Around the Farm Table

– Announcer: The following program is a PBS Wisconsin Original Production.

[gentle acoustic guitar music] [tractor rumbling] [tractor rumbling] [engine revving] [phone ringing] - Hey, it's Inga.

Hey, I got the tractor stuck behind the barn.

Can you give me a hand?

Okay, thanks.

I'll see you soon.

[groovy music] [groovy brass music] [door handle clicks] [upbeat brass music] - Julia, thank you so much for coming to save me.

- It's no problem.

Let's get this tractor out.

[upbeat electric guitar music] [tractor rumbling] [tractor rumbling] - Welcome to the farm!

And that's what it's all about, women farmers helping each other out.

Gather with us, Around the Farm Table .

I'm your host, Inga Witscher.

[cows mooing] Hey!

I'm Inga, a fourth-generation dairy farmer, milking cows and making cheese on my small farm in Wisconsin.

I'm passionate about exploring new places, meeting new people, and finding the best local ingredients that I can turn into delicious meals.

I would like to invite you along on this food and farming adventure.

– Announcer: Support for Around the Farm Table is provided by Wisconsin Farmers Union, a gift in memory of Wendy Bladorn, Marge Engelman, Fromagination, Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

- Julia, thank you so much for coming here and pulling me out.

- It's really no problem.

[Inga laughing] - So we have a lot in common.

We're both farm girls, growing up on our parents' dairy farms, doing hard work and chores.

And now we're both advocates for Wisconsin agriculture.

Today, I'm celebrating women's role in agriculture.

How do you see women as becoming the face of agriculture?

- I think that more women are becoming the main workers on the farm.

And I think women have always been involved in agriculture.

And now more than ever, they're becoming more important.

And it's just something that is so awesome.

And women support each other so much, especially in agriculture, because we all just have the same goals.

We wanna create a environment where people know where their food's coming from, and they wanna trust the farmers that produce that food.

- Well, let's head on down to Green County, where I'm gonna meet with a network of ladies who are breaking the grass ceiling.

[gentle acoustic music] Lisa Kivirist is someone who has inspired me for years.

- My name is Lisa Kivirist.

I live in Green County, Wisconsin and I am a author, farmer, and founder of Soil Sisters.

– Inga: Lisa has created a farmstead where she grows her own food and hosts guests at a bed and breakfast that's run entirely on renewable energy.

- Our ongoing journey has been to retrofit and renovate this existing Wisconsin farmstead with sustainability in mind and to create a place that will be even better for future generations.

So we do that through running the farm completely on renewable energy, of growing organically, and really working towards soil health and enhancing the soil, and creating a place of community vibrancy, where people can come and learn and share in the abundant harvest.

- What's really inspired me about Lisa though is that she's one of the founders of the Soil Sisters, a grassroots network of women farmers in southwestern Wisconsin.

- Soil Sisters started here in Green County, where a group of us area women farmers started getting together and getting to know each other.

And it grew.

It grew because when women committed to the land, committed to sustainability, local food, community get together over good food at potlucks, things happen.

– Inga: These women come together to support each other, [women chatting] share laughs, [women laughing] share ideas, and work together to improve their communities.

- It is now a project of outreach to help support women who wanna get back to the land, who wanna start their own farms, and really renew our countryside.

[women chatting] - We'll come back and talk to Lisa a little bit later.

But first, I wanted to introduce you to a fascinating member of the Soil Sisters, [energetic rock music] who is literally renewing the countryside through her work in habitat restoration.

[chainsaw whirring] - Habitat restoration is restoring the native plants to the land and removing the non-native plants.

[intense rock music] - Inga: Over years of tireless work, Marci and her husband have restored 60 acres of land back into native prairies, oak savannas, and natural habitats that they've christened Driftless Prairies.

[upbeat groovy music] - It's important to do habitat restoration because it's getting destroyed faster than it's getting restored.

We clear out the invasives or the non-native plants and trees because they're replacing the natives.

The conflict between non-native plants and native plants is that the non-native plants are unable to be used by the insects.

The native plants are what the insects require for rearing their young.

If there's no insects, there won't be any birds, small mammals, or herptiles, snakes and amphibians.

[upbeat music] - What I find most amazing about Marci is that after doing all of this work to restore these native habitats, she goes out regularly and removes every single invasive plant she finds by hand.

- We patrol it, as I think of it.

If I'm working for herbaceous, I'm scanning for those.

If I'm working on the woody non-natives, I'm scanning for those.

It takes a bit.

You get out there and you think, "Well, what am I looking for?"

But your eyes adjust to the patterns quickly.

When I remove a plant, it's almost giddy.

[laughing] It feels really, really good.

I think, "Okay, I've allowed space "for that native to grow in where I've taken out that non-native."

– Inga: As Marci's efforts to replace non-native species with native plants became more and more successful, she started seeing native insects and animals coming back to the land.

Which then led to her work as a citizen scientist, monitoring birds and mammals, and carefully documenting each new variety of insect that she finds in this restored habitat.

[gentle music] - Documenting insects has expanded my world.

The smaller I went, the bigger my world became.

And our goal here is biodiversity.

We want insects to be here.

We want the birds to feel like they can be here, the mammals, and all the other biota that might choose to live in this area of the Driftless.

[gentle music] [birds chirping] - So you all have restored 60 acres into this beautiful floral wonderland that we're sitting in right now.

What made you do it?

Why were you passionate about doing this?

- We're losing our habitat and we're losing our wildlife.

And Jim and I had a dream that we wanted to be ones that could help.

- Mm-hmm.

- Help these insects to live, help these birds to live.

Our grassland birds are amongst the most endangered because of these large swaths of prairie that have been destroyed.

- Right.

What are some things that we can do as individuals, whether we're landowners or whether we're living in the city, to support these native habitats?

- Plant some.

[laughing] If you're in the city, take away some of the cultivars that you might have planted and put in natives.

- And if we're putting in natives too, they're gonna be able to host more of our native insects than a plant that's coming from a non-native plant.

Right?

- Right.

Exactly, exactly.

If you plant natives in your yard, or if you are a farm and you have a non-productive section, plant some natives there.

Remove any of the non-natives, put the natives in, and you've just created habitat.

You've been helpful to the world, to the critters, to the wildlife.

And you support each other because from one farm to one town to one vast acreage, these insects have places to move along and eat and live and reproduce.

- I'm just looking out here at all these plants helping each other and helping the insects, and it really brings me right back to the Soil Sisters and how all these women, they're helping each other and being there for each other.

What has it been like for your experience in the Soil Sister network?

- The Soil Sister network has been fabulous.

Supportive, encouraging.

We have good laughs together, we eat good food together, we share ideas, we share thoughts.

It's been the most supportive network that I have found.

And it doesn't matter whether you are raising pigs, cattle, or turned your whole land over to native habitat.

[both chuckling] They are there for you and what you're doing and to help you reach your goals.

- Perfect, I love this.

I hope that more and more young women will see women like the two of us and the rest of the Soil Sisters and understand that they can do not only farming, not only land conservation, but anything that they wanna do.

- They can do anything.

- And now we're gonna go over and visit another Soil Sister who's raising heritage pork on her land.

[pigs snorting] [playful music] - My name is April Prusia, and I do farrow-to-finish rare heritage hogs in Blanchardville, Wisconsin on the pasture.

- As a farmer who grazes cattle, I know there is nothing better than raising livestock on pasture.

So I just love to see how April's pigs work fresh plants into their diet.

- If you raise pastured pigs, they need to be on greens for the season, grass, clovers, weeds.

And it gives them a great omega profile.

And if they're in the sunshine, their fat also has vitamin D in it.

And it's a really humane way to raise a brilliant animal.

Hey girls.

Hey, we love ragweed, don't we?

Mm-hmm, yeah, it's a huge nuisance in the field, but we can really find it.

– Inga: April is also helping to preserve this heritage breed of pigs, known as Gloucestershire Old Spots.

- The Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs are pretty rare.

They lost their numbers when we industrialized pigs and brought 'em indoors.

They don't do well indoors.

They're a fattier pig than your traditional pork.

You can get a good amount of lard out of 'em, but you can also get a great amount of good marbled meat from them.

This particular breed is super docile, they're easy to work with.

They're great mothers.

They're a pleasure to be around.

They're a lot of fun.

Hi, Sparkles!

Hi, Sparkles.

You want some food here too, buddy?

- Like all the Soil Sisters, April brings a woman's perspective and a woman's experience to the way she raises animals.

- Well, I wanted to raise them in a way that was respectful and lighter on the environment, and actually heavier on the heart.

There's lots of care and love.

And they're having a really good life and you can see it.

You can see it when they run.

You can see it when they're eating.

You can see it when they're wallowing.

It's just very obvious that they're enjoying life.

And that I'm providing a good life for them.

Is that guy gonna let you hang with him?

No.

I think women just instinctively have a nurturing quality.

So we need that right now in our world, we need a lot of nurturing.

So I think it's important to nurture our food and our environment.

And we need more women that can put that into the land and into our food.

[upbeat acoustic guitar music] - It's really beautiful out here to see the pigs in the outdoors, breathing fresh air, and really grazing on the ground.

Tell me a little bit about what is that like moving the pigs to new grass all the time?

- Sure, sure.

This year's been a little challenging 'cause it's been very dry and hot.

But I take them from down by the barn and they follow me.

"Let's go pigs."

They follow me with a bucket of feed.

And as long as their needs are met, they just wanna be here.

So if they got grass under 'em, they got fresh water, they got a nice wallow, they got some shade, - Inga: That's all they need.

- Yeah.

- This is so fun.

I never get a chance to just hang out with other women farmers and just talk about all these fun things.

- Sure, yes.

- And that's one of the reasons I wanted to come down and visit with the Soil Sisters, because it just seems like you guys are all such special women and supporting each other and collaborating together.

What has that been like you to be involved with the Soil Sisters?

- Oh, yeah.

It's been super empowering.

I feel like much of my business has evolved, even my personality.

Yeah, just very empowering group.

I have gotten roped into all sorts of different projects.

I'm super politically active now.

I sit on our town board because of a lot of like, "Hey ladies, we need to get more involved."

- It seems like there's quite a few Soil Sisters that are representing their townships and their communities.

- Yeah.

- I love it.

- And it's just kind of like, "Hey, you can do it.

Like, you can do this."

And so there's a lot of that.

Like even with the pigs, I've sold quite a few pigs to other Soil Sisters.

I'm like, "You can do this.

You've had chickens, you can do pigs now."

- Yeah.

- So there's a lot of that.

And there's a lot of the camaraderie.

- I've been following along the journey of a lot of the Soil Sisters for quite a while.

And there just seems to be something about the women in Wisconsin in the farming community that really think outside of the box.

– April: Sure.

- Or just implementing different businesses and trying different things.

What do you think it is about women that we can kind of do that?

[April chuckles] - I think we're always thinking.

You know?

– Inga: Yeah!

- And have these visions.

And then when you have each other to kind of paint that picture with each other.

– Inga: And encourage each other along the way.

- Yeah, absolutely.

It's without any judgment.

And it's, again, a camaraderie, family, unconditional.

So to feel comfortable in your skin and be okay with that, it helps so that you don't feel blocked in your vision.

We're just very supportive.

– Inga: Yeah.

Let's go back to where that support all started [gentle acoustic guitar music] and visit with Soil Sisters founder, Lisa.

[gentle acoustic guitar music] Lisa, you're one of the founders of Soil Sisters.

Why do you think it's important that we recognize women finally as farmers, as farm owners, as land stewards?

- Oh, that's a great question, Inga, because none of this is really new, right?

Women have been working on the farm, we have been out there in the fields and taking care of the land for hundreds of years, for generations.

But really, and this surprises some folks, it's only been in the last couple of decades that women have achieved both political and economic rights of being recognized for their work.

So I say that with a shout-out to our Soil Sisters from past generations who created the world in which we're living today.

And we're in a really strong position to take charge and to just take ownership of our farm and direct things in a way that will sustain future generations.

But also step up to that leadership plate and bring more women's voices in agriculture to elected office, to county boards, to township boards, to really where the decisions are being made.

And we haven't had voices there historically, but you see Soil Sisters shaking that up.

- What is the origin story of the Soil Sisters?

- So this was about 15 years ago now.

And we had been on the farm a couple years, but I didn't know any other women in the community really.

And it's quite common for, you probably feel it yourself sometimes, you feel isolated, you just don't have that built-in community.

And I wanted that and I craved that.

And I took out literally a paper map and drew a circle around our farm and invited any women I knew.

And so we met; there were about a dozen women that came to my living room that day.

And we didn't have a formal agenda or a plan or anything, but it clicked.

And we just loved that energy.

And we said, "Let's do it again."

And we've been saying, "Let's do it again," now for 15 years and have grown to a local network in our county of over 250 women.

And we've connected.

And a lot of us are farming.

A lot of us are enthusiastic home gardeners, local food enthusiasts, customers.

We need those too.

But we're all super supportive of each other and committed to sustainability in our community.

And what strikes me is that sometimes, we women just need some space.

And space over a good meal and time shared together, ideas just percolate.

And that's great.

I think that is a real inspiration train to get more women thinking out of the box.

And once you get in on the farm and in these settings, especially around other supportive women, that really contributes both to the health of our rural communities and agriculture, of just new ways of doing things.

- I love this.

I love just sitting here and being able to talk about these ideas that we've tried and we've had to fluctuate away from and these different things.

It's so wonderful to be able to talk with somebody who gets it.

- Oh, that's kind of you to say, Inga.

It's really how we are as women, is we thrive in creative, diverse environments, right?

You think about Mother Nature, she doesn't just plant one seed.

There's all kinds of things growing.

And farms historically and very much so today give us that palette to do it.

So it's that combination of being self-employed on your farm and having that freedom to try out new things, and just the fact that we women really thrive in a lot of different things going on.

And they are, like Mother Nature, all integrated.

They're different, but they all fit.

And you try new things and you're always evolving.

And I find that, like you, very satisfying and inspiring.

And to do that amongst other women who are kindred spirits, and that gives us the strength to reach out a bit.

- Well, I'm so excited that you all are coming up to a potluck that I'm gonna be hosting soon.

Thank you for inspiring me.

Thank you for doing the work that you're doing to just elevate all the women in agriculture.

I really, really appreciate it.

- Oh, thank you, Inga, for what you do to bring all of our agriculture stories to the table and especially all the cool things women are doing in the rural hinterlands.

[both chuckling] - To prepare for my own Soil Sisters potluck, I invited over my favorite Soil Sister, my mom, to make her famous homemade crackers.

Making crackers at home is so easy and so delicious.

And here is exactly how we did it.

- All right, so let's start.

We're gonna do one cup of rye flour and one cup of just whole wheat flour.

And to that, Inga is going to add her pinches to make it a good half a teaspoon.

- Of salt or everything?

- Of salt.

– Inga: Oh, good.

– Cynthia: Okay.

1/4 cup of olive oil.

Sesame seeds are actually so good.

With this cracker recipe, anything that you like can go in it: flaxseed, chia, sunflower seeds.

Or pepitas.

– Inga: And then cranberries.

- Hot water, 2/3 cup of really, I've been using very hot water.

[spoon clinking] And the two pieces of paper.

- Right here, parchment.

[gentle acoustic music] - I'm just cutting, picking this away.

So I'm going to go.

I'm not going all the way through.

– Inga: You're scoring.

– Cynthia: Scoring it.

Yes, thank you.

And then I'll score this way.

Poke holes.

Now this is-- - Salt.

- This is my favorite part.

- And now we're gonna put these in the oven at 350?

375?

- Let's go 375 for 15 minutes, flip 'em, add 10 minutes, check.

When these edges are getting brown, you really gotta pull it out quick.

- When the crackers were ready, we used them to round out a spectacular cheese and charcuterie board.

[gentle acoustic guitar music] I was so inspired by everything that I learned about the Soil Sisters that I decided to invite them up to my own farm.

[uplifting music] To celebrate all the great things that happen when women in agriculture come together [uplifting music] to share ideas, [uplifting music] support each other, [uplifting music] and enjoy a delicious meal made with our own hands.

[group chatting] [group laughing] Well, I hope this has inspired you to invite some lovely ladies out for a potluck.

And I hope you'll gather with us next time, - In unison: Around the Farm Table !

- I'm your host, Inga Witscher.

– Soil Sister: Cheers, yay!

– Group: Cheers!

[glasses clinking] [upbeat folk music] - Announcer: Support for Around the Farm Table is provided by Wisconsin Farmers Union, a gift in memory of Wendy Bladorn, Marge Engelman, Fromagination, Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.