Top 6 Beginning Farming Links

Yesterday on the Epi-log I posted, "My Top 6 Favorite Farm Food Sites," for all of the readers. Today I thought I would post my Top 6 Beginning Farmer Sites. These are just some of the sites I like to check out for information, articles, and encouragement. I would love to hear what your favorite farming sites are also!

-National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service - ATTRA (Lots of good links to recent news, legislation, and publications to help farmers)

-Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education - SARE (The name says it all, but they also have links for educators, researchers, and consumers ... so it helps connect all groups)

-New Farm (They have changed their website up a bit and they don't seem to update as often with new articles, but they still have a ton of good information)

-American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (The place to be if you are interested in the importance of minor and heritage breeds ... and we probably all should be to some extent)

-Practical Farmers of Iowa (Of course this is very regional and they don't have a ton of written articles on their site, but it is a great resource for me as it helps connect me with other farmers in my area)

-Homesteading Today (Not totally farm related or even made for farmers, but they have good forums on cattle ... pigs ... gardening ... and just general topics full of knowledgeable people. Plus, good debate)

So, what are some of your top favorites?

The Stockman Grass Farmer

This past week I received my first two issues of The Stockman Grass Farmer magazine. They were running a special (like all publications always are doing) where you could get two free back issues with your subscription ... so, these are my two back issues. I am very excited about getting this magazine because it will provide a new source of monthly information on grass farming and grazing in general. Plus, it hits the issue from all different angles.

For example, in the August 2005 back issue I received there is a sidebar article on the cover titled, "Surgeon Has Developed A Growing Heart Healthy Grassfed Beef Business." That title caught my eye right away because one of the many reasons I became interested in grassfed beef was because of the health issues. Last year I found out the details of what I guessed was the case. I have rather high cholesterol ... especially when you consider my age. In fact you can just about take my age and add a zero at the end and you get my cholesterol reading! I had read that there were benefits from eating grassfed beef so I started doing some research.

My dad would love nothing more than to feed our cattle corn ... he says it just feels like the right thing to do. But, from a financial standpoint and from a health standpoint and from a "God created cows to eat grass" kind of standpoint that just isn't the right thing to do and I am having to slowly convince him of that fact. I'm hoping this article will be another piece in the puzzle.

The article talks about Steve Atchley who grew up on a cattle ranch in Texas, but ended up leaving the ranch to become a heart surgeon. Later in his career he developed a hand condition that stopped him from being able to perform surgery. That is when he decided to take another approach to attack heart problems. It seems like his approach was two-fold. Yes, he truly believes that the grassfed beef is healthy for the heart, but two he believes that having a grassfed system is more healthy for the farmer/rancher. In the beginning of the article he says, "I could see first hand that the stress of commodity ranching was literally killing them," when talking about the farmers and ranchers he had as patients.

He went on to form a business distributing grassfed beef across the west. He has faced opposition along the way from the grain based folks and from the natural grain based farmers, but he feels that he is on the right track for the cattle and for the people that eat them.

"I was firmly convinced that you couldn't feed grain and have a heart healthy product," said Mr. Atchley.