Spirit in Action
Passionate on the Farm
Inga Witscher is an organic dairy farmer and the star of a new Wisconsin Public TV program called Around the Farm Table, exploring a revolution in farming and connection to the Earth. Founding St.
- Broadcast on:
- 24 Nov 2013
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpes Me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along We've got an inspirational and engaging guest for today's Spirit in Action. Her name is Inga Witcher, and she is a dairy farmer and video star of the Around the Farm Table TV program. She's all about a revolution going on in the USA today, with especially young folks and women flocking back toward the farm in order to find a way of life that is personally fulfilling and healthy for our culture and planet. Reversing a many decades trend away from the farm. Inga combines earthly passions for animals and the land with curiosity and enthusiasm for farming and farmers who are exploring new and creative ways of how we grow our food and cook it. Around the Farm Table started on Wisconsin Public Television just recently, but there is a rich future ahead for this smiling, inspiring farmer and her travels around the fields and barns of Wisconsin. We'll head over to her farm, St. Isador's Mead Organic Farm, right now, to visit with Inga Witcher. Inga, I'm delighted to be here with you today for Spirit in Action. Thank you for having me. This is a great opportunity. We're here on your farm on St. Isador's Mead Organic Farm. Talk about when you started the farm and why you started it. Weren't you supposed to go be an aerospace engineer or Joe is supposed to be a musician touring? Why are you here on the farm? I'm a fourth generation dairy farmer. I grew up in Washington State on a dairy farm, the youngest of three kids, the only girl. So my experience farming was different than my brothers. I got to ride around with my grandfather on the tractor, melt cows with my father, and have a wonderful experience. Now, I never thought that I was going to grow up and be a dairy farmer. It was just nothing that ever came into my conscious realm at all. I actually wanted to be a beautician. My grandmother was a beautician. She cut hair in her kitchen, and I just thought that was just fantastic. So that was my ambition all throughout school. Then I graduated high school. I went into beauty school for about two months and realized that it wasn't for me. So I am officially a beauty school dropout. I moved with my family to Virginia right after high school, and my father was hired by a woman from Switzerland to start an organic dairy farm, a creamery, and a bakery. And through the process of needing an assistant in the creamery, I was sort of encouraged to go and make cheese with a gentleman who was a cheese maker. We also made butter. So I got back into the dairy farm through a value at a product. But I still was never interested in the actual dairy farming. I wanted to grow vegetables, and I wanted to have a CSA. I wanted to do organic gardening. So my parents had then relocated to Wisconsin, and I was having these conversations with my father saying, "I really want my own piece of land to be able to grow these heirloom vegetables that I was interested in." I had just gotten introduced to seed savers exchange and my mind was blown by the wonderful things. So he said to me, "Well, that's great, and you should do that, but I have a 30-acre farm up here. It's certified organic, and you could cash flow the vegetables with a dairy herd. And you could be organic, have a small number of cows, think about it." And I said, "Absolutely, there's no way I'm going to melt cows." And I thought about it more, and he suggested it more. So I ended up coming up here because I needed to start new and relocate, and I came to Wisconsin reluctantly. I applied for a loan through the Farm Service Agency to get cattle. Now, at the time, I had nothing. I had no money. I had a beat-up car that someone had actually given me because they wanted to get it out of their front yard. So I knew... Well, I was pretty definite that I was never going to get a loan for the $100,000 that I needed to start farming. So I walked into the office. I filled out the paperwork. And the next day, they called me and said, "Congratulations. Here's your loan. You qualify as a socially disadvantaged farmer because you're a woman, and you fill our quota." So here's your check. Have a great time farming. And that's how it all began. A series of plukes. And that must have been before 2008, because after 2008, that would have been like pulling teeth to get that. That was in 2006. Yeah. And I really lucked out. I was so scared when I got the check and started buying cows. I think I was emotionally numb to what was really happening. And then the first day that the cows were on the farm, my father and I walked out in our matching overalls to milk the cows. It wasn't immediate, but it was maybe after four hours of trying to wrangle these cows in a milk home that I said, "Wow! This is exactly what I was meant to do with my life." I felt that void that I just had always felt that I wasn't who I was supposed to be until I had cows. And then everything came back into place. It was an amazing experience. That's kind of amazing, and it's so counter-cultural. Although I do think there is maybe an undercurrent in our society where people aren't all about, "I want to spend time in front of screen time working on computers, doing all that stuff," closed up in four walls. Have you been an outdoor person most of your life? Is that part of it? What is there about cows? Is there something specifically aesthetic? You think you could do something for them with your beautician skills? Well, I did clip some of them one time, but that was the extent of those skills. I think that what it was for me, it was something that had been passed, it was in my DNA, I believe, milking cows, and being on the land. My father was a dairy farmer, my oldest brother was a dairy farmer, my grandfather was a dairy farmer, and my great-grandfather was a dairy farmer. My grandmother grew up milking cows. I think it's just something that was just passed to me through my DNA, and it's a blessing and a curse. It's a difficult life at some parts of it, but it's completely rewarding, and it's just been a unique experience. One of the things about it that sounds unique to me, Inga, is that your father at some point got pressed into service to start an organic dairy, and that must have been pretty early on in the whole idea of organic alternative here in this country. So, was it unusual that he would go into organic? Why was he selected for that, and was he particularly predisposed in that area? Is there something organic in your DNA? When my father was dairy farming, he never reached out for BST, or he never used a lot of antibiotics, or synthetic fertilizers on the land, or any of these things, so he was always leading towards natural. When the dairy industry fell apart in Washington State, a lot of our neighboring farmers actually moved to the Midwest. My parents stayed on their farm, they sold their cows, and they decided what they were trying to figure out what they could do with the land, and they decided on a sustainable golf course. Maybe not because of their philosophy and sustainability. I think they did it because it was a less expensive option, so they started mowing the fairways, and they created these greens out of hard work, and not a lot of fertilizers or anything. And it was after the Smithsonian Magazine ran an article about the golf course. My father was able to connect with people who were in that sustainable world, and he was actually able to spend... It was when I was a senior in high school, he was able to spend two or three weeks at Hygrove, which is Prince Charles's organic farm in England. He came home from that experience, and I remember him telling me about it, and he was so excited. He was excited about what they were doing on their farm, excited about the term organic. So it was through that... Now, we always did intensive grazing, so we were already grazing quite a bit, but it was through that experience for him and him telling me about that, that I kind of got the itch. And through different connections with folks who were involved in sustainable agriculture, he was contacted by this woman to start this organic farm. Then I think it was kind of... We were reacquainted with people actually knowing the term, or they were excited about that, they were seeking it out. And then we said, "Oh, okay, this is a great value added for agriculture. You can get a little bit more for your product because people are seeking that organic label." So I think it was... Yeah, I was definitely passed on through my dad to do organic and sustainable farming, and especially intensive grazing with the cow herd, that was something that I did from the time I could walk behind my dad and pull fins posts out of the ground. So it's been a huge influence. And intensive grazing is important because the newfangled way of doing it is actually to put them in a bar and stuff corn into them, as opposed to having them out eating grass. In the omnivores dilemma, he refers to it not as grazing, it's grass farming, right? So it is a different way of thinking that would not have been at all unusual to perhaps our grandparents or something going back. I want to remind everybody you're listening to Spirit in Action and we're speaking with Inga Witcher. Aroundthefarmtable.com is where you want to go. I'm talking to her today here about organic farming or cooking or perhaps making movies about it. We're going to find out what we're talking about because there's a rich assortment of things that are coming together and bearing great fruit right now. More about that later. Let's continue talking a little bit, Inga, about the farming that you did or that you have been doing on St. Isador's Mead organic farm. First of all, why St. Isador's Mead? Do you produce Mead? I chose the name St. Isador's Mead because St. Isador is the patron saint of farmers and gardeners. Not that I'm particularly religious, I'm spiritual but not religious, but I thought that we could use all the help we could get. And we've actually had to invoke St. Isador from time to time to help us get the job done. And I chose the word Mead because I love everything British. I don't know if you've ever watched Agatha Christie, she has a character called Miss Marple, the detective, and Miss Marple lives in St. Mary's Mead. And I just love the way that rolls off the tongue. So I thought, oh, we should definitely add Mead to the end of that. And it's backfired a few times because we've actually had folks stop in wanting to buy Mead and then I have to say, no, I just thought it sounded British and they're extremely disappointed. Well, starting the farm here, you started with cows, but you're also doing some organic, you've got chickens, and I want to recognize right away St. Isador's Mead, organic dairy farm. For our contribution to the Norton Spirit Radio, we had an event just a couple weeks ago where you donated smoked chickens, quite a prize at the benefit that we had that turned your radio on benefit just a couple weeks ago. So I want to, first of all, thank you. On the air, everybody can hear. It was a great treat to have that added because we wanted to have local food and we wanted to have organic food and we wanted to recognize those people doing it. So in addition to getting out the word about around the farmtable.com, they also learned that you have really good chickens down here. So you started out doing a mixture of things, but a few years ago, you started to switch. I think that's when you started making the videos. Why did you do that? Were you bored with the cows? It wasn't so much being bored with the cows. I have to reference my father. Again, now that I'm talking about it, I'm like, wow, I really am my father's daughter. Before he took over his parents' farm and bought the cows and started his own dairy farm, he was actually a comedian and an entertainer and he traveled around the United States. He also did work on a cable network television series doing the entertaining. So growing up, we always were singing and entertaining dinner guests and we always had this need to sort of create and do these wonderful things. So when we were sitting around one afternoon, killing time during the winter, we were talking about these food shows and the resurgence of sort of eating local and searching for those foods in your communities. And we talked about perhaps doing a television series based on that idea of visiting the farms and cooking the meal from those ingredients. And we'd seen that chefs were doing it. We saw that there was a show in the UK where a chef left his restaurant, moved to the country, started a farm, and then now he's learning about farming. And we wanted to tell a story similar, but through the eyes of a farmer, we thought it was a unique way that we could tell a story from a dairy farmer's perspective, what's happening on her farm, where is she going in her community to find those foods and bring them back to the table and eat. And so it might not seem totally natural for a dairy farmer to start hosting a television show, but it seemed really natural for us to do that. We were trying to get this program off the ground, and then that's when I met my husband, Joe, and he was able to help us take it to another level. He's fantastic. He's an amazing musician, so we're using his music in every episode. He's helping editing the whole thing and creative writing and all sorts of things. So it was really kind of like a perfect storm of three people coming together and putting together a television series, and it's been so fun. We get to go onto farms and spend time with folks who are working so hard. They work 24 hours a day. They don't have a lot of time to take and hang out with us, but they take the time. They teach us so much about why they're doing what they're doing, and they celebrate farming every day. And it's changed the way that we farmed on our farm. It's made me more proud to be a farmer because of being able to stand with these folks and doing what we do, and it's been an incredible experience. And the start of that program really was about three years in the past. I understand now, of course, you know, you're on Wisconsin Public Television. I understand that maybe there's something underway with Minnesota. What's happening there? Well, we hope to be able to take the shows to a broader audience around the Midwest. So we're hoping to be able to get into the Chicago Public Television, also Minneapolis Public Television, and perhaps Iowa. So we're trying to expand because we feel that the more people that can watch this series, the more people that are going to be able to connect with the farmers in their areas. So we're asking people to tune in and to watch this segment on Matthew Buevalla in Pepin, Wisconsin, who is raising chickens. But if you don't live in Pepin, Wisconsin, we want you to start thinking about who's in your area. Who's the Matthew Buevalla in your area that's raising past your chickens? We're trying to get people excited about using those ingredients from their local farmers, and people already are. They're already excited about it. We're also trying to get people excited about the different types of farming that you can do here in the Midwest. The diversity of farms in the Midwest is just phenomenal. We have grapes being grown for wine. We have quince being grown for jams, apples, pastured pork, chickens, dairy, sheep dairies. It's an amazing place to be, and it's amazing that these farmers are doing this, especially when we have such severe - I'm not from Wisconsin, so to me, they're over-the-top severe winters, and it's just amazing that these folks are out there doing it. You know, my grandfather had a dairy farm. My uncle had it. There's some dairy farm genes in my blood, too, although I have not lived on the farm ever. Don't cows get cold. You know, at 20 below, 30 below, don't they suffer? What do you do to prevent ice cream from coming out? I don't think they get nearly as cold as the farmer, but what we do is we dry our cows up during the winter time because it's cold outside. You know, cows, they don't mind being outside. They're actually comfortable right around that 40 degrees, and 20 degrees is fine for them. If it gets really, really cold, then they get a little bit grouchy and they kind of have this ice forming on their foreheads and coming out of their nose and they look a little bit grouchy, but they do great. They do great. You have to make sure that their teats stay dry because if any milk's coming out of their teats or anything like that, they can freeze, and then they get chapped teats and it's not good. We house our cows outside in a loafing shed. The reason we do that is they're not totally exposed to the weather. There's three sides on the shed, but they're able to have -- they don't have to breathe in recycled air, so they stay healthier. They don't have any pneumonias or any sort of -- any respiratory issues. So it makes our life easier as farmers. So we house them outside in what we call the loafing shed. We put down fresh straw every few days when it's needed. What that does over time is it breaks down. The straw and the manure will break down, so we're bedding the cows down, keeping the cows dry, but we're also creating compost, then we put back to our land. So we're improving the soils as well as having a nice place for the cows. And so you are saying that no time do you take them indoors to four walls? Only when they're being milked. Unless we have a cow that's going to calve in the winter time, then we'll bring her into what we call a maternity pin, and she can calve out of the snow. And most of our cows will calve this year in late March, and so they're still snow on the ground, so we'll bring them in for that because we want to make sure that the calves stay warm. But cows, they can stay outside. You wouldn't think it, and you almost feel bad for them, but what did cows do before humans put up arms? They were always outside, so as long as they're accustomed to it, they get these thick, furry, fuzzy coats, and our cows will look one way during the winter, and they look like completely different cows in the summer after they shed all their hair. They have their fuzz balls right now. They're these little chubby fuzz balls, and then in the spring, they're these glistening, beautiful ladies cows walking around in the past year. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that farming is cool. I mean, there's a part of me when I was young that definitely thought it was cool, first time I drove a tractor or something like that. And I definitely experienced that with gardening along the way, the miracle of produce coming up, and all you have to do is kind of nurture it around a little bit. So I definitely get that, but our society has become more and more technologically advanced, and people have become prissy. I mean, part of the odors that I grew up with on my grandfather's farm was manure. I mean, you know, that you take your boots off right when you come in the mudroom, that you get that out because you don't want too much of it to come in, but it definitely wafts in there. It's part of the heady mixture of a kitchen. So is it cool? Is it increasingly cool? Is there a community of people where this is passion and happiness? And what about this competition with the technological mind? I think that farming has gotten a reputation lately as being cool. I think people are wanting to participate in their food. And it's exciting that they want to. We have folks all the time asking to come out and milk the cows. People want to reconnect with that experience. I heard someone say the other day, "We're two grandfathers away from knowing that experience, my generation." So I think that there's this need to see the cows being milked, to grow your own vegetables, to participate. And now I don't know that these folks want to do it every morning at five, and then again at five in the evening every single day. I think that there's a certain romanticism to farming, except for when you have to do it every day, then it might not seem as cool. But actually the fastest growing sector of farmers in the United States is young women. They're outnumbering men on farms two to one. They're coming out of corporate America, they're going onto a farm, and they're doing all kinds of agriculture. I think agriculture is a way for people to be self-employed, to be able to see that they're making a difference on the land, have that instant gratification, figure things out. As a farmer, you wear mini hats. You're a veterinarian. You're a midwife. You're an accountant. You're a marketer. You're a farmhand. You're doing so many different things, so it never gets boring. And in the last few weeks we've had folks calling up or emailing us, and they want to have those experiences, and they want to find out how they can get into small farming. Our farm, we almost call it a microdairy. We're milking 15 cows. We're going to downsize to get through the winter because feed's expensive, and we need to make sure that we can cash flow everything. We're making a small batch cheese that's going to help cash flow our farm a little bit, but it's difficult. It's hard to say that we're making a huge profit because we're not. We have to cut corners on some things. We scaled, we don't have tractors. We have one skid steer. We have very low technology equipment on our farm that we can fix ourselves, and that's what's kept us going. Also, intensive grazing has been, I'm glad I grew up with it because I would have never been able to get into farming a different way. But it turns out that it is cool to farm this way, this sustainable way. I was lucky enough to find a partner, who's now my husband, who thought it was pretty interesting. Our first date, you mentioned the barn smell, the first date that Joe and I had, he had to come to the farm to melt cows with me because I couldn't leave. I couldn't go and meet him anywhere for dinner or anything like that. He showed up one day wearing this beautiful cashmere sweater, and I thought, what were you thinking? You can't wear that into the barn. It's never going to smell the same ever again. And he did, and I just thought, oh, he should have looked at the good will and got like an old sweatshirt or something. And he didn't mind the smell. He's been in the barn ever since, so it's kind of fun. Let's talk just a little bit about Joe and the other compatriots who help you make the videos, the television series around the farm table. Again, you can see samples of this at WPT, Wisconsin Public Television, WPT.org. But around the farm table, you've got Joe making music and scripts and this. Part of what you're doing is showcasing the farms, what's happening there, what products are coming out, recipes, you're cooking, and you're sitting down and eating this. Where was your first program, which was your first farm visited? Maybe it was your own, I don't know. It was actually right here on the farm, and we were working with Bob Andrew Skevich. This was, boy, I guess it was about three years ago. And so we decided he has experience working with public broadcasting, and he was willing to bring his camera out. So we staged a sci-fi fest at our farm, so we had folks using cutting hay with size, and then we collected nettles for a nettle soup, and we made a Swiss chard tart. And we kind of had a rough idea of how we were going to put this thing together, and then the other part of us, we just went for it. So that was the first filming that we did. It was a neat experience. And since then we found that we do need to plan things out a little bit more and have more, we wanted to include other farms. So now what we do is we sit down, my father, Rick, my husband, Joe, and I, we can sit down, and we research farms, and some farms have a unique situation that they're in, a unique ingredient. Or they're a farm that we wanted to make a recipe, and they had the ingredient for that recipe. So we collaborate on the story of how it's going to work. What's going to be this unique thing, and my father brings a lot of humor to the stories through these ideas of pulling a bottle of aquavit out of the frozen lake, or waking up in the field with sheep, and this wonderful sense of humor. And my husband is an amazing musician, and he's been writing music for years and years, and now all this music that him and his writing partner, Lucas Dangle, have written, it's found a home on around the farm table. It works so well. We also had this last season, a wonderful, I guess, director of photography is what he's called, Peter Eaton, a young gentleman from the Eau Claire area. He was just right there with us jumping up and down, getting into pens with bowls, and going into cheese caves, and having a great time. And he actually just moved to LA, so it was sad to see him go, and we hope that he can return to the Midwest at some point. Rick and Joe, they sit down in the editing suite and figure out how everything's going to look and what story to tell after the interviews, and my mother helps me with the recipes and getting things going, so it's collaboration between a lot of people. More about that in a moment, but I want to remind you, you're listening to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet. I'm your host for this Northern Spirit Radio production on the web at northernspiritradio.org. Northern, not Southern, Spirit, not Body, Radio, because I've got a voice made for radio and a face as well. Go to our website and on that website. You can see eight and a half years of programs for listening, download, it's all free. Please post comments when you visit. We love to a communication. You'll find links to our guests like Fort Inga Witcher. You'll find aroundthefarmtable.com. You'll find a link to the programs that they have now on Wisconsin Public Television at WPT.org. There's many different links that you can find on our website. There's also a place to leave donations. We live by your donations. We appreciate your help deeply. We also want to encourage you, especially, to support your local community radio station. They're providing you a slice of news and music that you get nowhere else in this society. And it's something that we really need to move this world forward. We're talking with Inga Witcher of AroundTheFarmTable.com. Their farm is St. Isador's Mead, Organic Farm. We're going to talk more about the programs. I want to touch a little bit right away. So, your husband, Joe Maurer, I've had him on my Song of the Soul program. And so, if people want to go and listen to that, they can search for Joe Maurer. We'll have that connection on this program as well. If you look for Coconut in the Duke, that's what he and Lucas together are called, Coconut and the Duke. The program's called Sing's a Bright Blue Bird. It's one of his songs as well. So, you're talking about how this all gets put together with the family and how much are you hoping that it's exported? I mean, you're talking about having this on TV here in Wisconsin, maybe down to Chicago, Minneapolis, down to Iowa. Is it generalized elsewhere? I think Wisconsin, or actually this driftless area, we have some unusual topography that makes for different kinds of farms. The small family farm, the organic farm, has thrived in this area of the Midwest, particularly out of all the places in the U.S. because of our topography. Are you hoping that this is generalizable to the rest of the nation? I do. I think that folks in California can watch around the farm table and feel connected to the Midwest. I don't think that we need to go across the nation filming. What we're excited about is the Midwest. People forget. It's like, how do I say this? Before I moved to the Midwest, when I was living either in Washington state or Virginia, it was never like a desiroad place for me to visit or go to. It was like, yeah, okay, I guess I'll go visit my brother. He lives in Wisconsin. When I moved here, friends would say, well, why are you going to the Midwest? What's in the Midwest? And after living here, it is an amazing place. I love living in the Midwest. I never thought I would ever hear myself say that, but I will never leave. This is such an amazing place and it needs to be celebrated more. Not enough so that everyone moves here because it's nice. It's nice not having housing developments everywhere, but it needs to be celebrated. Listen, these farmers here are incredible. It's one thing to grow all these year-round vegetables in California where it's easy. It's a whole other ball game here in the Midwest. You talked about the Driftless area, and I want to say, don't quote me, but I want to say that the Driftless area, what is it? Vernon County down in Varroqua, they have the most small family organic farms in the nation. It's a beautiful place. It's wonderful. People here are inspired. They're working hard, and we want to celebrate that. And we want to let people know what's happening in the Midwest. And I think that there's another food show that we started watching, and it's a lady in North Carolina. And it's fun to watch what's happening in North Carolina for us, because it's completely different than the Midwest. We get to tune in and find out what she's doing, and we hope people from other regions of the United States can tune in and find out just what's happening in the Midwest. So there's something about this area that's attracting you. As you were describing what you like about the Midwest, amazing people. But mainly what I thought you were emphasizing is it's not as easy as elsewhere. Is the Midwest a perfect fit for you because it's harder? Well, I don't know. I mean, I guess there is a certain sense of accomplishment that I have after making it through every spring, because I'm never really sure if I'm ever going to make it through. And I think also one of the life-defining moments for me was the first winter that I spent in Wisconsin. The winters here have been an adjustment for me. I moved here in November of 2006, and I started farming November 7th of 2006. It was the first day we milked cows. And I didn't have doors on the barn. I didn't have windows. I didn't have long johns. I didn't have a proper winter coat. But we were very blessed because the first, I don't know, 25 days or so of November were just bliss. It was beautiful weather. It was in the 60s. It was just amazing. And I kept thinking, "Okay, it's cold, mid-western winters. This is a piece of cake." And then we got a five foot snow and the temperature plummeted. And I remember walking outside one morning to go melt the cows, and I breathed in this cold air, and I thought my lungs were going to stop. And I looked at the temperature and it was below zero. And I kept thinking, "How am I still alive?" Like, I don't understand why I'm still alive if it's this cold outside. And after getting through that winter, it really changed who I was, partially probably because I was also taking on milking cows and having that experience. But it made me so resilient. It's made me know that anything is possible. I've also since gotten the proper winter clothes, so now it's a little bit easier. But I think that there is something about the Midwest that is different than anywhere else. The culture here is unique. I've never lived anywhere where deer hunting is like a national holiday. That was again the first November I was here, and then I was milking cows one morning and the sun came up and gunshots. I thought I was in a war zone. It was unnerving. And I looked out and there was little blotches of orange all over in the woods. And I thought, "Wow, this is crazy that I wanted to town later on that day." And there was deer on everyone's hood of their car, the back of their car, everywhere. And it was fun to be a part of that. And ice fishing is something that I've been braced here. It's wonderful. People really come together in the Midwest. They talk about Midwest nice and it's absolutely true. My neighbors, when I first moved here, they completely embraced me. They helped me do everything. They helped me buy a skid stare. They helped me. My neighbor, Tom, came down and showed me how to pull a calf. And then they bring bar cookies afterwards. It's just an amazing place here. I'm born and raised in Wisconsin. I've lived in Africa, for instance, just for a while down in Texas. But, yeah, there's something special about the way I had a flat tire a year ago at a certain point. I had three different people stop. And one guy got out and he essentially took over and changed the tire for me. It's not that I'm incapable of doing this, but it's just the neighborly thing to do. And then another guy stops and he's just visiting with us while we do it. It's a different thing. Because we're small town here, right? It's not the same if you're in Chicago or in Milwaukee or actually even in Minneapolis. Although some of it does run over to that area too. Again, farming. And you're clearly getting something out of connecting here the way you're doing farming as well as doing the TV programs and all. What about getting rich? Isn't that what's supposed to be important in life? Aren't you supposed to be doing this for a profit? I think one of the reasons there was such a great exodus from family farming is because people weren't making ends meet. That they were working a job in town to support their farm habit because they weren't getting this money back for all what they were putting into their farms. You talked about value added as being an important part of why this farm works. Is it something that you want to do if you want to make a good living as well? That phrase make a good living. You're doing something good in the world and you're making sustenance for yourself. How does that work out? What's the balance in this kind of work and this kind of farm? Nobody should ever go into farming if they want to make money. It's more of a lifestyle. When I actually sold my original her to cows four years ago or something because I had been alone on the farm and I started talking to myself and answering myself. I was a little bit too secluded out here so I said I'm going to sell the cows and I'm going to go into town and get a job and be around other people. I did the day that the cows left I felt completely lost and then I had to go work. It was the first time since I had been farming that I felt like I had to go work. I never feel like I have to work a day in my life farming. I feel like it's a privilege to do what I do. I think that it shouldn't be so hard. I hope that farming gets easier for everyone. I see most of the smaller farms, the husband or the wife, is off the farm working to get the health insurance and to pay the bills and the other persons at home. Then those farmers come home at the end of the day after they've gone to their job in town and they're working another eight hours. It's like, "Man, something's wrong." They're not farming because they think they're going to make a bunch of money. I think it'd be great if they can be on the farm and people stay there. Instead of having to go to town and bring home a paycheck. I think that we need to value these farmers so much more than how they've been valued. We need to really look in those communities and say instead of spending my money at the grocery store, which is fine, I mean grocery shop all the time. But what about taking that money and putting it right directly in the hands of that farmer? We need to start thinking about that more because these people are so passionate in all types of farming. You see somebody out there planting 5,000 acres of corn. They're not a bad guy. It's what they know how to do and it's what they do. You can't take farming away from somebody or else I think they just fall apart. There's no good or bad farms. There's a hundred thousand ways to farm. There's as many different ways to farm as there are farmers. And I hope that in my lifetime, I hope that people will be able to stay on the land. Whether they want to milk 15 cows and ship milk and make cheese a couple times a year or whether they're big crop farmers. I think that we really need to start thinking about how we value the folks who are making our food and putting in this hard work. And I do think that that is something that's coming with the transition. I've talked to Ewinga and your husband Joe about the transition town movement, the transition initiative, which we're organizing right now in Eau Claire, which has swept the world really. As we do that and as we get connected to our locality, I mean you know how the farmers market is so popular. People love having that connection with the land or with the people who've actually touched the land. If I can shake a dirty hand, I feel fortunate. So I see that change as coming. You must see it from a different perspective though because you're seeing the people who are buying your product as opposed to I'm usually going as a consumer. Has that changed a lot? What do you know about the demand? I mean is the demand for the milk that you produce or the cheese that you produce or the smoke chickens or whatever. Have you seen that change noticeably in the seven years you've been on the farm? I've seen it change because, and maybe this was because it was in a different place, but when I was in Virginia, we would sell cheese at the DuPont Circle farmers market in Washington DC. And the people that would come to the farmers market, this must be 10 years ago, they were there as kind of like, I'm really trendy and cool. I'm buying this from a farmers market and they saunter on buy with their Chanel bags and thinking everything was great. Maybe that was what that experience was there. I find that the experience, especially in Eau Claire, the young mothers that I talked to are so committed to making sure that they have healthy foods for their kids and their families. It seems to have transcended an income level. It seems like people are putting more of their money back into those farms because they want to be able to get the healthiest food that they can. I think if there's any change that I've seen, it's come down to every person wanting to buy. But I wish that more people were educated about what it means. I think that there's still some people who, when they hear organic, they feel like it's an elitist thing. Well, that's not something that I would do because it's organic or something. And I think that we need to make it where it's not an issue anymore, it's not a class issue or anything like that. This is what it is, so that everybody can be able to buy healthy foods. I would like to think if you'd say a few more words about what organic means to you. Why did you choose an organic farm? I understand that your father had the experience heading up organic dairy, but I'm not sure why you chose organic. Isn't it harder, doesn't it take more brain power? Well, I really thought that it was going to be difficult. I knew that to cashflow a small number of cows on my small dairy farm, I was going to have to do organic because of the price difference in milk. What I didn't expect was that it was going to get easier, that farming was actually going to get easier for me. Now, I don't grow crops on this farm, so I'm not familiar with the trials and tribulations of putting an organic corn or organic alfalfa. But I know from a dairy perspective, the first year I started farming I bought conventional cows, and I had to transition those cows for a year in order for them to be organic. I had to feed them organic hay, everything for the year transition, and I experienced with those cows for the first year I experienced all kinds of health problems. And I had to become an expert in organic health. I had garlic tincture in one hand at all times, so I could treat these cows and I learned about kelp, I learned about aloe vera, I learned about treating the whole animal instead of just the symptoms. But then after they were transitioned for a year, all the health problems went away. I didn't have difficult calvings or retain placentas or mastitis or all these other issues that I had been dealing with before, I didn't have feed problems, they just weren't there anymore. It seemed like once those cows were balanced and that they had been eating this organic feed for a year, they became a healthier animal. And it really kind of made me re-look at what I was eating and how I was treating myself. And that was my first experience saying, wow, it really does make a difference. And when I got back into farming a few years ago with the Jersey cows, I bought them from a certified organic farm, and again, it's like a breeze. It takes all the stress out of farming. I just don't have the problems that I would have if I was farming a different way. I don't have to have the hoof trimmer out because the cows are out on pasture, they're clipping their own hooves. My only issue is flies, and I use a botanical fly spray, and that doesn't repel the flies nearly as well as a conventional fly spray, but that's just something I'm learning how to do better and deal with. So as far as it being harder, it's really not. And I see problems that conventional dairy farmers are having, and I just like, wow, I'm so glad I don't have to deal with those problems. I'm so glad I don't have to put the money in to deal with those problems because who wants to do that? I just want to enjoy it, so I kind of lucked out. I kind of get the idea that maybe this area in Wisconsin and our television around here is lucked out because you've come to the area. And because you have Joe as your partner in this too, I want to talk about another area of it. I don't know that this is real important from your point of view, but I've been a vegetarian now for 37 years, right? That doesn't say that I've never had meat in that 37 years, but generally my diet is vegetarian. I am a lacto-oval vegetarian. I milk and eggs, and so the milk you produce may very well end up on my table. When you talked about how in the winter, for instance, because of reasons of cost of feed, you let the cows dry up, I also sense that there's something in terms of consideration for the animals that goes on. Clearly, these cows, they're put to work. They're doing their work by producing this milk. How much are you connected to the welfare of the being as an organic dairy farmer as opposed to a conventional farmer? Is there a different point of view of what the health of the whole is about there? I'm not sure. I know that I love my cows more than most people. More than I want to connect with people, I want to connect with my animals. I value them as individuals, and I enjoy their individual personalities. And I strive to make sure that they have the best life they can possibly have here on my farm. Most dairies, I would venture to say all dairies, dry their cows up for at least two months every year. That gives the cows a rest period. It also allows those cows to finish growing that calf. So you'll dry the cows up when they're seven months pregnant. And I'm just thinking about this question. I'm thinking about my oldest brother. He's a conventional dairy farmer. He's producing, I think, as last average was like 122 pounds of milk per cow average, where my average is 35 pounds during this time of year. I think that a lot of people who are involved in the local food movement or the small family farms, they would look at that farm that he's on and say, "Well, you're doing something wrong, because your cows are being milk three times a day, or they're milking like crazy." But I would venture to say, I'm not sure who loves their animals more, my brother or I. He takes care of his animals. Just, it's remarkable. His cows come first. And he believes how what he's doing is the best way to treat his cows. And I believe that the best way to treat cows is the way I'm doing it. So it makes for very exciting holidays. But so I think that for me to say that the way that my cows are being treated is the best way possible, I think that a farmer in the state of Wisconsin could say, "Well, I would never put my cows outside in the winter time. That's crazy. They're needing extra calories. I mean, how could you do that? I would never do that to my babies." So I think that there's no right or wrong way to farm. But I think that all the dairy farmers that I've met value their animals completely. And the thing about farming too is, dairy farming is you see these cows every day. You're there to care for them. If you're not milking them, they don't get milked. If you're not making sure that they're healthy, they're not going to be healthy. So they rely on us to make sure that we're taking care of them, to make sure that we're taking care of their calves. And we rely on them for our income. But there's an exchange that happens with cows and humans in my experience. It's that intimacy of being with these animals every day. And I've been in the barn sometimes and I've been feeling just incredibly sad. And I walk in between the two cows to milk them. And it's almost like they'll push together a little bit just to like give me a hug and say like, "It's okay. We're here for you." Or if I'm really grouchy and upset, they let me know and say, "Lady, get over it. Okay. We're here. You're milking us, your life's problems are not that big." So there's a different connection with animals that I think a lot of dairy farmers have because of that daily intimacy. You're also raising these things from babies. So you have a huge interaction with these beings. A little story from my experience when I was nine, ten years old. I was living right by my grandfather's farm with another uncle. And sometimes we'd go over and we'd ride both the pigs or the calves. And we found one calf who was just really nasty. And again, right away he'd put you into the wall. He would be kind of nasty. But the other calves weren't quite that. So there's individual temperaments and there's, I guess they know us as well. So I've had some of that experience too. I don't suppose you've ever ridden a calf. Absolutely. One of my brothers wanted to be a buck and bronco rider growing up. So I got to take one turn on a calf and it didn't last for long. I wanted to touch on your point about being a vegetarian. I grew up vegetarian because my dad, growing up on a farm, always had a butcher the chickens. So he said from an early age, "No, I'm not doing meat." So we got to grow up vegetarian. And eating animals for me is differently now. I always want to make sure that I know exactly where that's coming from. Because I want to make sure that whether it's a hog or a sheep or a cow, that it's being raised in a way that I agree with. So I can feel better about eating it. Every once in a while we'll butcher an animal here. People will say when we have an old dairy cow, they'll say, "Well, those make the best hamburger." This happened recently. I have an older cow that I need to find a home for. Somebody said, "Well, you should just butcher her." She'd make the greatest hamburger. And I thought, "That's my cow! How could you say that? I wouldn't tell you to butcher your child. What are you doing?" And I said, "I can't go there. I could never eat one of my cows." So actually, if their time is up and they pass away, we have a nice little spot. We compost them and then we can spread them back over the fields so they can live here for eternity. And I always think when it's my time, that's what I want to have happen. I want to go in the back past year in the common post file. I wanted to ask you a little bit about your spiritual identity. You said earlier, you're not religious, but you're spiritual. And there's many differences between being religious and spiritual. Sometimes people who are religious are doctrinaire. But one of the things about being spiritual is it does not identify you with a community of people. So question number one, what's your religious spiritual background growing up? And number two, what's your congregation these days? What's your spiritual home, if you will? Growing up, I had to go to church as punishment. So I guess it was like if I was being a bad teenager, I would get grounded. And my parents would say, "Now you have to go to church for so many Sundays." And then when I was really bad, I had to go to Catholic school for a couple of months. So I guess my identifying with a religion is a little bit different than a lot of people. It's because I've always thought it like, "Oh, God, it's such a drag." And I guess for me, where I connect deepest with my deepest spiritual connections happen on the farm. When I can observe the seasons changing and the grass growing and seeing that cycle that happening, I think that's where I can connect most. That's really who I am. Now I have been, and maybe this is like crazy because through my early twenties and things, we would have different people out to our farm in Virginia. And there was some people who believed in nature divas. And now if I have a problem on the land, my mom always says, "Well, you should ask the nature divas to help you out with a certain problem." Or if I'm by myself on the farm, my father used to tell me, "Well, you can ask a Saint Isador to help with something on the farm." Or to help figure something out. And they're not religious at all. But it was through their teachings through that being able to connect with something there. And they always taught me that the universe provides what you put out, you get back. And so that's always been conscious with me. And there's been times when I've been here by myself, one time specifically, I was trying to get this cow into the stanchion. And it was her first or second time in there. She was really nervous. And she was resisting. She was pushing back on her feet. So her butt was kind of sticking out. And I thought, "If I could just have someone there pushing her in, then it would work." And so I said, "I'm just going to evoke Saint Isador." So I started invoking him and really thinking about him being there and pushing. And it was almost like just looking at this cow, it was like somebody had started pushing on her butt. She was still resisting, but she was being pushed into the stanchion. And I locked her up and I thought, "Okay, works for me." Yeah, there's no denying our own experience, right, regardless whether we understand it or not. It fits in with our prejudices or conceptions. I want to finish off the program by coming back again to talking about the videos you produced that are now on Wisconsin Public Television and maybe migrating to the neighboring states. Again, aroundthefarmtable.com, you can go and read about the programs and see some of the clips from the sites. You can see more full programs at WPT. That's for Wisconsin Public Television, WPT.org. Again, around the farm table, you've gone to a number of neighboring farms. Is there an unlimited supply that you can go to? I know that one of the early ones you went to, you went to Turnip Rock with Reema and Josh, who happened to be friends as well. Is there an unlimited supply? Are there special ones that you just need to get into that? A couple seasons in, we can make the big visit to this farm. We constantly find out about new farmers and it seems like now there's endless supply of farmers for us. I hope that it always is that way. I think that there's a lot of younger folks getting into farming. There's a lot of retired folks getting into farming. I'm hoping that there's always going to be someone out there for us to visit with. I hope that there's always a need for us to do this, to be able to be this voice of the small farmer. It's just been an amazing experience for all of us and it's so fulfilling. The best part is just being able to spend time with these farmers. Inga, it's been great sitting with you. It's great sitting here on your farm. I didn't actually have any of the smoke chicken, but I do so much appreciate your gift and the gift that you're giving the world through aroundthefarmtable.com through the videos and raising up of organic, raising up with the small farmers, raising up of a spirit that evidently has turned you into a farm evangelical. It's really a joy to see the tender heart that you bring to it and the deep passion. It's just great to see that and I thank you so much for joining me for spirit in action. Thank you so much for coming to the farm this afternoon and spending your day with me. I really enjoyed it. The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World" performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is spirit in action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. And our lives will feel the echo of our healing. You
Inga Witscher is an organic dairy farmer and the star of a new Wisconsin Public TV program called Around the Farm Table, exploring a revolution in farming and connection to the Earth. Founding St.