September 26, 2025 • 54 mins
In the ninth episode of Food, Flowers, & Fun: Visits with farm women from around the world, Candace Clavin of Water Way Farm talks about:
- Protecting your physical and emotional safety
- Distilling lavender
- Flipping rams
- Educating the next generation on agriculture
- Much, much more!
You will love this versatile and multi-talented farmer!
Connect with Candace at:
- Website: https://www.waterwayfarm.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candace-clavin-8252668/
- Facebook: @WaterWayFarm
- Instagram: @water_way_farm
Connect with K at:
- Website: https://www.penlightfarmers.com
- YouTube: @k.castrataro3466
- Facebook and Instagram: @penlightfarmers
- Podcast (audio): https://www.penlightfarmers.com/podcast
- Podcast (video): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIVBn53rrIsTwS4ag6hH4DHnxG_Lxqt7x
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
K Castrataro (00:00):
How are farmers and elite sports figures the
same? Discover the answer tothat question and so much more
in this episode of Food, Flowersand Fun: Visits with farm women
from around the world, where wetalk to Candace Clavin of Water
Way Farm. We are sponsored, asalways, by Pen Light for
Farmers, helping overworkedfarmers thrive with more energy,
(00:23):
time and abundance.
Unknown (00:34):
If you're the woman who does it all, farm work,
housework, book work, homework,getting up at the break of dawn.
This is the podcast for you. Howdo you get away from the cares
of the day? Restock, rootstock,feedstock, seed stock. Chat with
(00:55):
women around the world to raisefood, flowers and fun with your
host, K Castrataro, that's me.
So welcome back to this episodeof Food, Flowers, and Fun. Today
we have got lavender farmerextraordinaire, Candace Clavin
from Water Way Lavender Farm,and you are just gonna love this
(01:18):
woman. She is so diverse. She isinto how we can stay healthy in
every single aspect of our livesas we're farm women. He she's
into advocacy. She's into foodand access to food for all sorts
of different people. So let'sjust jump right in. Candace, I'm
(01:39):
so excited to have
you welcome. Thank you. Thankyou so much, Kristen for
inviting me here. I'm so excitedanything to do with food, fun,
flowers, it's absolutely awonderful farming experience for
me and to be invited here as youbegin a pretty big agricultural
journey for you and for all ofus in the farming community. So
thank you so much. Oh, yeah,
K Castrataro (02:01):
so so pleased to have you. And for those of you
who are just joining us, we'veactually got something pretty
fun, because when we did our prescreening call, Candice was in
the process of of working ondistilling some of her white
lavender. And so we got to getsome footage of that. So we'll,
(02:22):
we'll maybe just start right inwith the whole, how'd you get
into lavender?
Candace Clavin (02:27):
Oh, yeah. Well, first, first of all the when we
called to do a pre screening, soI knew it was 1130 that we were
going to meet, and I had sort ofset up distillation of of
lavender earlier in the day. Sowe have to heat the water. We
have to steam, you know, cut allthe flowers, get them, get them
into the distillation machine.And it was supposed to, it was
supposed to, like, go off atabout 10 o'clock, and it didn't.
(02:50):
So here I have, I have the phonein one hand to talk to Kristen
as as the steam starts up, whichis, you know, the that is the
moment you have about maybe 10or 15 minutes when distillation
starts to really get theessential oils coming out. And
it happened like instantaneous.So I'm holding the phone with
(03:10):
her, and she's like, What?What's going on here? And I so
I'm like, All right, let me flipthe phone and show you know,
show her what we're in theprocess of doing while I'm
trying to extract the essentialoils at the same time.
K Castrataro (03:24):
So perfect fashion. I say, do you mind if I
hit record? Because we're goingto be able to use this footage
later, right, right?
Unknown (03:34):
See that? Yeah. We got to write. We got we got Kristen.
And you guys right into, intoseeing, you know what's going
on. Our next step here at thefarm, which through the through
some grants, we were able wehave our distillation equipment
that comes from the Portugal andalso from the Ukraine and also
from the United States. So itreally was an exciting moment to
(03:56):
jump right in with a lot ofshiny things and water going on
at the same time. So, so one ofthe things so I began
distilling, is is a new thingover the past two years for us,
and I'm one of the incrediblylucky people. I just came back
from Provence, where we diddistillation. I was a with a
group of aromatic oil peoplefrom all over from all over the
(04:20):
world, and also a group offoragers and people who who use
herbs to work with animals andwith horses and with dogs. So we
had people from Russia, peoplefrom France, from Germany, from
Arizona, from Los Angeles, fromSardinia, and none of us
K Castrataro (04:43):
had Americans
Unknown (04:44):
there. Oh yeah. So I was at the Rhode Islander and
and we all went to Provence, toa town in the national park
there to learn more about theprocesses and the health
benefits and and how to useessential oils and how to.
Forage, what's there, and alsohow to harvest. You know, we're
harvesting lavender in 102degree temperature. So, so I
(05:08):
thought I knew a lot aboutlavender because of what we do
here, but, boy, I learned somuch more while we were there as
well. And and I became, I becamemore and more involved in in
growing herbs. Many kinds ofherbs here we grow. But I was a
beekeeper as well, and I hadsome lavender, but I noticed the
bees continually would go tothat. And I started to grow more
(05:32):
and more lavender for the bees.And little by little, the bees
sort of took the back thebackstage, and I started to grow
lavender, and more people wantedto know about it, and we were
able to offer education, and Igrew it here on the what is now
the Barrington farm school. Is aprivate school here, private
(05:52):
farm that was here, and I'vesince moved the lavender from
there. But it turns out thatlavender grows so well in this
climate, who would ever thinkthis? I mean, there's, there's
over 100 types of lavender thatyou can grow, but it doesn't
like water. It doesn't, youdon't have to spray pesticides.
Deer hate it. So it became anincredibly sustainable crop, and
(06:17):
it lasts some 10, some 15 years.The plants, if treated
correctly, and if donecorrectly, no mulch. It can grow
in a in in a very, very aridarea, but it also it's okay
with, you know, with the rainthat we get here, is just about
perfect and waterway lavenderfarm, and the farm is up from
(06:37):
the bay, up from NarragansettBay, and outside of vineyard,
which also would do really wellhere. It's just a perfect,
perfect place to have lavenderand and where we are here, we're
what we call Peri urban area. Ina Peri urban area is not the
suburb, well, not not the cityand not rural. We're in between.
(06:58):
So we are right in the middle ofsuburbs, but we are a farm.
We're recognized farm and and weget support from different farm
agencies and farm groups becauseof what we do. But it's, you
know, it's a real balance. But Ithink in the future, this will
be how many small family farmsand new farms come to be will be
(07:20):
in these kind of areas and inthe city and lots and aren't
being used on top of buildings.So we're very involved in
inspiring other people to farm.Particularly my passion is young
farmers and actually children inthe schools to teach them about
agriculture and a respect forfarmers, and to realize what a
(07:43):
difficult, difficult professionit is to do, certainly full
time, but to do it all, and howwell.
K Castrataro (07:50):
And let's talk about that for a minute. I'm
going to kind of jump in for asecond, because one of the
things that I'm really startingto have a passion for is
redefining agriculture and whatit means to be a farmer. And I
know that, you know, I'm not thefirst one to come up with this,
but coming from a multigenerational farm background, I
(08:12):
recognize that there are a lotof biases inside of agriculture
about what a real farmer lookslike, how they farm, how much
acreage they have, how muchmoney they make off of it. Like,
there's the and it changes fromperson to person, from group to
group, but, but what you'retalking about, about Peri urban
(08:36):
farming and farming on rooftops,like, I love that whole like
green roofs. I totally feel likeour roofs need to be rethought,
like they're a power source,they're a food source, like
there's so much stuff we can dowith them if they're properly
Unknown (08:51):
used, sure,
K Castrataro (08:53):
and in urban areas where where there are a lot of
food deserts, you know, peoplecannot have the same kind of
access to fresh vegetables andfruit that a lot of other areas
can and so how do we, how do webring agriculture into those
more Peri urban and urban areas,and also validate the fact that
(09:17):
the People doing that work areactually farmers, like
sustainable homesteading, orlike, I feel like maybe we need
to broaden that understanding.Can you speak to that a little
bit
Unknown (09:29):
for us? Absolutely. One of the groups that I work with
is the Rhode Island Food PolicyCouncil. In our state, we've
been lucky, and there are inother states the food policy,
and so it's the word there foodpolicy, and that is the place
where smaller farms and urban,urban let's call them
homesteads, definitely is agreat word for it can be
recognized, you know, as women,women that come here, migrants
(09:52):
that that need a space to growfood, that they know that
they're comfortable with inRhode Island, we're lucky enough
we have with the AfricanAlliance. Science and Southside
Community Land Trust that havebeen able to acknowledge these
small farmers. And these arethese, are this? These people
depend on what they grow,whether to sell it or to eat it
for their families. And sothere's a which is what farmers
(10:17):
were, always were before. Butsometimes you need, you need
intervention from governmentsubsidies, grants. Some of the
areas, for instance, in thecity, the land is not safe to
farm on because ofcontamination. So what do you do
with that? Well, you set upraised beds that don't use that
soil, and you cover, you coverthe soil. It's there. Otherwise,
(10:40):
you know, it's a wastelandthat's not being used. And the
same with water for those areas.Well, what? Again, the NRCS, the
conservation can give you tanksin order to get the rainwater,
which is fantastic for yourplants as well. So that whole
area and a respect for thosepeople as farmers, and the best
way to do that, we've, you know,that I think, is to set up
(11:02):
markets, so markets to selltheir products. Suddenly you go,
Oh, this is a farmer who'sfeeding me, you know. And the
realization, you know, nofarmers, no no farmers, no food.
But these people are feeding us,you know. And they are farmers,
and that's, you know. Suddenlyyou make a jump from this huge
industrial farming place, youknow, out in the in the Midwest,
(11:26):
or, you know, whereverstockyards, to these people that
right here, these are localpeople providing food to my
family.
K Castrataro (11:35):
And there are so many benefits to that, like, I
think we don't really understandall of the benefits that come to
supporting truly local, evenvery small scale local
agriculture. And it is, it is aneconomic benefit, because,
excuse me, when you have farmersthat are growing the food in
(11:57):
your local area, like so muchlarge, so much larger percentage
of the income that they makestays in our community. So we're
actually building wealth in thecommunity by supporting even
these very small farms, whereas,as you're saying, the big
industrial farms. And I am, I amnot opposed like to having
industrial farms, because wehave a huge population, and so
(12:21):
like to be able to feed peopleas as well as we want. It's a
very good thing to have bigfarms as well. Oh, we love big
farms. Okay. No, no, we want tobe big all of them. We want all
of the agriculture, and we wantit all to be valued and to be
done to the best that it can be,for the environment, for social
(12:47):
purposes and for the farmerswell being. And I think what you
were saying about immigrantwomen who are coming in and
they're starting these farms togrow or small plots even to grow
their own food that they'refamiliar with. Like, we don't
even think about that aswherever we come from. You know,
I and this is why I love havingfarmers from around the world.
(13:09):
Because, you know, I've talkedto papaya growers and cassava
growers. I'm like, I don't knowanything about cassava. Like,
Teach me. Teach me. But when,when people do migrate in, we
think about the language.Sometimes we think about, you
know, having to find a place tolive. We think about the
culture. We don't even considerthe food. Like people come and
(13:32):
they have a whole way of feedingtheir family that they're
accustomed to, and then theycome here and they can't get
that food and so like, how dothey, how do they relearn how to
feed their families? And isn'tit better if they can bring that
with them? Exactly?
Unknown (13:49):
Kristen, yeah, one of the great, great examples, the
rest of us, you know, one of thegreat examples, yeah, in our
farmers here, and this issomething that we throw away our
sweet potato vines. Now, how I,you know, I we grow sweet
potatoes, and, you know, yousell sweet potatoes and, and the
(14:10):
African immigrants like, Well,where are the vines? We want the
vines we don't want the, youknow, we want the sweet
potatoes. But that, you know,and that became like this, this
light went off, and everyonesaid, we would never, we would
never know that. And here's aculture that that that was one
of the main things that theywanted, you know, a real simple
thing like that, that you don'tthink about. And the Reliance
K Castrataro (14:33):
I remember, I remember as a kid when people
would come to We, of course,Rhode Island has a very large
Italian population, andJohnston, where I grew up, had
all it was like, very Italian.And so all of these Italian
families would make, like,dandelion wine. And so they'd
(14:54):
come to the farms, and they theywanted to go out and, like, be
harvesting the dandelion. And wewere sitting there first saying,
you realize it's a weed, right?And they're like, Yeah, we
realize it's a weed, and werealize that we can actually
make something of it that youwould really want to have
Unknown (15:12):
absolutely Oh, and it's so good, you know, the dandelion
is so high in in so manydifferent vitamins, which, you
know, I didn't know that. And wealso, we use it for
distillation. It's gotincredible benefits. And the
Italians knew that long ago. Anddon't, don't forget, what was
the other Oh, the everybodyloves them now, but squash
flowers, right? Oh my gosh,those things, right?
K Castrataro (15:34):
Well, you make more now. So my family has
always done a lot of mixedvegetables, and so we, we've
sold lots of different types ofsquash. And when the first
restaurant started coming in, orthis, you know, small Italian
families would come in askingfor squash flowers, my mom was
like, wait. Well, we can't pickthe squash flowers, because
(15:56):
that's how the squash gets made.And they're like, no, no, we
don't need the female flowers.We only need the male flowers.
And then we're like, oh, yeah,okay, that makes sense. And and
then we started harvesting them,and you get 10 times 100 times
more for the silly squashflowers that they're gonna stuff
and fry and turn into like adelicacy than you ever would for
Unknown (16:20):
the actual squash, which exactly seems
K Castrataro (16:23):
so insane and yet is is genius, like it's just
just genius.
Unknown (16:29):
So here, all the restaurants here as of last
year, were wanted every squashflour they could get, and at a
good price too, which waswonderful to sell them and and
to find the crops that are well,lavender was another one here.
Whoever thought that you could,you know, sell to the gin makers
(16:51):
and to the candy makers and tothe bakeries. You know,
originally, they're like, WhatYou Eat lavender? Yes, it's a
culinary lavender. And, youknow, we find all these
wonderful, small, I'll sayniche, although it's not niche
anymore. Products, oh, theleaves of raspberries, another
one that women during certainparts of their pregnancy are
(17:14):
great to strengthen tissues. Youknow, who would think?
K Castrataro (17:19):
This is why I love this show. I learned something
every single episode. So is it acertain time of like, do the
leaves have to be at a certainage? Are they better when
they're younger, when they'reolder,
Unknown (17:31):
or when they have more good stuff in them? Almost every
plant at a certain age hasbetter and good stuff in it. You
know, even Well, how about grapeleaves? Another one, right? Who
thinks? You cut the grapeleaves? Well, you want the young
the younger ones because theythey they're more pliable, and
so I think for using them inteas or whatever the the leaves
are used for that they'reprobably when they're younger,
(17:53):
not too young, though, butlavender is the same way, right?
You pick it at a certain timefor oils, but you'd pick it
another time if you're going touse it for culinary So, yeah,
everything's got as little andsquash, I'm sure the big ones,
you wait till they're really bigso you can make boats out of
them, yes.
And that's the fun part offarming.
K Castrataro (18:16):
Whereas when I like to eat them, when they're
like, pretty small, and peopleare like, your squash are small?
I'm like, Yeah, but I like themthat way. They don't have a lot
of big seeds. They're nice andtender. But yeah, if I'm gonna
gonna be scooping them out andstuffing them full of meat and
cheese and all kinds of reallyeasy sounds
Unknown (18:34):
good. Oh, and garlic is another one, right? Everyone
thinks you have to wait till thegarlic bulbs, and then all of a
sudden, we used to call them inItalian, with the cheeches, or
the tops of them. And noweverybody wants the tops of the
garlic. In the spring they, youknow, they call them garlic
greens. Or they have all kindsof different names for the for
the small pieces on the top. Andthat's, you know, 10 years ago,
(18:54):
people would have thought youwere crazy to eat those. And now
everybody wants them. Or fennelis another one the flowers. The
pollen from the fennel is in thetop restaurants, you know, we
use, we use fennel powder, youknow, from the flowers, you
know. So they want flower, and alot of the flowers, they want
the pollen from them, from justthe flowers, before any fruit or
(19:17):
vegetable forms. And sureenough, it has this beautiful
flavor to it as well.
K Castrataro (19:22):
Amazing, amazing. So, so tell me how you I want to
know how you got into thelavender thing, because you used
to raise sheep. Yeah, we were,is that right? You were a farmer
in New York,
Unknown (19:34):
that's right. I, I began my farming in the Finger
Lakes in New York. I actually,being a farmer, held four jobs
at one time. So I was aproofreader at night. I had a
rural column on on farming andrural living, and raised 200
sheep and goats, and we hadexotic foul. Was another one?
K Castrataro (19:56):
Oh, did you have your exotic foul? Which kind of
foul? Did you have? Did you
Unknown (20:00):
have beautiful everything, everything you can
imagine from, you know, guineahens of court, of course. No,
not, of course, peacocks for thefeathers we would sell to the
fly tires?
K Castrataro (20:13):
Yes. So the hack, my ex, my ex, my tire?
Unknown (20:17):
Yep, to to lose, to lose geese, which, by the way,
never get, and, you know, ducksand just about every kind of
anything we could get, we would,we would try to hatch or grow or
bring it. So that was it. Thatwas in the finger list. We also
had mules and goats and allkinds of, all kinds, just what
(20:39):
you would assume on a large farmthat you could have. So 40 Acres
there. And basically, as allfarmers, you know, you you look
for what markets are availableand what people want. So in
everything from growing pumpkinsto herbs, you know, just a
diverse farm so that you could,you could exist. So we ended up,
(21:00):
we got rid of the, what we callthe four legged animals. I got
those two legged ones, thelittle boys, and decided that
that part of New New York, very,very rural, that it would be
better to to have more communityaround us. And we did have
community here, with amonastery. My my husband's aunt
(21:21):
was here in the monastery. So wemoved to Rhode Island, which I
had never been to. Oh, wow, noidea. So I just said, find me a
place where we can, I can havesome land, and that's all I
knew. So I never saw the house.I never saw the land where we
moved to till I got here. So, ohmy goodness, that was bull. So
it was sight unseen. But then,you know, I fell in love with
(21:45):
Rhode Island. I fell in love Imissed the salt water. I had
grown up by Long Island, byPoint Lookout in Westbury, in
Long Island. So I love the saltwater more than anything. So it
was good to be back. And it's soprecious here. But we were able,
I was able to use that also inour farming. So we use the
seaweed, we go down, and I godown and harvest the the seaweed
(22:08):
and bring that up to use, whichis an incredible for what I
grow, specifically, is anincredible additive to the soil
here. So it became involvedsomewhat in aquaculture as well,
and as long with the landagriculture. So land and sea
here in Rhode Island became avery, very special thing. And
(22:30):
yeah, and the lavender, justlittle by little, sort of
morphed into it, like I said,because as beekeepers, I just
used, we used more and more ofit, and the farm community, many
parts in Rhode Island, theDepartment of Environmental
Management has been incrediblyhelpful and inspirational to
help. And the farm groups, theOrganic Farmers Association,
(22:50):
Nova Massachusetts and RhodeIsland, have been wonderful. And
again, got involved in the foodpantries as well growing food
for the pantries, you know,became a big part. And then
teaching farming to childrenhere who had never realized a
carrot came from the ground andor a beet that you could eat a
(23:12):
beet, you know, and that an eggcame from a chicken, you know.
K Castrataro (23:17):
And there's so many, it's so interesting
because, you know, I grew up onfarm, and my grandparents, my
children's grandparents, so myparents are still farming, and
so there are so many things thatmy kids will come out and say
things, and I have this momentof, wait a minute, how do you
not know that? And and it'sterrifying to me, because I look
(23:41):
at it and I say, oh my goodness,like I've been a full time
farmer. I've been anagricultural service provider. I
am working with farmers now toimprove their lives and some
very basic things aboutagriculture my kids don't know.
And you think that these thingsjust kind of happen, like they
(24:05):
just learn it, and it's reallyby experience that they learn
it, and even being onegeneration removed from the farm
takes so much of that knowledgeaway from them. And so we are
definitely in our urban areasand very urban areas we are
working with so many generationsremoved, like two, three
(24:26):
generations removed, right whereit really is true, ignorance,
it's not, it's not stupidity,it's, it's just lack of
exposure. And so the work thatyou've done in the schools, I
think, is absolutely essential,because we need to get these
urbanized kids back into thesoil, or we're not going to have
(24:50):
the same kind of farm kidsgrowing up like they need to
know that farming is even athing
Unknown (24:55):
well, you know, and I certainly know the importance of
the connection of. Nature to ourchildren, you know? I mean,
there's, I mean, studies andstudies that prove that even a
child that sits in nature, andI'll just say sits, which would
be anything at all, is ishealed, you know, and, and it's,
(25:16):
it's a path that that you'reright. I mean, it's, it's
disconnected. I mean, thechildren who don't know where
the water comes from, well, itcomes out of a faucet. And they
don't realize below your feet,you know, is all of life, is all
of water. And the connectionjust, just to bring them out,
you know, the programs that justbring them out to sit in a
field, or to go through theforest or or to look in a worm
(25:39):
bin, you know, and see, thisweekend we, we had done the
Barrington farm school just tohave them put their hands in a
worm bin. And see this, youknow, this connection, that
these animals are actually theseanimals, these insects. I don't
even know what worms are rightnow, but that they, they take
our leftovers and they make newsoil out of it.
K Castrataro (26:03):
And new recyclers. They are natural recyclers.
Circles garbage and turn it intosoil, yeah.
Unknown (26:10):
And them the the respect for the circle of nature
and the and the circle of that,you know, in agriculture, what's
involved in it, and that this,this is, you know, they're basic
parts of of the of human biologythat depend on nature. You know,
K Castrataro (26:27):
let's talk about that. Because now that we've
gotten into the more holisticside of it, which is where I
always get really juiced up. Oh,good. You know, farming is this
interesting, interestingcombination of being out in
nature and inherently doingthings that are designed to heal
us. You know, as you said,they're they've been doing tons
(26:48):
of studies about just being intrees, like, what it's like to
just walk through trees. And,you know, I saw some interesting
research on waterfalls and and Imade the connection with like
overhead irrigation, that theeffect of moving water actually
calms your whole system. So onthe one hand, women and men who
(27:14):
are involved in farming areconstantly surrounded by the
things that are supposed to benurturing and healing us, and at
the same time, farmers are attwo to three times higher risk
of suicide than the averagepopulation, which doesn't seem
(27:35):
to make sense. And so it makesyou wonder, well, what is it
about this occupation that canbe so nurturing for us and can
also be so destructive for us?And so let's, let's talk a
little bit about how you try tomaximize that nurturing part of
(27:58):
agriculture and minimize thestress. Because we understand, I
mean finances, stressful,politics, stressful, policy,
stressful, like all of thosethings cause issues for farmers.
But how can we, how can wecounteract that, so that we keep
our farmers healthy for as longas possible, yeah, to make it so
(28:22):
that when they're out offarming, they don't all of a
sudden have a crash, because Ithink that's a really big like,
how do we get them to nurturetheir whole selves while they're
farming, so that when they'renot farming, they still are
healthy?
Unknown (28:36):
Absolutely, I think it's the same as, let's say,
sports figures that that thatwork in, you know, sports for 20
years in football, and thensuddenly stop. So there's a
there's a mental and a physicaland informing, remember, your
physical is so, so important tokeep your body strong and and
your mental is right, right nextto that. And so important. I
(28:59):
mean, the farmers, for instance,a dairy farmer has to, has to go
milk cows three, sometimes fourtimes a day, isn't taking a
vacation in 20 years. And iftheir body fails them at all,
then mentally, you know, thisis, this is their whole
livelihood. This is all they'vedone. So they can't, they can't
stop. And if they stop, there'sa huge hole in their lives, in
(29:23):
their spirits, and anything youdon't know who they are, yeah,
and and farmers, for instance,losing their farms, which is a
very regular thing now, withbankruptcy. And remember, a
whole family usually lives on.This is on family farms. The
whole family depends on justwhat's going on on their farm.
(29:43):
So the stress of any, anythingthat can change that or destroy
that don't just destroy onefarmer, destroys a whole family,
the dynamics of the family, eachdepending on it. You know, your
your kids are the ones thatagain, I'll say dairy farm.
Because that's such an easy oneto see the the crises that go
on. But your kids are are outthere milking your cows for you,
(30:08):
usually the wife or the husbandis cooking inside and doing the
finances. So it's a whole groupdynamic. And if one person in
that is injured, the whole thewhole thing can fall apart. You
know, most, most farmers can'thire anyone else to help outside
of their family, or they canhire just a few, you know, a few
(30:29):
people to help out.
K Castrataro (30:31):
We sold our dairy farm when I went to college, I
was the oldest. I was the oldestof three kids. And when, when I
graduated from high school,because we actually dairy farmed
in New York as well, and knowthat. And so when I graduated
and I went to the Midwest to goto college, they started losing
(30:54):
their labor force, and it wasexactly that question, like, do
you put on an extra 50 cows soyou can hire somebody to come in
and take over the the milkingand the feeding that all of us
kids were doing, like we mybrother and I split milking, you
know, he milked in the morning.I milked in the evening. My
sister did all the feeding ofthe cows and the calves. My mom
(31:17):
did calves, you know, like, sowhen you start losing that, it
really does make a hugedifference. And so I think what
you're saying there is that thethe balance is so tenuous, like
it, we can, it really can pivoton one person's health or
presence there,
Unknown (31:34):
right? And there's and their safety as well. Yes, you
know, we, I think I mentioned,maybe I didn't that we had
farmers three generations thatwould come just to do our hay
fields. The grandfather didn'thave an arm because he had got
it caught in the machine. Theson didn't have a hand because
he had got it caught in themachine. And the young boy
didn't have a finger because hecaught it in the machine. And
(31:57):
they couldn't afford the safetytraining. They couldn't afford
any of the safety equipment, thenewer equipment, and maybe they
took the stuff off of themachines as well.
K Castrataro (32:09):
Like there is, there is a little bit of that
where we have to change amindset. I was in a webinar a
couple of months ago that wasall talking about farm safety
and how it really has to be amindset shift that taking care
of our physical and I wouldargue our mental safety is
really critical to being able tokeep farmers functioning. I
(32:31):
mean, my grandfather's missingthe top of his thumb from a
chainsaw that kicked back.That's all it takes. My
brother's got pins. Had pins inhis finger because it got stuck
in a haybine that dropped on hisfinger. Like, yeah,
Unknown (32:47):
one bad cow, one bad cow.
The sheep, these huge rams thatwe had, you know, and the Rams,
I don't know if those are themale sheep, and they're big,
they're, they're usually 100pounds more than the, you know,
the cute little ones that youalways think of, which, whether
they're cute is another story.But they would run, they would
(33:07):
charge you, you know, and thefront of their heads like a
piece of cement, and they havehorns, yeah? And I'd be like,
you know, I'd run the other way,and they go, No, you can't do
that. You have to grab it by thehorns and flip it. I'm like, I'm
going to flip a 220 pound Yes,you have to learn to flip this.
Now, is that a safety? Which waydid the safety should have gone
(33:28):
on that? And where was thetraining on it? So sure enough,
gyro, that was our biggest rim.You know, this huge RAM runs
towards you, and you better grabit and flip them over. But if
you didn't do it, you know,there would be an issue. And
certainly, children could never,you know, could never be the
same with bulls, certainlyexactly the same thing with the
bull or with the horses. Youknow, you had to, you had to be,
(33:50):
you had to be trained. And ifyou weren't, you know, terrible,
you know, terrible things couldhappen. And a lot, thank God.
Well, cooperative extension wasone of the areas, not
necessarily in Rhode Island, buthave programs on, on farmers, on
training. And University ofVermont has a beautiful program,
and I even wrote the name downof it, the Northeast is called
(34:12):
Risk Management, an extensionnortheast extension risk
management, where you would, youwould go through different
levels of training, how to keepyour strength up, how to how to
pick a crop, how not to go pen,you know, bend down and start to
pull things up, but how to leancorrectly. Or when you did get
injured, how to take care ofthat. And thank goodness there
(34:35):
were, there are programs outthere, and it's just getting the
word out to farmers. And ofcourse, my I, women farmers, to
me, is, is so, is so importantto do, to do any, any kind of
the wellness and what they callbody maintenance, you know, for
and for farmers that you need,and particularly somebody who's
who's milking four times a dayand hasn't taken a vacation,
(34:58):
they need body and mind. Andwellness programs, you know, or
even I
K Castrataro (35:03):
ended up finding early in the spring, I did one
of my newsletters. I did someresearch on on how farmers could
get back into the swing of thegrowing season. Because yes, you
have like your livestockproducers tend to work more
evenly throughout the year. Buta lot of your vegetable and
fruit producers do not likethey'll work really hard spring
(35:27):
through fall, and then then theytake a break. Now some some
hibernate, don't. Yeah, there's,there's lots of things we could
talk about that, that dynamicthere. But the truth is that the
shape that a farmer is in at theend of the growing season is not
at all the shape that they're inat the beginning of the growing
(35:48):
season. It's kind of you weretalking about athletes. It's,
it's like the Red Sox. You know,when they show up at Spring
training, they are not in thesame condition that they're
going to be in August andSeptember, because they have
taken the summer the winter off,I mean, and they're, you know,
so I found a whole bunch ofexercises for farmers that were
(36:11):
correlated to the types of workthat they would be doing to help
strengthen those specific areasbefore they got back into the
growing season and gotthemselves hurt. Because how
many of us have done that? We goout, we overwork the first sunny
day, and then then we're sittingthere saying, crap, now I gotta
work, and I'm sore and, youknow, and you're trying to play
(36:34):
catch up before you've ever evenstarted the season, and we don't
want that. So, you know, thephysical is important. Can you
talk about the mental because Ifeel like, I feel like the
mental health is something thatwe're starting to finally talk
about in agriculture, but Ithink there's still a lot of
stigma around mental health infarming. Can you
Unknown (36:55):
farmers, by a lot of them are by themselves. You
know, either they have large,large farm pieces of property,
so they don't have the everydayinteractions with other, let's
say business people that theywork with. You know, you don't
go into an office and you don'tyou don't share, you don't share
(37:17):
your your fears and a lot ofyour problems. There's no one.
There was no one to share themwith. And covid made that much
worse for a lot of farmers,because they not only lost their
customers, but, you know, theylost whatever community did
exist. Farm communities used tobe incredible. For instance, the
Amish community, where everybodywould help each other. And old
(37:39):
time farms they, you know, a lotof towns still have the, what do
you call the the buildings thatwere set up just for, like,
Grange range, right? And that'swhat a Grange was for, right?
No, was was for a social it wasa social center. Absolutely, it
was a real sharing place whereyou could go and you had
trouble. Boy, two or threefarmers would come over and help
(38:01):
you, you know, with whatever,with, you know, they, you hear
barn raising, well, that's whatborn raising was, you know,
okay, I can't do that by myself,but a bunch of other farmers,
and then when, when they needhelp, I'll be over there to help
them. So, a lot for farm women,particularly, they're totally
isolated. There's just not thatmany farm women, either they
(38:22):
have to work off the farm orthey're, they're trying to run a
lot. In this case, it will say alot of the finances, these are
moms. We're talking specificallyabout moms on farms, you know.
So they're, they're runningthree or four things, and they
have to, you know, again, makesure all food is right. So
little by little, they've beensetting up this one. Annie's
(38:44):
project is one of the programsthroughout the United States.
And UVM also has a wellnessprogram for women to meet in
circles. And by a circle, you'renot actually there. I mean, you
could do it personally, but weeven on Zoom to have small
circles of farm women that canjust say to today is too much
(39:05):
for me. I can't do this. And youcan get ideas from other people,
or, you know, programs that willhelp, or just things like, Well,
do you ever try just sit downand breathe just today? Today is
going to be a day, and it'sokay, because I do the same
thing, you know, or I have thestrength to do that, because
this is what I can do. Andhealth, you know, health issues
(39:27):
again, you know, you get helpwith a broken arm, but with a
broken heart, you know, it'smuch more difficult to heal
because nobody can see that. Andin farming, you know, that's a
big part. You lose the death ofa spouse or a death of a child
or you develop, you know,cancer, these are, these are
everyday things for the farmcommunity to try to deal with
(39:48):
and to find outlets for it. Wehave. We're lucky enough here
that we have a mediation center,an ag mediation. It's under that
that is a support group and. Andaquaculture is the same way and
fishermen, they need it just as,just as much
K Castrataro (40:05):
I count. I'll be honest, I count aquaculture as
our farmers. You know, I firstlearned about Rhode Island
aquaculture 12 years ago, likelong time ago now, and going and
visiting an oyster farm andbeing like, on the boat and
(40:27):
talking to the farmer was justamazing. And I'm talking to some
of the seaweed farmers actuallyseaweed, and I'm like, This is
so amazing, and so they will beon our show at some point. I am
those connections. I can't waiteither. Because, again, seaweed,
(40:47):
that kind of thing that, as youwere saying earlier, it's so
nutritionally rich for our soiland for people like to eat it.
And and here we are in the oceanstate, where we have more access
to it than probably most people.And, you know, I used to pick it
up out of the the water andthrow it away and consider it a
problem. So it's like, it's justso amazing, yeah, but
Unknown (41:11):
Well, here, here in Rhode Island, it's used for
animal feed and, and actually,there was just a huge article on
it, on on the benefits for usingit for I don't know whether, I
don't know if it's called carbonsequestration in that area, but
it makes cows have little lessflatulence, right? So, I mean,
(41:32):
what a cool thing to find out.And especially here, we can
harvest it. We have. They're myheroes. I love the seaweed
grows. I love I love the shelf.I love the aquaculture people.
I've been trained in it down atRoger Williams and just finished
a program here at URI. Because Ialways want my my kids, to
become farmers of the sea. Youknow, that's it. So hopefully
(41:54):
they still will, but I like tokeep up and and that's another
program where we had people fromall over the country in a
program on Zoom, where we weretrained, so we could all talk to
each other about the issues thatare involved. And they have the
same issues the mediation foraquaculture. People don't want
aquaculture the same reason theydon't want cows next door or a
(42:18):
pig farm. And so all that youknow, dealing with society and
continuing your farming, whichis a huge pressure as well. You
know, our farm smell, that's allthere is mud. Aquaculture has
mud. It's going to hit the boatnext to you, the, you know, your
million dollar yacht, and we'resorry. So how do you deal with
(42:39):
that? So that in the training,and particularly with mental and
emotional mental and emotionalto learn to control your
emotions and your feelings, youknow towards these outline and
and to get those people also tounderstand and recognize your
farming techniques andunderstand what you're doing is
incredibly important to keepYou, to keep you at peace. You
(43:02):
know this
K Castrataro (43:03):
is one of the reasons that relationships and
training farmers how tocommunicate with each other is
such such a key pillar of what Ido, because I feel like it's
super important for us to learnhow to navigate those conflicts
and potential conflicts, andsometimes we can head them, head
(43:25):
the conflict off before it evenhappens, by being proactive
about the way that we talk aboutour farms, about the way that we
interact with our communities. Imean, there's a there's a dairy
farmer, Louis Escobar who, Imean, Louie was. He's just
amazing, but, but he had 100 100abutting landowners to his dairy
(43:49):
farm. Now, if you want to talkabout a potential for
catastrophe, it's having 100 abudding landowners to a dairy
farm.
Unknown (43:59):
Yeah,
K Castrataro (44:00):
you're talking noise, you're talking odors,
you're talking dust, you'retalking, I mean, you're talking
everything,
Unknown (44:06):
absolutely. And remember, 50 of those bought
their homes because they werenext to farms.
K Castrataro (44:11):
They didn't know about all the they had no idea
about what happens with flies inthe winter, in the summer, like
they had no clue, right? And sohe could have been sitting on a
disaster, and instead, he wentout to each one of those
neighbors, and he made apersonal connection with them.
(44:31):
He hosted every single year afourth of July bash where he
would set off fireworks for theneighborhood, like a big block
party, and he was like, I justfeel like his whole approach was
so remarkable, because it wasnot about, oh, we're enemies. It
was, hey, we're living in thiscommunity together. How do we
(44:57):
respect each other? And. Createrelationships that are going to
be sustainable for your qualityof life and for our quality of
life. And that is the kind ofskill that most people, not not
only farmers, but most people,do not develop like we don't
develop ways of saying, what isit that you need out of a
(45:19):
situation, and how can I helpmeet your needs and make it so
that you want to help meet
Unknown (45:26):
my exactly right to share,
K Castrataro (45:29):
does it like? We
Unknown (45:29):
can do it, yeah, to share it like that is
incredible. That's why outreachand communication, which it
also, you know, I call it,marketing, are so important
right now in agriculture, youknow, and there's so many
programs where you go out to thecommunity, you know, oh, I
didn't know this, you know, Ididn't know that. And and to
communicate with them,absolutely it's right now, it's
(45:52):
imperative that all farmerslearn that skill to some to some
point, in order to keepeverybody happy.
K Castrataro (46:02):
And within the family, like, I feel like those
family dynamics, like when we'retalking about some of the
stressors, the dynamics withinthe family, both between farm
partners, which could bespouses, it could be siblings,
it could be, you know, multigeneration, but also non farming
family. Because, I mean, let'sface it, land, especially in in
(46:27):
our area, land is your biggestasset. And when somebody's doing
a farm transfer plan, that landis pretty much what farmers have
exactly. So how do you work witha succession plan, when you've
got some kids who are farming,some kids who are not farming,
and you've got limited assets,like, what do you do? How do you
(46:50):
how do you make something that'sequitable, that probably won't
look equal, and and geteverybody on board with that
without destroying the family,which a lot of a lot of farms
can't navigate that, and that'swhen the farm, that's when the
farm collapses, is because thatsuccession plan right ends up
with the with the conflict. Andso again, learning those skills
(47:12):
to be able to communicate beforeyou get to the succession
planning stage is so critical tomake that succession work,
right?
Unknown (47:19):
And well, we know, I mean, the the age of farmers in
this area is getting older andolder, and success succession is
incredibly important and andit's not. You can't mediate it
in your own family. You know youhave to have because we don't
even, we don't even know, youknow, half of the parameters of
that, or what the you know, whatthe law says. For instance, on
(47:41):
Long Island, you can't hand downyour to your son or daughter
your farm, because the acreageis a million, more than a
million dollars an acre. So ifyou have 20 or 40 acre farm, you
can hand over $40 million pieceof property to your kids without
man, you know, they can't.Obviously, it would be, you
know, millions of dollars worthof taxes. So all those programs,
(48:06):
you know, they've, we've triedto set up programs for that. And
many of the states, many of thestates, have programs for and
then last, they'll say, what youknow, what is your future? Any
business plan, right? Even, youknow, in regular Small Business
Administration, what are yourplans for 15 years or 20 years
down the road? You know, andthat's that is part of your
(48:27):
business, or your farm, thatthat has to be included in it,
you know, now, not today, but ifyou are successful, what happens
then? You know?
K Castrataro (48:38):
What happens
with the fact that farmers don'twant to retire like farmers.
Most farmers want to want to goout on their tractors like
that's what they they want towork up until the day
that they die. So they hold onto the the
control of that farm as long asthey can, which, you know, our
farmers can live in their 80s or90s, oh, sure, their kids are in
(49:02):
their 60s, or 60s or 70s,
when they finally get the farm
like, imagine, imagine whatthat's like. I mean, I'm a
little I'm 48 so I'm thinkingabout if I were to just start
getting control of a farm now.And let's say I had started with
children younger, and I had kidscoming up, and they were in
(49:23):
their 20s, then, like they wouldbe wanting to get into the
business, and that would be thetime that I should start
thinking about how I'm going totransfer to The next generation.
But I just got
Unknown (49:39):
it, baby, that's I've
K Castrataro (49:43):
worked under dad
and grandpa for all these years,and do my own thing. And so
again, those really complicatedemotions and all of that stuff
that we don't we don't talkabout enough. We act like, if we
just get the plan right, it'sall going to be okay. But
really, we need to work withwhat's going on here and here,
(50:04):
because that's
Unknown (50:04):
where the struggles are. Oh, absolutely, yeah, and
your office, your office isn'tfar. Your office is right, you
know, right where I'm sittingright now. Your office is right
there. So that may, that's ahuge difference, too. So it's,
it's such a farming andagriculture is such a personal
journey that you really givingaway your legs when you you know
(50:25):
when it's time to stop, if ityou know if you do stop. Plenty,
plenty of farmers do not right,right? They fire on the tractor,
right?
K Castrataro (50:34):
Well, I mean, we had an old farmer pass away in
his orchard just just a coupleof months ago, he had already
had to stop farming, but everyday he would go out and walk
through his orchard and andthat's where he passed away.
And, you know, on the one hand,it's like it was all by himself,
but on the other hand, he wasprobably exactly where he wanted
(50:56):
to be, exactly, you know, it'sthat, again, that whole tension.
And I'm sitting here and I'mlooking at the clock and I'm
saying, Oh, I got
Unknown (51:04):
to talk to you for hours, hours, many things we're
K Castrataro (51:07):
going to have to have you on again. I would love
that very much. So yeah, thereis always one question I ask at
the end of every episode. And ifyou had one piece of advice that
you thought every farmer shouldhave, like, should know, what
would that be?
Unknown (51:23):
What would you know? It would be sharing community.
There's absolutely no questionthat that is the the basis and
the gift and the treasure to getyou from one spot to the next,
particularly through crises orthrough really good times, that
your fun is there with thesharing of community. Your food
is there with the sharing ofcommunity, and your sharing is
(51:45):
there with the sharing ofcommunity. So to me, I think
that, yeah, sharing community isprobably the the one I would I
would advise anybody, the youngfarmers going and they, there's
a lot of programs that they havethat that sense of knowing
there's other people that arelike you, other people that have
the same interests as you, thatare doing the similar work to
(52:07):
you, and have the same dreamsand goals in agriculture as you,
is probably the strength thatyou could get through anything
if you have that you know, andyou can make it through.
K Castrataro (52:19):
I love that. And I just have got to say, like that
is one of the purposes of thispodcast, is to help to create a
sense of that community, andthen to give us a place that all
of these amazing women that I'mme and men, because I do meet
some men, yeah, bring them on.Come on.
Unknown (52:38):
Women are our favorite here. We do make up 50% of the
population,
K Castrataro (52:44):
we should include them, but, but it is so that we
can come together and really getthat sense of solidarity and so,
so thank you for sharing that,and thank you for being part of
this community. Because, youknow, I'm so grateful. Oh,
Kristen,
Unknown (52:59):
I mean, this is wonderful, and I think it's so
important what you're doing. AndI look forward to, you know, to
listening in and and to beingpart of of your journey here,
too.
K Castrataro (53:09):
Yes, oh, well. I, as I say, in another, another
year or so, we'll have you backon and we'll see where we're,
where we're all going andconnected.
Unknown (53:18):
We'll just keep growing. Let's all keep growing,
right?
K Castrataro (53:23):
Yes, yes, that's that is my tagline.
I love it.
So thank you all
for joining us on food, flowersand fun and come back and like
us, subscribe, do all of thosethings that that we do, and put
some comments down below,because we want to, we want to
(53:45):
connect with you.
Unknown (53:46):
Yeah, oh, yeah. And come and visit. So come and
visit me. Online is waterwayfarm.com. Is the easiest way,
but we have a great Instagram. Ilove Instagram because we could,
then you can see whateverybody's doing. And that also
is waterway farm,
and we will have that down inthe in the program, we'll have
links and everything. Love that,yes. Thank you so much. All
(54:06):
right, we will, we will see youall next time on Food, Flowers,
and Fun.
What a blast. Thanks so much.
Farmwork's calling. Our show isall done. Goodbye, farewell. So
long. I do see you next week,same time, same place for food,
flowers and fun. Go in peace.Visit us@www.penlightfarmers.com
How are farmers and elite sports figures the
same? Discover the answer tothat question and so much more
in this episode of Food, Flowersand Fun: Visits with farm women
from around the world, where wetalk to Candace Clavin of Water
Way Farm. We are sponsored, asalways, by Pen Light for
Farmers, helping overworkedfarmers thrive with more energy,
(00:23):
time and abundance.
Unknown (00:34):
If you're the woman who does it all, farm work,
housework, book work, homework,getting up at the break of dawn.
This is the podcast for you. Howdo you get away from the cares
of the day? Restock, rootstock,feedstock, seed stock. Chat with
(00:55):
women around the world to raisefood, flowers and fun with your
host, K Castrataro, that's me.
So welcome back to this episodeof Food, Flowers, and Fun. Today
we have got lavender farmerextraordinaire, Candace Clavin
from Water Way Lavender Farm,and you are just gonna love this
(01:18):
woman. She is so diverse. She isinto how we can stay healthy in
every single aspect of our livesas we're farm women. He she's
into advocacy. She's into foodand access to food for all sorts
of different people. So let'sjust jump right in. Candace, I'm
(01:39):
so excited to have
you welcome. Thank you. Thankyou so much, Kristen for
inviting me here. I'm so excitedanything to do with food, fun,
flowers, it's absolutely awonderful farming experience for
me and to be invited here as youbegin a pretty big agricultural
journey for you and for all ofus in the farming community. So
thank you so much. Oh, yeah,
K Castrataro (02:01):
so so pleased to have you. And for those of you
who are just joining us, we'veactually got something pretty
fun, because when we did our prescreening call, Candice was in
the process of of working ondistilling some of her white
lavender. And so we got to getsome footage of that. So we'll,
(02:22):
we'll maybe just start right inwith the whole, how'd you get
into lavender?
Candace Clavin (02:27):
Oh, yeah. Well, first, first of all the when we
called to do a pre screening, soI knew it was 1130 that we were
going to meet, and I had sort ofset up distillation of of
lavender earlier in the day. Sowe have to heat the water. We
have to steam, you know, cut allthe flowers, get them, get them
into the distillation machine.And it was supposed to, it was
supposed to, like, go off atabout 10 o'clock, and it didn't.
(02:50):
So here I have, I have the phonein one hand to talk to Kristen
as as the steam starts up, whichis, you know, the that is the
moment you have about maybe 10or 15 minutes when distillation
starts to really get theessential oils coming out. And
it happened like instantaneous.So I'm holding the phone with
(03:10):
her, and she's like, What?What's going on here? And I so
I'm like, All right, let me flipthe phone and show you know,
show her what we're in theprocess of doing while I'm
trying to extract the essentialoils at the same time.
K Castrataro (03:24):
So perfect fashion. I say, do you mind if I
hit record? Because we're goingto be able to use this footage
later, right, right?
Unknown (03:34):
See that? Yeah. We got to write. We got we got Kristen.
And you guys right into, intoseeing, you know what's going
on. Our next step here at thefarm, which through the through
some grants, we were able wehave our distillation equipment
that comes from the Portugal andalso from the Ukraine and also
from the United States. So itreally was an exciting moment to
(03:56):
jump right in with a lot ofshiny things and water going on
at the same time. So, so one ofthe things so I began
distilling, is is a new thingover the past two years for us,
and I'm one of the incrediblylucky people. I just came back
from Provence, where we diddistillation. I was a with a
group of aromatic oil peoplefrom all over from all over the
(04:20):
world, and also a group offoragers and people who who use
herbs to work with animals andwith horses and with dogs. So we
had people from Russia, peoplefrom France, from Germany, from
Arizona, from Los Angeles, fromSardinia, and none of us
K Castrataro (04:43):
had Americans
Unknown (04:44):
there. Oh yeah. So I was at the Rhode Islander and
and we all went to Provence, toa town in the national park
there to learn more about theprocesses and the health
benefits and and how to useessential oils and how to.
Forage, what's there, and alsohow to harvest. You know, we're
harvesting lavender in 102degree temperature. So, so I
(05:08):
thought I knew a lot aboutlavender because of what we do
here, but, boy, I learned somuch more while we were there as
well. And and I became, I becamemore and more involved in in
growing herbs. Many kinds ofherbs here we grow. But I was a
beekeeper as well, and I hadsome lavender, but I noticed the
bees continually would go tothat. And I started to grow more
(05:32):
and more lavender for the bees.And little by little, the bees
sort of took the back thebackstage, and I started to grow
lavender, and more people wantedto know about it, and we were
able to offer education, and Igrew it here on the what is now
the Barrington farm school. Is aprivate school here, private
(05:52):
farm that was here, and I'vesince moved the lavender from
there. But it turns out thatlavender grows so well in this
climate, who would ever thinkthis? I mean, there's, there's
over 100 types of lavender thatyou can grow, but it doesn't
like water. It doesn't, youdon't have to spray pesticides.
Deer hate it. So it became anincredibly sustainable crop, and
(06:17):
it lasts some 10, some 15 years.The plants, if treated
correctly, and if donecorrectly, no mulch. It can grow
in a in in a very, very aridarea, but it also it's okay
with, you know, with the rainthat we get here, is just about
perfect and waterway lavenderfarm, and the farm is up from
(06:37):
the bay, up from NarragansettBay, and outside of vineyard,
which also would do really wellhere. It's just a perfect,
perfect place to have lavenderand and where we are here, we're
what we call Peri urban area. Ina Peri urban area is not the
suburb, well, not not the cityand not rural. We're in between.
(06:58):
So we are right in the middle ofsuburbs, but we are a farm.
We're recognized farm and and weget support from different farm
agencies and farm groups becauseof what we do. But it's, you
know, it's a real balance. But Ithink in the future, this will
be how many small family farmsand new farms come to be will be
(07:20):
in these kind of areas and inthe city and lots and aren't
being used on top of buildings.So we're very involved in
inspiring other people to farm.Particularly my passion is young
farmers and actually children inthe schools to teach them about
agriculture and a respect forfarmers, and to realize what a
(07:43):
difficult, difficult professionit is to do, certainly full
time, but to do it all, and howwell.
K Castrataro (07:50):
And let's talk about that for a minute. I'm
going to kind of jump in for asecond, because one of the
things that I'm really startingto have a passion for is
redefining agriculture and whatit means to be a farmer. And I
know that, you know, I'm not thefirst one to come up with this,
but coming from a multigenerational farm background, I
(08:12):
recognize that there are a lotof biases inside of agriculture
about what a real farmer lookslike, how they farm, how much
acreage they have, how muchmoney they make off of it. Like,
there's the and it changes fromperson to person, from group to
group, but, but what you'retalking about, about Peri urban
(08:36):
farming and farming on rooftops,like, I love that whole like
green roofs. I totally feel likeour roofs need to be rethought,
like they're a power source,they're a food source, like
there's so much stuff we can dowith them if they're properly
Unknown (08:51):
used, sure,
K Castrataro (08:53):
and in urban areas where where there are a lot of
food deserts, you know, peoplecannot have the same kind of
access to fresh vegetables andfruit that a lot of other areas
can and so how do we, how do webring agriculture into those
more Peri urban and urban areas,and also validate the fact that
(09:17):
the People doing that work areactually farmers, like
sustainable homesteading, orlike, I feel like maybe we need
to broaden that understanding.Can you speak to that a little
bit
Unknown (09:29):
for us? Absolutely. One of the groups that I work with
is the Rhode Island Food PolicyCouncil. In our state, we've
been lucky, and there are inother states the food policy,
and so it's the word there foodpolicy, and that is the place
where smaller farms and urban,urban let's call them
homesteads, definitely is agreat word for it can be
recognized, you know, as women,women that come here, migrants
(09:52):
that that need a space to growfood, that they know that
they're comfortable with inRhode Island, we're lucky enough
we have with the AfricanAlliance. Science and Southside
Community Land Trust that havebeen able to acknowledge these
small farmers. And these arethese, are this? These people
depend on what they grow,whether to sell it or to eat it
for their families. And sothere's a which is what farmers
(10:17):
were, always were before. Butsometimes you need, you need
intervention from governmentsubsidies, grants. Some of the
areas, for instance, in thecity, the land is not safe to
farm on because ofcontamination. So what do you do
with that? Well, you set upraised beds that don't use that
soil, and you cover, you coverthe soil. It's there. Otherwise,
(10:40):
you know, it's a wastelandthat's not being used. And the
same with water for those areas.Well, what? Again, the NRCS, the
conservation can give you tanksin order to get the rainwater,
which is fantastic for yourplants as well. So that whole
area and a respect for thosepeople as farmers, and the best
way to do that, we've, you know,that I think, is to set up
(11:02):
markets, so markets to selltheir products. Suddenly you go,
Oh, this is a farmer who'sfeeding me, you know. And the
realization, you know, nofarmers, no no farmers, no food.
But these people are feeding us,you know. And they are farmers,
and that's, you know. Suddenlyyou make a jump from this huge
industrial farming place, youknow, out in the in the Midwest,
(11:26):
or, you know, whereverstockyards, to these people that
right here, these are localpeople providing food to my
family.
K Castrataro (11:35):
And there are so many benefits to that, like, I
think we don't really understandall of the benefits that come to
supporting truly local, evenvery small scale local
agriculture. And it is, it is aneconomic benefit, because,
excuse me, when you have farmersthat are growing the food in
(11:57):
your local area, like so muchlarge, so much larger percentage
of the income that they makestays in our community. So we're
actually building wealth in thecommunity by supporting even
these very small farms, whereas,as you're saying, the big
industrial farms. And I am, I amnot opposed like to having
industrial farms, because wehave a huge population, and so
(12:21):
like to be able to feed peopleas as well as we want. It's a
very good thing to have bigfarms as well. Oh, we love big
farms. Okay. No, no, we want tobe big all of them. We want all
of the agriculture, and we wantit all to be valued and to be
done to the best that it can be,for the environment, for social
(12:47):
purposes and for the farmerswell being. And I think what you
were saying about immigrantwomen who are coming in and
they're starting these farms togrow or small plots even to grow
their own food that they'refamiliar with. Like, we don't
even think about that aswherever we come from. You know,
I and this is why I love havingfarmers from around the world.
(13:09):
Because, you know, I've talkedto papaya growers and cassava
growers. I'm like, I don't knowanything about cassava. Like,
Teach me. Teach me. But when,when people do migrate in, we
think about the language.Sometimes we think about, you
know, having to find a place tolive. We think about the
culture. We don't even considerthe food. Like people come and
(13:32):
they have a whole way of feedingtheir family that they're
accustomed to, and then theycome here and they can't get
that food and so like, how dothey, how do they relearn how to
feed their families? And isn'tit better if they can bring that
with them? Exactly?
Unknown (13:49):
Kristen, yeah, one of the great, great examples, the
rest of us, you know, one of thegreat examples, yeah, in our
farmers here, and this issomething that we throw away our
sweet potato vines. Now, how I,you know, I we grow sweet
potatoes, and, you know, yousell sweet potatoes and, and the
(14:10):
African immigrants like, Well,where are the vines? We want the
vines we don't want the, youknow, we want the sweet
potatoes. But that, you know,and that became like this, this
light went off, and everyonesaid, we would never, we would
never know that. And here's aculture that that that was one
of the main things that theywanted, you know, a real simple
thing like that, that you don'tthink about. And the Reliance
K Castrataro (14:33):
I remember, I remember as a kid when people
would come to We, of course,Rhode Island has a very large
Italian population, andJohnston, where I grew up, had
all it was like, very Italian.And so all of these Italian
families would make, like,dandelion wine. And so they'd
(14:54):
come to the farms, and they theywanted to go out and, like, be
harvesting the dandelion. And wewere sitting there first saying,
you realize it's a weed, right?And they're like, Yeah, we
realize it's a weed, and werealize that we can actually
make something of it that youwould really want to have
Unknown (15:12):
absolutely Oh, and it's so good, you know, the dandelion
is so high in in so manydifferent vitamins, which, you
know, I didn't know that. And wealso, we use it for
distillation. It's gotincredible benefits. And the
Italians knew that long ago. Anddon't, don't forget, what was
the other Oh, the everybodyloves them now, but squash
flowers, right? Oh my gosh,those things, right?
K Castrataro (15:34):
Well, you make more now. So my family has
always done a lot of mixedvegetables, and so we, we've
sold lots of different types ofsquash. And when the first
restaurant started coming in, orthis, you know, small Italian
families would come in askingfor squash flowers, my mom was
like, wait. Well, we can't pickthe squash flowers, because
(15:56):
that's how the squash gets made.And they're like, no, no, we
don't need the female flowers.We only need the male flowers.
And then we're like, oh, yeah,okay, that makes sense. And and
then we started harvesting them,and you get 10 times 100 times
more for the silly squashflowers that they're gonna stuff
and fry and turn into like adelicacy than you ever would for
Unknown (16:20):
the actual squash, which exactly seems
K Castrataro (16:23):
so insane and yet is is genius, like it's just
just genius.
Unknown (16:29):
So here, all the restaurants here as of last
year, were wanted every squashflour they could get, and at a
good price too, which waswonderful to sell them and and
to find the crops that are well,lavender was another one here.
Whoever thought that you could,you know, sell to the gin makers
(16:51):
and to the candy makers and tothe bakeries. You know,
originally, they're like, WhatYou Eat lavender? Yes, it's a
culinary lavender. And, youknow, we find all these
wonderful, small, I'll sayniche, although it's not niche
anymore. Products, oh, theleaves of raspberries, another
one that women during certainparts of their pregnancy are
(17:14):
great to strengthen tissues. Youknow, who would think?
K Castrataro (17:19):
This is why I love this show. I learned something
every single episode. So is it acertain time of like, do the
leaves have to be at a certainage? Are they better when
they're younger, when they'reolder,
Unknown (17:31):
or when they have more good stuff in them? Almost every
plant at a certain age hasbetter and good stuff in it. You
know, even Well, how about grapeleaves? Another one, right? Who
thinks? You cut the grapeleaves? Well, you want the young
the younger ones because theythey they're more pliable, and
so I think for using them inteas or whatever the the leaves
are used for that they'reprobably when they're younger,
(17:53):
not too young, though, butlavender is the same way, right?
You pick it at a certain timefor oils, but you'd pick it
another time if you're going touse it for culinary So, yeah,
everything's got as little andsquash, I'm sure the big ones,
you wait till they're really bigso you can make boats out of
them, yes.
And that's the fun part offarming.
K Castrataro (18:16):
Whereas when I like to eat them, when they're
like, pretty small, and peopleare like, your squash are small?
I'm like, Yeah, but I like themthat way. They don't have a lot
of big seeds. They're nice andtender. But yeah, if I'm gonna
gonna be scooping them out andstuffing them full of meat and
cheese and all kinds of reallyeasy sounds
Unknown (18:34):
good. Oh, and garlic is another one, right? Everyone
thinks you have to wait till thegarlic bulbs, and then all of a
sudden, we used to call them inItalian, with the cheeches, or
the tops of them. And noweverybody wants the tops of the
garlic. In the spring they, youknow, they call them garlic
greens. Or they have all kindsof different names for the for
the small pieces on the top. Andthat's, you know, 10 years ago,
(18:54):
people would have thought youwere crazy to eat those. And now
everybody wants them. Or fennelis another one the flowers. The
pollen from the fennel is in thetop restaurants, you know, we
use, we use fennel powder, youknow, from the flowers, you
know. So they want flower, and alot of the flowers, they want
the pollen from them, from justthe flowers, before any fruit or
(19:17):
vegetable forms. And sureenough, it has this beautiful
flavor to it as well.
K Castrataro (19:22):
Amazing, amazing. So, so tell me how you I want to
know how you got into thelavender thing, because you used
to raise sheep. Yeah, we were,is that right? You were a farmer
in New York,
Unknown (19:34):
that's right. I, I began my farming in the Finger
Lakes in New York. I actually,being a farmer, held four jobs
at one time. So I was aproofreader at night. I had a
rural column on on farming andrural living, and raised 200
sheep and goats, and we hadexotic foul. Was another one?
K Castrataro (19:56):
Oh, did you have your exotic foul? Which kind of
foul? Did you have? Did you
Unknown (20:00):
have beautiful everything, everything you can
imagine from, you know, guineahens of court, of course. No,
not, of course, peacocks for thefeathers we would sell to the
fly tires?
K Castrataro (20:13):
Yes. So the hack, my ex, my ex, my tire?
Unknown (20:17):
Yep, to to lose, to lose geese, which, by the way,
never get, and, you know, ducksand just about every kind of
anything we could get, we would,we would try to hatch or grow or
bring it. So that was it. Thatwas in the finger list. We also
had mules and goats and allkinds of, all kinds, just what
(20:39):
you would assume on a large farmthat you could have. So 40 Acres
there. And basically, as allfarmers, you know, you you look
for what markets are availableand what people want. So in
everything from growing pumpkinsto herbs, you know, just a
diverse farm so that you could,you could exist. So we ended up,
(21:00):
we got rid of the, what we callthe four legged animals. I got
those two legged ones, thelittle boys, and decided that
that part of New New York, very,very rural, that it would be
better to to have more communityaround us. And we did have
community here, with amonastery. My my husband's aunt
(21:21):
was here in the monastery. So wemoved to Rhode Island, which I
had never been to. Oh, wow, noidea. So I just said, find me a
place where we can, I can havesome land, and that's all I
knew. So I never saw the house.I never saw the land where we
moved to till I got here. So, ohmy goodness, that was bull. So
it was sight unseen. But then,you know, I fell in love with
(21:45):
Rhode Island. I fell in love Imissed the salt water. I had
grown up by Long Island, byPoint Lookout in Westbury, in
Long Island. So I love the saltwater more than anything. So it
was good to be back. And it's soprecious here. But we were able,
I was able to use that also inour farming. So we use the
seaweed, we go down, and I godown and harvest the the seaweed
(22:08):
and bring that up to use, whichis an incredible for what I
grow, specifically, is anincredible additive to the soil
here. So it became involvedsomewhat in aquaculture as well,
and as long with the landagriculture. So land and sea
here in Rhode Island became avery, very special thing. And
(22:30):
yeah, and the lavender, justlittle by little, sort of
morphed into it, like I said,because as beekeepers, I just
used, we used more and more ofit, and the farm community, many
parts in Rhode Island, theDepartment of Environmental
Management has been incrediblyhelpful and inspirational to
help. And the farm groups, theOrganic Farmers Association,
(22:50):
Nova Massachusetts and RhodeIsland, have been wonderful. And
again, got involved in the foodpantries as well growing food
for the pantries, you know,became a big part. And then
teaching farming to childrenhere who had never realized a
carrot came from the ground andor a beet that you could eat a
(23:12):
beet, you know, and that an eggcame from a chicken, you know.
K Castrataro (23:17):
And there's so many, it's so interesting
because, you know, I grew up onfarm, and my grandparents, my
children's grandparents, so myparents are still farming, and
so there are so many things thatmy kids will come out and say
things, and I have this momentof, wait a minute, how do you
not know that? And and it'sterrifying to me, because I look
(23:41):
at it and I say, oh my goodness,like I've been a full time
farmer. I've been anagricultural service provider. I
am working with farmers now toimprove their lives and some
very basic things aboutagriculture my kids don't know.
And you think that these thingsjust kind of happen, like they
(24:05):
just learn it, and it's reallyby experience that they learn
it, and even being onegeneration removed from the farm
takes so much of that knowledgeaway from them. And so we are
definitely in our urban areasand very urban areas we are
working with so many generationsremoved, like two, three
(24:26):
generations removed, right whereit really is true, ignorance,
it's not, it's not stupidity,it's, it's just lack of
exposure. And so the work thatyou've done in the schools, I
think, is absolutely essential,because we need to get these
urbanized kids back into thesoil, or we're not going to have
(24:50):
the same kind of farm kidsgrowing up like they need to
know that farming is even athing
Unknown (24:55):
well, you know, and I certainly know the importance of
the connection of. Nature to ourchildren, you know? I mean,
there's, I mean, studies andstudies that prove that even a
child that sits in nature, andI'll just say sits, which would
be anything at all, is ishealed, you know, and, and it's,
(25:16):
it's a path that that you'reright. I mean, it's, it's
disconnected. I mean, thechildren who don't know where
the water comes from, well, itcomes out of a faucet. And they
don't realize below your feet,you know, is all of life, is all
of water. And the connectionjust, just to bring them out,
you know, the programs that justbring them out to sit in a
field, or to go through theforest or or to look in a worm
(25:39):
bin, you know, and see, thisweekend we, we had done the
Barrington farm school just tohave them put their hands in a
worm bin. And see this, youknow, this connection, that
these animals are actually theseanimals, these insects. I don't
even know what worms are rightnow, but that they, they take
our leftovers and they make newsoil out of it.
K Castrataro (26:03):
And new recyclers. They are natural recyclers.
Circles garbage and turn it intosoil, yeah.
Unknown (26:10):
And them the the respect for the circle of nature
and the and the circle of that,you know, in agriculture, what's
involved in it, and that this,this is, you know, they're basic
parts of of the of human biologythat depend on nature. You know,
K Castrataro (26:27):
let's talk about that. Because now that we've
gotten into the more holisticside of it, which is where I
always get really juiced up. Oh,good. You know, farming is this
interesting, interestingcombination of being out in
nature and inherently doingthings that are designed to heal
us. You know, as you said,they're they've been doing tons
(26:48):
of studies about just being intrees, like, what it's like to
just walk through trees. And,you know, I saw some interesting
research on waterfalls and and Imade the connection with like
overhead irrigation, that theeffect of moving water actually
calms your whole system. So onthe one hand, women and men who
(27:14):
are involved in farming areconstantly surrounded by the
things that are supposed to benurturing and healing us, and at
the same time, farmers are attwo to three times higher risk
of suicide than the averagepopulation, which doesn't seem
(27:35):
to make sense. And so it makesyou wonder, well, what is it
about this occupation that canbe so nurturing for us and can
also be so destructive for us?And so let's, let's talk a
little bit about how you try tomaximize that nurturing part of
(27:58):
agriculture and minimize thestress. Because we understand, I
mean finances, stressful,politics, stressful, policy,
stressful, like all of thosethings cause issues for farmers.
But how can we, how can wecounteract that, so that we keep
our farmers healthy for as longas possible, yeah, to make it so
(28:22):
that when they're out offarming, they don't all of a
sudden have a crash, because Ithink that's a really big like,
how do we get them to nurturetheir whole selves while they're
farming, so that when they'renot farming, they still are
healthy?
Unknown (28:36):
Absolutely, I think it's the same as, let's say,
sports figures that that thatwork in, you know, sports for 20
years in football, and thensuddenly stop. So there's a
there's a mental and a physicaland informing, remember, your
physical is so, so important tokeep your body strong and and
your mental is right, right nextto that. And so important. I
(28:59):
mean, the farmers, for instance,a dairy farmer has to, has to go
milk cows three, sometimes fourtimes a day, isn't taking a
vacation in 20 years. And iftheir body fails them at all,
then mentally, you know, thisis, this is their whole
livelihood. This is all they'vedone. So they can't, they can't
stop. And if they stop, there'sa huge hole in their lives, in
(29:23):
their spirits, and anything youdon't know who they are, yeah,
and and farmers, for instance,losing their farms, which is a
very regular thing now, withbankruptcy. And remember, a
whole family usually lives on.This is on family farms. The
whole family depends on justwhat's going on on their farm.
(29:43):
So the stress of any, anythingthat can change that or destroy
that don't just destroy onefarmer, destroys a whole family,
the dynamics of the family, eachdepending on it. You know, your
your kids are the ones thatagain, I'll say dairy farm.
Because that's such an easy oneto see the the crises that go
on. But your kids are are outthere milking your cows for you,
(30:08):
usually the wife or the husbandis cooking inside and doing the
finances. So it's a whole groupdynamic. And if one person in
that is injured, the whole thewhole thing can fall apart. You
know, most, most farmers can'thire anyone else to help outside
of their family, or they canhire just a few, you know, a few
(30:29):
people to help out.
K Castrataro (30:31):
We sold our dairy farm when I went to college, I
was the oldest. I was the oldestof three kids. And when, when I
graduated from high school,because we actually dairy farmed
in New York as well, and knowthat. And so when I graduated
and I went to the Midwest to goto college, they started losing
(30:54):
their labor force, and it wasexactly that question, like, do
you put on an extra 50 cows soyou can hire somebody to come in
and take over the the milkingand the feeding that all of us
kids were doing, like we mybrother and I split milking, you
know, he milked in the morning.I milked in the evening. My
sister did all the feeding ofthe cows and the calves. My mom
(31:17):
did calves, you know, like, sowhen you start losing that, it
really does make a hugedifference. And so I think what
you're saying there is that thethe balance is so tenuous, like
it, we can, it really can pivoton one person's health or
presence there,
Unknown (31:34):
right? And there's and their safety as well. Yes, you
know, we, I think I mentioned,maybe I didn't that we had
farmers three generations thatwould come just to do our hay
fields. The grandfather didn'thave an arm because he had got
it caught in the machine. Theson didn't have a hand because
he had got it caught in themachine. And the young boy
didn't have a finger because hecaught it in the machine. And
(31:57):
they couldn't afford the safetytraining. They couldn't afford
any of the safety equipment, thenewer equipment, and maybe they
took the stuff off of themachines as well.
K Castrataro (32:09):
Like there is, there is a little bit of that
where we have to change amindset. I was in a webinar a
couple of months ago that wasall talking about farm safety
and how it really has to be amindset shift that taking care
of our physical and I wouldargue our mental safety is
really critical to being able tokeep farmers functioning. I
(32:31):
mean, my grandfather's missingthe top of his thumb from a
chainsaw that kicked back.That's all it takes. My
brother's got pins. Had pins inhis finger because it got stuck
in a haybine that dropped on hisfinger. Like, yeah,
Unknown (32:47):
one bad cow, one bad cow.
The sheep, these huge rams thatwe had, you know, and the Rams,
I don't know if those are themale sheep, and they're big,
they're, they're usually 100pounds more than the, you know,
the cute little ones that youalways think of, which, whether
they're cute is another story.But they would run, they would
(33:07):
charge you, you know, and thefront of their heads like a
piece of cement, and they havehorns, yeah? And I'd be like,
you know, I'd run the other way,and they go, No, you can't do
that. You have to grab it by thehorns and flip it. I'm like, I'm
going to flip a 220 pound Yes,you have to learn to flip this.
Now, is that a safety? Which waydid the safety should have gone
(33:28):
on that? And where was thetraining on it? So sure enough,
gyro, that was our biggest rim.You know, this huge RAM runs
towards you, and you better grabit and flip them over. But if
you didn't do it, you know,there would be an issue. And
certainly, children could never,you know, could never be the
same with bulls, certainlyexactly the same thing with the
bull or with the horses. Youknow, you had to, you had to be,
(33:50):
you had to be trained. And ifyou weren't, you know, terrible,
you know, terrible things couldhappen. And a lot, thank God.
Well, cooperative extension wasone of the areas, not
necessarily in Rhode Island, buthave programs on, on farmers, on
training. And University ofVermont has a beautiful program,
and I even wrote the name downof it, the Northeast is called
(34:12):
Risk Management, an extensionnortheast extension risk
management, where you would, youwould go through different
levels of training, how to keepyour strength up, how to how to
pick a crop, how not to go pen,you know, bend down and start to
pull things up, but how to leancorrectly. Or when you did get
injured, how to take care ofthat. And thank goodness there
(34:35):
were, there are programs outthere, and it's just getting the
word out to farmers. And ofcourse, my I, women farmers, to
me, is, is so, is so importantto do, to do any, any kind of
the wellness and what they callbody maintenance, you know, for
and for farmers that you need,and particularly somebody who's
who's milking four times a dayand hasn't taken a vacation,
(34:58):
they need body and mind. Andwellness programs, you know, or
even I
K Castrataro (35:03):
ended up finding early in the spring, I did one
of my newsletters. I did someresearch on on how farmers could
get back into the swing of thegrowing season. Because yes, you
have like your livestockproducers tend to work more
evenly throughout the year. Buta lot of your vegetable and
fruit producers do not likethey'll work really hard spring
(35:27):
through fall, and then then theytake a break. Now some some
hibernate, don't. Yeah, there's,there's lots of things we could
talk about that, that dynamicthere. But the truth is that the
shape that a farmer is in at theend of the growing season is not
at all the shape that they're inat the beginning of the growing
(35:48):
season. It's kind of you weretalking about athletes. It's,
it's like the Red Sox. You know,when they show up at Spring
training, they are not in thesame condition that they're
going to be in August andSeptember, because they have
taken the summer the winter off,I mean, and they're, you know,
so I found a whole bunch ofexercises for farmers that were
(36:11):
correlated to the types of workthat they would be doing to help
strengthen those specific areasbefore they got back into the
growing season and gotthemselves hurt. Because how
many of us have done that? We goout, we overwork the first sunny
day, and then then we're sittingthere saying, crap, now I gotta
work, and I'm sore and, youknow, and you're trying to play
(36:34):
catch up before you've ever evenstarted the season, and we don't
want that. So, you know, thephysical is important. Can you
talk about the mental because Ifeel like, I feel like the
mental health is something thatwe're starting to finally talk
about in agriculture, but Ithink there's still a lot of
stigma around mental health infarming. Can you
Unknown (36:55):
farmers, by a lot of them are by themselves. You
know, either they have large,large farm pieces of property,
so they don't have the everydayinteractions with other, let's
say business people that theywork with. You know, you don't
go into an office and you don'tyou don't share, you don't share
(37:17):
your your fears and a lot ofyour problems. There's no one.
There was no one to share themwith. And covid made that much
worse for a lot of farmers,because they not only lost their
customers, but, you know, theylost whatever community did
exist. Farm communities used tobe incredible. For instance, the
Amish community, where everybodywould help each other. And old
(37:39):
time farms they, you know, a lotof towns still have the, what do
you call the the buildings thatwere set up just for, like,
Grange range, right? And that'swhat a Grange was for, right?
No, was was for a social it wasa social center. Absolutely, it
was a real sharing place whereyou could go and you had
trouble. Boy, two or threefarmers would come over and help
(38:01):
you, you know, with whatever,with, you know, they, you hear
barn raising, well, that's whatborn raising was, you know,
okay, I can't do that by myself,but a bunch of other farmers,
and then when, when they needhelp, I'll be over there to help
them. So, a lot for farm women,particularly, they're totally
isolated. There's just not thatmany farm women, either they
(38:22):
have to work off the farm orthey're, they're trying to run a
lot. In this case, it will say alot of the finances, these are
moms. We're talking specificallyabout moms on farms, you know.
So they're, they're runningthree or four things, and they
have to, you know, again, makesure all food is right. So
little by little, they've beensetting up this one. Annie's
(38:44):
project is one of the programsthroughout the United States.
And UVM also has a wellnessprogram for women to meet in
circles. And by a circle, you'renot actually there. I mean, you
could do it personally, but weeven on Zoom to have small
circles of farm women that canjust say to today is too much
(39:05):
for me. I can't do this. And youcan get ideas from other people,
or, you know, programs that willhelp, or just things like, Well,
do you ever try just sit downand breathe just today? Today is
going to be a day, and it'sokay, because I do the same
thing, you know, or I have thestrength to do that, because
this is what I can do. Andhealth, you know, health issues
(39:27):
again, you know, you get helpwith a broken arm, but with a
broken heart, you know, it'smuch more difficult to heal
because nobody can see that. Andin farming, you know, that's a
big part. You lose the death ofa spouse or a death of a child
or you develop, you know,cancer, these are, these are
everyday things for the farmcommunity to try to deal with
(39:48):
and to find outlets for it. Wehave. We're lucky enough here
that we have a mediation center,an ag mediation. It's under that
that is a support group and. Andaquaculture is the same way and
fishermen, they need it just as,just as much
K Castrataro (40:05):
I count. I'll be honest, I count aquaculture as
our farmers. You know, I firstlearned about Rhode Island
aquaculture 12 years ago, likelong time ago now, and going and
visiting an oyster farm andbeing like, on the boat and
(40:27):
talking to the farmer was justamazing. And I'm talking to some
of the seaweed farmers actuallyseaweed, and I'm like, This is
so amazing, and so they will beon our show at some point. I am
those connections. I can't waiteither. Because, again, seaweed,
(40:47):
that kind of thing that, as youwere saying earlier, it's so
nutritionally rich for our soiland for people like to eat it.
And and here we are in the oceanstate, where we have more access
to it than probably most people.And, you know, I used to pick it
up out of the the water andthrow it away and consider it a
problem. So it's like, it's justso amazing, yeah, but
Unknown (41:11):
Well, here, here in Rhode Island, it's used for
animal feed and, and actually,there was just a huge article on
it, on on the benefits for usingit for I don't know whether, I
don't know if it's called carbonsequestration in that area, but
it makes cows have little lessflatulence, right? So, I mean,
(41:32):
what a cool thing to find out.And especially here, we can
harvest it. We have. They're myheroes. I love the seaweed
grows. I love I love the shelf.I love the aquaculture people.
I've been trained in it down atRoger Williams and just finished
a program here at URI. Because Ialways want my my kids, to
become farmers of the sea. Youknow, that's it. So hopefully
(41:54):
they still will, but I like tokeep up and and that's another
program where we had people fromall over the country in a
program on Zoom, where we weretrained, so we could all talk to
each other about the issues thatare involved. And they have the
same issues the mediation foraquaculture. People don't want
aquaculture the same reason theydon't want cows next door or a
(42:18):
pig farm. And so all that youknow, dealing with society and
continuing your farming, whichis a huge pressure as well. You
know, our farm smell, that's allthere is mud. Aquaculture has
mud. It's going to hit the boatnext to you, the, you know, your
million dollar yacht, and we'resorry. So how do you deal with
(42:39):
that? So that in the training,and particularly with mental and
emotional mental and emotionalto learn to control your
emotions and your feelings, youknow towards these outline and
and to get those people also tounderstand and recognize your
farming techniques andunderstand what you're doing is
incredibly important to keepYou, to keep you at peace. You
(43:02):
know this
K Castrataro (43:03):
is one of the reasons that relationships and
training farmers how tocommunicate with each other is
such such a key pillar of what Ido, because I feel like it's
super important for us to learnhow to navigate those conflicts
and potential conflicts, andsometimes we can head them, head
(43:25):
the conflict off before it evenhappens, by being proactive
about the way that we talk aboutour farms, about the way that we
interact with our communities. Imean, there's a there's a dairy
farmer, Louis Escobar who, Imean, Louie was. He's just
amazing, but, but he had 100 100abutting landowners to his dairy
(43:49):
farm. Now, if you want to talkabout a potential for
catastrophe, it's having 100 abudding landowners to a dairy
farm.
Unknown (43:59):
Yeah,
K Castrataro (44:00):
you're talking noise, you're talking odors,
you're talking dust, you'retalking, I mean, you're talking
everything,
Unknown (44:06):
absolutely. And remember, 50 of those bought
their homes because they werenext to farms.
K Castrataro (44:11):
They didn't know about all the they had no idea
about what happens with flies inthe winter, in the summer, like
they had no clue, right? And sohe could have been sitting on a
disaster, and instead, he wentout to each one of those
neighbors, and he made apersonal connection with them.
(44:31):
He hosted every single year afourth of July bash where he
would set off fireworks for theneighborhood, like a big block
party, and he was like, I justfeel like his whole approach was
so remarkable, because it wasnot about, oh, we're enemies. It
was, hey, we're living in thiscommunity together. How do we
(44:57):
respect each other? And. Createrelationships that are going to
be sustainable for your qualityof life and for our quality of
life. And that is the kind ofskill that most people, not not
only farmers, but most people,do not develop like we don't
develop ways of saying, what isit that you need out of a
(45:19):
situation, and how can I helpmeet your needs and make it so
that you want to help meet
Unknown (45:26):
my exactly right to share,
K Castrataro (45:29):
does it like? We
Unknown (45:29):
can do it, yeah, to share it like that is
incredible. That's why outreachand communication, which it
also, you know, I call it,marketing, are so important
right now in agriculture, youknow, and there's so many
programs where you go out to thecommunity, you know, oh, I
didn't know this, you know, Ididn't know that. And and to
communicate with them,absolutely it's right now, it's
(45:52):
imperative that all farmerslearn that skill to some to some
point, in order to keepeverybody happy.
K Castrataro (46:02):
And within the family, like, I feel like those
family dynamics, like when we'retalking about some of the
stressors, the dynamics withinthe family, both between farm
partners, which could bespouses, it could be siblings,
it could be, you know, multigeneration, but also non farming
family. Because, I mean, let'sface it, land, especially in in
(46:27):
our area, land is your biggestasset. And when somebody's doing
a farm transfer plan, that landis pretty much what farmers have
exactly. So how do you work witha succession plan, when you've
got some kids who are farming,some kids who are not farming,
and you've got limited assets,like, what do you do? How do you
(46:50):
how do you make something that'sequitable, that probably won't
look equal, and and geteverybody on board with that
without destroying the family,which a lot of a lot of farms
can't navigate that, and that'swhen the farm, that's when the
farm collapses, is because thatsuccession plan right ends up
with the with the conflict. Andso again, learning those skills
(47:12):
to be able to communicate beforeyou get to the succession
planning stage is so critical tomake that succession work,
right?
Unknown (47:19):
And well, we know, I mean, the the age of farmers in
this area is getting older andolder, and success succession is
incredibly important and andit's not. You can't mediate it
in your own family. You know youhave to have because we don't
even, we don't even know, youknow, half of the parameters of
that, or what the you know, whatthe law says. For instance, on
(47:41):
Long Island, you can't hand downyour to your son or daughter
your farm, because the acreageis a million, more than a
million dollars an acre. So ifyou have 20 or 40 acre farm, you
can hand over $40 million pieceof property to your kids without
man, you know, they can't.Obviously, it would be, you
know, millions of dollars worthof taxes. So all those programs,
(48:06):
you know, they've, we've triedto set up programs for that. And
many of the states, many of thestates, have programs for and
then last, they'll say, what youknow, what is your future? Any
business plan, right? Even, youknow, in regular Small Business
Administration, what are yourplans for 15 years or 20 years
down the road? You know, andthat's that is part of your
(48:27):
business, or your farm, thatthat has to be included in it,
you know, now, not today, but ifyou are successful, what happens
then? You know?
K Castrataro (48:38):
What happens
with the fact that farmers don'twant to retire like farmers.
Most farmers want to want to goout on their tractors like
that's what they they want towork up until the day
that they die. So they hold onto the the
control of that farm as long asthey can, which, you know, our
farmers can live in their 80s or90s, oh, sure, their kids are in
(49:02):
their 60s, or 60s or 70s,
when they finally get the farm
like, imagine, imagine whatthat's like. I mean, I'm a
little I'm 48 so I'm thinkingabout if I were to just start
getting control of a farm now.And let's say I had started with
children younger, and I had kidscoming up, and they were in
(49:23):
their 20s, then, like they wouldbe wanting to get into the
business, and that would be thetime that I should start
thinking about how I'm going totransfer to The next generation.
But I just got
Unknown (49:39):
it, baby, that's I've
K Castrataro (49:43):
worked under dad
and grandpa for all these years,and do my own thing. And so
again, those really complicatedemotions and all of that stuff
that we don't we don't talkabout enough. We act like, if we
just get the plan right, it'sall going to be okay. But
really, we need to work withwhat's going on here and here,
(50:04):
because that's
Unknown (50:04):
where the struggles are. Oh, absolutely, yeah, and
your office, your office isn'tfar. Your office is right, you
know, right where I'm sittingright now. Your office is right
there. So that may, that's ahuge difference, too. So it's,
it's such a farming andagriculture is such a personal
journey that you really givingaway your legs when you you know
(50:25):
when it's time to stop, if ityou know if you do stop. Plenty,
plenty of farmers do not right,right? They fire on the tractor,
right?
K Castrataro (50:34):
Well, I mean, we had an old farmer pass away in
his orchard just just a coupleof months ago, he had already
had to stop farming, but everyday he would go out and walk
through his orchard and andthat's where he passed away.
And, you know, on the one hand,it's like it was all by himself,
but on the other hand, he wasprobably exactly where he wanted
(50:56):
to be, exactly, you know, it'sthat, again, that whole tension.
And I'm sitting here and I'mlooking at the clock and I'm
saying, Oh, I got
Unknown (51:04):
to talk to you for hours, hours, many things we're
K Castrataro (51:07):
going to have to have you on again. I would love
that very much. So yeah, thereis always one question I ask at
the end of every episode. And ifyou had one piece of advice that
you thought every farmer shouldhave, like, should know, what
would that be?
Unknown (51:23):
What would you know? It would be sharing community.
There's absolutely no questionthat that is the the basis and
the gift and the treasure to getyou from one spot to the next,
particularly through crises orthrough really good times, that
your fun is there with thesharing of community. Your food
is there with the sharing ofcommunity, and your sharing is
(51:45):
there with the sharing ofcommunity. So to me, I think
that, yeah, sharing community isprobably the the one I would I
would advise anybody, the youngfarmers going and they, there's
a lot of programs that they havethat that sense of knowing
there's other people that arelike you, other people that have
the same interests as you, thatare doing the similar work to
(52:07):
you, and have the same dreamsand goals in agriculture as you,
is probably the strength thatyou could get through anything
if you have that you know, andyou can make it through.
K Castrataro (52:19):
I love that. And I just have got to say, like that
is one of the purposes of thispodcast, is to help to create a
sense of that community, andthen to give us a place that all
of these amazing women that I'mme and men, because I do meet
some men, yeah, bring them on.Come on.
Unknown (52:38):
Women are our favorite here. We do make up 50% of the
population,
K Castrataro (52:44):
we should include them, but, but it is so that we
can come together and really getthat sense of solidarity and so,
so thank you for sharing that,and thank you for being part of
this community. Because, youknow, I'm so grateful. Oh,
Kristen,
Unknown (52:59):
I mean, this is wonderful, and I think it's so
important what you're doing. AndI look forward to, you know, to
listening in and and to beingpart of of your journey here,
too.
K Castrataro (53:09):
Yes, oh, well. I, as I say, in another, another
year or so, we'll have you backon and we'll see where we're,
where we're all going andconnected.
Unknown (53:18):
We'll just keep growing. Let's all keep growing,
right?
K Castrataro (53:23):
Yes, yes, that's that is my tagline.
I love it.
So thank you all
for joining us on food, flowersand fun and come back and like
us, subscribe, do all of thosethings that that we do, and put
some comments down below,because we want to, we want to
(53:45):
connect with you.
Unknown (53:46):
Yeah, oh, yeah. And come and visit. So come and
visit me. Online is waterwayfarm.com. Is the easiest way,
but we have a great Instagram. Ilove Instagram because we could,
then you can see whateverybody's doing. And that also
is waterway farm,
and we will have that down inthe in the program, we'll have
links and everything. Love that,yes. Thank you so much. All
(54:06):
right, we will, we will see youall next time on Food, Flowers,
and Fun.
What a blast. Thanks so much.
Farmwork's calling. Our show isall done. Goodbye, farewell. So
long. I do see you next week,same time, same place for food,
flowers and fun. Go in peace.Visit us@www.penlightfarmers.com
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