Two vendors and music

Two of our many vendors, ME Garden and Spice Market and Crooked Birch Kitchen, with music in the background.

Local, organic, grass-fed beef

I can speak to the quality of this beef! Despite the misgivings of my husband about tenderness, we splurged on tenderloin steaks from the Miles Smith Farm and ate them Saturday night with potato salad made from Dan Comte's potatoes and tomatoes from our own containers on the deck. The beef from the grill was very tender, and very tasty, and I felt a whole lot better about eating it, knowing the steer it came from had had a happy ruminant life, eating what a steer is supposed to eat, grass. No corn laced with antibiotics, no standing in a manure pile in a stockyard with hardly room to move.

Thank you for coming to the market, Miles Smith Farm!

News flash from the market

We have 3 pieces of news, for this week's farmers market (08/20).

We are very pleased that the Miles Smith Farm will be joining us at the Northwood market, this week. They have an excellent reputation for beef that are raised in a natural and kind environment, free of chemicals and hormones.

They are in great demand and may not be able to be at every week's market - so take advantage while you can :) Here is a link to their website, if you'd like to check them out.

August 27th market (NEXT week) - we will be accepting donations for the Northwood Food Pantry. Their inventory is particularly low right now and are in need of non-perishables (canned goods, cereals etc.), paper products (toilet paper, diapers) and toiletries. They will also be accepting donations of products (including produce) purchased at the market.

We are happy for Linsay and Ryan - who both start teaching jobs next week ... but sad that this means that this week is the last week that "My Street Bakery" (pies, cookies and whoopie pies) will be joining us this season .…they plan to be back next year. They also have a website, if you're interested. Congratulations to both of them.

See you at the market, on Thursday,

The Cable Advisory Committee Visits the Market

The Northwood Cable Advisory Committee visited the market on Aug. 13 with a video of selections of shows taped, information about Public Access TV, and notice of a Videography Workshop coming up in Oct. at the library. For more information about the workshop you can use the links at the bottom of the page here or contact the library here.

If you are interested in getting involved with the Public Access TV in Northwood please contact the cable coordinator through the Northwood Town Hall at 603-942-5586.

USDA Conservation Stewardship Sign-Ups Begin

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has begun continuous sign-up for the new Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) in New Hampshire. The first cutoff for ranking purposes is scheduled for September 30, State Conservationist George W. Cleek, IV., announced today.

"The Conservation Stewardship Program changed dramatically in the 2008 Farm Bill," said Cleek. "NRCS took the time to develop a program that would appeal to our diverse customers and offer them an equal chance to participate. We hope that agricultural and forestry producers in New Hampshire take full advantage of the benefits this newly revised program offers." The average maximum assistance is $15 per acre with lesser amounts determined by the program criteria. "If you are already doing a good job with conservation stewardship, this program may be the right fit for you", said Cleek. Any interested landowner should first work with his or her Farm Service Agency office to establish or update their farm records. Once that is complete, the landowner should contact the local NRCS or Conservation District office to file an application. Both steps must be complete by September 30 of this year to be eligible for the first round of ranking.

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (2008 Farm Bill) authorized the Conservation Stewardship Program. Congress renamed and revamped the former Conservation Security Program completely to improve its availability and appeal to agricultural and forestry producers. The Conservation Stewardship Program will be offered in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Pacific and Caribbean areas through continuous sign-ups with announced cut-off application dates for ranking periods. The maximum annual enrollment is capped at nearly 12.8 million acres nationwide.

NRCS administers CSP, a voluntary conservation program designed to encourage agricultural and forestry producers to adopt additional conservation practices and improve, maintain and manage existing ones.

To apply for the newly revamped CSP, individual producers, legal entities and Indian tribes will be encouraged to use a self-screening checklist first to determine whether the new program is suitable for them or their operation. The checklist is available on NRCS Web sites and at NRCS field offices.

After the self-screening, the producer's current and proposed conservation activities are entered in the conservation measurement tool (CMT). This tool estimates the level of environmental performance to be achieved by a producer implementing and maintaining conservation activities. The conservation performance estimated by the CMT will be used to rank applications.

A producer must treat at least one resource concern and one priority resource concern during the length of the CSP's five-year contract. The New Hampshire NRCS has identified five priority resource concerns used to rank applications and will establish ranking pools to rank applications with similar resource concerns. The priority areas are: animal, energy, plant, water quality and soil quality (agricultural land) or soil erosion (non-industrial private forest land).

NRCS field staff will conduct on-site field verifications of pre-approved applicants' information provided for the CMT.

Another major change in the program is the method of payments. CSP will offer two possible types of payments-annual and supplemental. The annual payment will be established using the conservation performance estimated by the CMT and calculated by land use type for enrolled eligible land. A supplemental payment is also available to participants who also adopt a resource-conserving crop rotation. The annual payment limitation for a person or legal entity is $40,000. A person or legal entity cannot exceed $200,000 for all contracts entered into during any five-year period.

Individual producers, legal entities and Indian tribes must meet several requirements to obtain a Conservation Stewardship Program contract. They must be listed as the operator in the USDA farm records management system for the operation being offered for enrollment. They must document that they control the land for the term of the contract and include all eligible land in their entire operation in that contract. They must comply with highly erodible land and wetland conservation provisions and comply with Adjusted Gross Income provisions.

Eligible lands include cropland, grassland, improved pastureland, non-industrial private forestland-a new land use for the program-and agricultural land under the jurisdiction of an Indian tribe.

Land enrolled in the Conservation Security Program, Conservation Reserve Program, Grasslands Reserve Program and Wetlands Reserve Program are ineligible for the new Conservation Stewardship Program.

The new CSP is very different from the old Conservation Security Program. Under the old program, producers were eligible if they were in the selected watersheds. All contracts under the old CSP will be honored until the end of the contract term.

For more information about the new CSP, please visit the Conservation Stewardship website. For more information about conservation programs in New Hampshire, please visit the Natural Resources Conservation Service website.

Girl power!

The Northwood Girl Scouts joined us at the market on Aug. 6th. Northwood has a large contingent of Girl Scouts, Jane Thul, scout leader, told me. Jane has been involved with the Girl Scouts for 50 years (I hope she doesn't mind me telling you that!) and recently traveled to Colorado for a reunion with women from all over.

If you want more information on the Northwood Girl Scouts, click here .

"Once Upon a Farm"

Rebecca Horan was our guest at the Northwood Farmers Market on Thursday July 30th selling and signing her newly released book: “Once Upon a Farm – A Fairly True Tale”.

In this quaint farm tale, Horan relates her story in a unique way. Rebecca uses the rehabilitation of an injured fawn as her excuse to start the farm she's always wanted. Along the way, she falls in love with life again ... and the handsome farmer next door.

In this heart-warming tale with characters both real and imagined, Rebecca leaves the reader to decide where the truth lies and the dreams become reality.

If you missed getting your copy at the market you can contact Abby Anderson at abby@publishingworks.com or at 603-772-7200.