a podcast
with real farmers
Francisco Sarmiento is following in his father's footsteps, not only as a farm worker, but now as a fruit farming educator in the world's apple capital, Wenatchee, Washington. Join us as we visit his college fruit science lab, hear Francisco's personal story and passion for growing food, and check out an actual orchard!
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Growing up as a farmworker in Washington orchards, Faviola Barbosa experienced the hard work and uncertainty that comes with growing food. After working extensively in the world of education, she's come back to her farming roots to help guide the WA tree fruit community's generous funding through the Washington Apple Education Foundation to assist young people raised in tree fruit districts with their education.
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Even though Kaitlyn Thornton is a social media influencer with over a quarter-million followers, she's still the real deal, helping run her family's apple and pear orchard in Tonasket, WA. She opens up about why she's a farmer, and how difficult times shaped her passion for growing food.
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Labor challenges mean an uncertain future for small family farms like the orchard Pedro Cuevas runs with his father. Pedro sat down with Dillon to share his story of growing up in a farm worker family and talk about the cutting-edge farming technology he's now involved with.
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What's the truth about the controversial H-2A Guest Worker program? Farm worker housing manager Luis Guitron shares what it's like behind the scenes, as well as his own personal story, as Dillon Honcoop visits an actual guest worker housing facility in Okanogan, WA.
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The science that keeps damaging bugs out of our food and out of the fields is pretty amazing! Meet entomologist, AKA 'bug scientist' Rebecca Schmidt who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's research facility in Wapato, WA, to learn about the creepy crawlies we don't want in our food, and how she's working to stop them in a sustainable way.
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"It's almost like the Ninja Warrior, you know, you're trying to go through just to see if you can make it to the end," Madison McPherson says of the challenges family farmers in WA face right now. The Chelan-area cherry and apple orchardist shares why she's worried that more and more family farms will soon be gone for good if things don't change.
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Flor de Maria Maldonado's parents were farmworkers, and now the family owns their own small cherry, pear and apple orchard in Tonasket, WA. Coming back to the family orchard at the beginning of the pandemic, Flor de Maria and her brothers face an uphill battle to carry on their parents' legacy.
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Brady Karstetter and his family grow apples, cherries, pears, sweet corn, field corn, beef, hay and more in the Quincy, WA area. As you can imagine, it's a lot to manage, but Brady explains how it's not just the crops that make his life stressful.
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Admitting she fears for her young son's future as a family farmer, apple and cherry orchardist Leah Eddie reveals the intense pressure that Washington's tree fruit farmers face, and how she hopes it changes.
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