from my supervisors on my hard work and willingness to move projects forward. The mistakes I have made so far have not been huge, and mostly are basic Outlook skills. My motto is act first, seek forgiveness later. I have been acting quite a bit, and it looks like people mostly like to see someone who is eager to push things forward. I am excited to continue working, I find my work truly enjoyable, only feeling eustress in the office. I can’t wait to see the things I can say I changed after my 9 weeks has concluded.

Filed Under: Casey Knapp Tagged With: , ,

Week One of Cornell Cooperative Extension Internship: Local Agriculture Study

June 14, 2011 By 2 Comments
We are surveying in the blue region in the Capital District, a total of 11 counties including: Albany, Columbia, Fulton, Greene, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectaday, Schoharie, Warren, and Washington

We are surveying in the blue region in the Capital District, a total of 11 counties including: Albany, Columbia, Fulton, Greene, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectaday, Schoharie, Warren, and Washington

Hello! I am Rosy, a soon to be senior and this is my first blog post about my summer internship with Cornell Cooperative Extension as their Ag and Natural Resources Intern. I have been hired to work on a project with the obective of identifying the impact and contribution of local agriculture production on the greater Capital District economy. The study will be conducted in 11 counties in the Capital District (see map above) and I will be driving all around the region surveying farmers with at least some of their products going locally. Since I live in Western Massachusetts in the Berkshires, it will be a lot of driving, but I just have to make sure to keep finding good new music to jam to!

The first week was a little overwhelming, but also very exciting. I got a general introduction to the project at the CCE office in Troy, and started organizing, emailing, and learning more the entire week. I got to meet Dr. Schmit who is in charge of the study, and Laura McDermott who is my main advisor who works for Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) mostly on the Capital District Vegetable and Small Fruit Program, and she is wonderful! It was a little hard to get through everything the first day because I was still getting over jet lag from coming back from studying abroad in New Zealand for the semester.

My main job this summer is to organize and do the surveying in all 11 counties. We have been working on creating a final draft of the survey, and just gathering lists of all the farmers in the district so that we can then create our population. We have already gotten a lot of feedback on the survey from farmers and extension agents from all around and its been quite a process figuring out how to get the results we need in the busiest time of year for farmers. I may need to do some bribery baking this summer!

The Hawthorne Valley Farm Store!

The Hawthorne Valley Farm Store!

On Thursday I was able to head down to Columbia County and visited Hawthorne Valley Farm which does biodynamic farming and also outreach and educational programs! It was a gorgeous farm, and it has a wonderful farm store where I ate a delicious fresh lunch! That same day I also got to visit with people from the Farmscape Ecology Program which is an educational non-profit with a primary goal to stimulate, facilitate, and inform exploration of Columbia County. The entire first week it was awesome to meet so many people and hear about what they do and get feedback on our project as well. I think my favorite part of the project will be meeting farmers and getting to see so many different types of farms.

Filed Under: Rosy Cohane-Mann

Second Week on the Job

June 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

My second week in D.C. went great, moving up in the chain and starting to take on some serious challenges and tasks in the office. Seeing some weakness and holes in the office structure for constituent support, I was able to take control after being left as the only intern in the office to really patch up some problems and create better foundations for constituents. I completely overhauled the tour systems and also the response systems we have in place. I am also in the process of creating an organized system that we will be able to transfer between shifts in staff. This ability to transition will give us greater flexibility and ability to transfer responsibilities within the staff.

On another side I was able to participate in some lectures with some great leaders. For example, last week a speech by Ralph Nader, not in my opinion a man with great views, but he does have a fairly strong support base. This week I will also see former Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld.

Last week we were in recess, so I walked on the floor, which is an interesting experience that really puts our government in perspective. I was also able to get a behind-the-scenes look in the Speaker’s office and walk along the Speaker’s terrace–one of the best views of D.C.

There is no shortage of things to do and see in D.C. I spent my weekend talking with other interns from across the country and visiting the mall.

I am hoping to get over to USDA sometime this week and also take on more responsibilities in agriculture policy with Ag Appropriations coming up.

Filed Under: Ryan Amberg
Skip to toolbar