-"Real Virginia" is proudly produced
by the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation.
Since 1926, Farm Bureau has been working
to preserve Virginia farms and our rural heritage.
Visit our website at virginiafarmbureau.com.
[ "Virginia" playing ]
♪♪
-♪ Home will always be Virginia ♪
♪ 'Tween the Blue Ridge and Chesapeake Bay ♪
♪ Atlantic to Appalachia ♪
♪ Home in my heart always ♪
-Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Real Virginia,"
a show about Virginia agriculture
and the people who produce all the wonderful products we enjoy,
brought to you by the Virginia Farm Bureau.
-Congress is starting to work on the 2018 Farm Bill.
We'll explain why this legislation
is vitally important to all Americans.
Mark Viette has some tips for caring for orchids,
and Virginia Farm Bureau young farmers
receive more than prizes
when they compete for national contests.
-Welcome back, everyone.
We're coming to you from the Lewis Farm,
where they raise cattle here Powhatan County.
And as Congress works this year,
farmers are pressing to get the 2018 Farm Bill passed.
Turns out this legislation isn't just for agriculture,
but for all Americans.
-In the next few months,
Congressional leaders will begin to map out
how to cut the possible $500 billion pie
on food and farm programs over the next five years.
The legislation is known as the Farm Bill,
and it affects all taxpayers, not just the farming community.
The Farm Bill includes
conservation and farm safety programs,
along with loan guarantees
for rural hospitals and other economic development efforts.
Wilmer Stoneman, Virginia Farm Bureau's
Director of Commodity and Marketing
says the Farm Bill is really for everyone.
-The Farm Bill actually is a five-year spending plan
for the US Department of Agriculture,
and that includes a variety of things,
all the way from helping farmers deal with price fluctuations,
weather problems, droughts, hurricanes, fires.
And it also helps translate from the farm,
providing food to those people that need it.
-While the Farm Bill includes
some support for farm income,
76% of the total Farm Bill budget
is devoted to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
and other direct food assistance initiatives.
Along with other farm programs, a small part of the Farm Bill
subsidizes crop insurance programs.
These have proven to be a more effective way of helping
farmers survive crop failures and natural disasters
than the disaster payments of the past.
America has had a Farm Bill since the Great Depression,
when the economic disaster threatened
the nation's farm economy.
Stoneman said its true purpose
is to provide an economic security blanket
for all Americans.
-It translates into the overall economy.
It helps those areas that don't have broadband,
that don't have certain programs
that are necessary for everyone to succeed.
And just, certainly from the foundation
of having a square meal every day.
-While conservation programs
have been part of the Farm Bill
since the beginning,
the 1985 Farm Bill was the first
to consolidate conservation programs into one department.
Today, much of the federal assistance
is tied to cost-share programs
that require farmers to supplement or fully match
the money they receive
for conservation practices on their farms.
The Farm Bill helps fund these important practices
to protect wetlands, enhance wildlife,
and reduce soil erosion.
In the past 37 years, farmers have made
huge reductions in their environmental footprint.
For example, the USDA says
corn growers are using 41% less land
and that soil loss is down 58% since 1981.
Irrigation water use is down 46%,
and energy use has dropped 41%.
And greenhouse emissions for corn growers are down 31%.
Similar numbers hold for barley,
cotton, soybeans, rice, sugar beets, and wheat,
which represent nearly all major row crops
grown on 225 million acres across the United States.
-So, old school Farm Bills, you know,
were designed to keep farmers farming,
subsidy payments and that type of thing.
Those are kind of washed away.
We're into helping farmers help themselves
through grants and programs
that provide value added agriculture.
-Historically, the Farm Bill is renewed every five years.
The current one expires this coming September,
but there's a long history of extensions and delays
when working with the next one.
In fact, what was meant to be the 2012 Farm Bill
didn't become law until 2014.
That has some political observers
suggesting that the legislation at hand
could wind up being the 2020 Farm Bill.
Farmers are hoping things move much more quickly.
Since they often have to plan
crop rotations years in advance,
they need the stability
of knowing what federal policy will be as soon as possible.
[ "Virginia" plays ]
-While Abraham Lincoln signed legislation
creating the Department of Agriculture in 1862,
the first federal farm legislation
wasn't approved until 1933,
when the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl in the Midwest
were devastating rural America.
The Agricultural Adjustment Act
established production limits for crops
to shore up farm prices
and offered farmers price-support payments.
Land conservation was also a critical part
of the first Farm Bill.
Over the decades, federal farm policy
has shifted dramatically.
Today, farmers generally depend on the free market
for all their income,
although crop insurance and conservation programs
remain a vital part of the legislation.
-I'm Mark Viette.
Coming up on "In the Garden",
we're gonna talk about the number-one selling plant.
Stay with us.
-More than 90 years ago, the Virginia Farm Bureau
made a promise to our local farmers
to protect and preserve a way of life
they'd worked so hard to establish.
Today, our insurance agents work
to protect all Virginians, not just farmers.
Anyone can be a Farm Bureau member
and enjoy the many benefits of membership.
There's a local Farm Bureau in every county of the state.
We think everyone should be a friend of the farm.
Visit our website at vafb.com
to learn more.
♪♪
-Really?
Buzz, what's up, man?
You left some leaves burning out here.
-Yeah, I-I just, and there was a --
I had -- just came in just for a second.
-Come on, man. If it's too hot to text,
it's too hot to leave.
You could torch the whole neighborhood.
-It's a good point, there, Smo...key.
-9 out of 10 wildfires are caused by humans.
-Only you can prevent wildfires.
-Orchids are now one the most popular plants
for both homeowners and gardeners.
Mark Viette explains
how to help them thrive in the garden.
♪♪
-I'm here at Strange's Greenhouse
at their annual Orchid show.
Now, my second-favorite orchid is the Lady Slipper Orchid.
And they really look like lady slippers.
They're about as easy to grow as the Phalaenopsis.
Again, not full light, but moderate light.
And the other thing you want to make sure
is that the orchids are not sitting in a tray
or a container that fills with water.
You want to water them well,
but the water needs to drain out.
But these are beautiful.
Just look at the sizes of these flowers
on the Lady Slipper orchid.
One of my grandfather's favorite plants was orchids,
and, you know, over 40 years ago --
I'll just leave it at that --
my grandfather would have me water his orchids
in his tropical garden in St. Thomas.
He recuperated from three heart attacks
and had a 12-acre garden.
His favorite orchid out of all of them
was the beautiful Phalaenopsis.
And this is a beautiful one here.
He also really enjoyed growing the pure white Phalaenopsis.
They're easy to grow indoors.
It is now the number-one most popular plant.
It used to be poinsettias.
Now, orchids have taken over the spot.
One of the tips I learned about
is they like bright light, but not full light.
So, they need some protection from the light.
One of the things to keep in mind on orchids overall --
if the foliage is warm to the touch,
it's probably getting too much sun.
So, they like bright light, but not full sunlight.
The Phalaenopsis --
they'll bloom for six weeks or eight weeks,
and that also is probably one of my favorite orchids.
You know, after looking at all of these orchids,
I think they're all gonna become my favorites,
but if you have more light, you can grow the Cattleyas,
which are very familiar to many of us,
and also you have the Dendrobiums,
which are great to grow in more light conditions.
Keep in mind, you can put these outdoors
during the summer months.
So, after threat of frost or cold weather,
you can put these outdoors.
Again, you want to put them in filtered, bright shade,
not too much sun for some of them,
and you can just let them be outside all summer long.
They'll get the natural humidity.
And then in the fall, you can bring them back indoors
and enjoy them during the winter with their blooming.
Now you're gonna find a lot more orchid varieties
available everywhere.
You know, pretty much every store,
you're gonna find orchids.
And that is due to the way that they propagate them.
They've been able to propagate them
through cloning or tissue culture,
and they've been able to produce, you know,
hundreds of thousands of the same plant.
But I was just talking to Art Chadwick,
and one of the things that he does is he boards orchids.
So, you can find, in certain cities,
people that will hold and grow your orchids
when you don't want them in your house.
And in his case, it's like $2 a plant.
And then he mentioned
he had 13,000 orchids in 11 greenhouses,
and most of them are not his.
They're other people's orchids that he's babysitting.
I'm Mark Viette.
Join me next time "In the Garden".
For more garden tips, go to inthegardenradio.com.
-Chef Maxwell has a fun fish dish
with a colonial history behind it
next in the "Heart of the Home".
-Horses, food and fun.
They're all coming March 23rd to the 25th
at the Virginia Horse Festival at Meadow Event Park.
Experience three days of family-friendly activities
for the horse lover in all of us.
Shop vendors selling boots, barns, food, and trailers.
New this year, children 12 and under are free.
Visit the Chenery Collection
of rare Meadow Stable memorabilia
as we celebrate the birthday of Secretariat,
America's most famous race horse.
Learn more at virginiahorsefestival.com
or on Facebook on the Virginia Horse Festival page.
[ "Hall of the Mountain King" plays ]
[ Engine rumbling ]
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
-Salt cod was a common dish in Colonial days.
Chef John Maxwell shows us a fun recipe
for a Caribbean dish called "stamp and go"
in the "Heart of the Home".
♪♪
Hi, and welcome to "Heart of the Home".
We're here at Meadow Hall in Meadow Event Park,
and we're getting ready to play with some great Virginia food.
Today, we've got a very old recipe
that comes to us from Jamaica,
but was very, very popular in Virginia in the colony times.
All along the James River, the colonies had great trade
with tobacco and pineapple and molasses.
So, this dish is called "stamp and go".
And it's called "stamp and go" because when you eat it,
you want to stamp your foot and go on to get another one.
So it's called "stamp and go".
This is salt cod, also known as baccala.
Alright, this is usually caught in the North Atlantic
off of Newfoundland, Maine, that kind of area,
and then treated with salt.
Doesn't need to be refrigerated.
It's cured.
It's like the ham of the ocean.
So, I've got a piece cut out here.
This is thawed out.
I keep mine frozen just because it's convenient for me,
but this is what it's like when I've soaked it
to get the salt out of it.
Alright, and then, this is what happens
when I poach it, alright, and get it cooked.
So, I'm gonna take this, and I'm gonna put the cod fish
in the bottom of this bowl.
You see how easy it flakes.
Now, it's just poached for a little while,
and now I'm gonna add some onions...
...and some flour...
...and some lightly beaten egg...
...some milk...
...and I'm gonna whisk this all together.
We've got it.
Just gonna try and make a paste out of this.
And get it mashed all in there good.
Now I'm gonna take some habanero pepper...
...a little salt.
Be careful with the salt, though,
'cause the salted cod has got a lot of salt in it already.
We try and leach it out before we use it, so...
But it's still got a lot of salt.
And some pepper, and this is called annatto oil.
It's just olive oil that we've simmered
a little bit of annatto seed in, and you can get annatto seed
at pretty much anywhere they sell spices, so...
And in a Spanish market,
you can get the annatto oil itself.
It's rich, it's got an interesting flavor,
and gives a nice, little color to this.
So, I'm just gonna add a little bit of that.
Alright, and you can see how red it is.
And there it goes around.
Alright.
That's done. I'm gonna add a little bit of butter, melted.
These recipes are available to get the specific amounts,
you can go to the Farm Bureau website
or to the Chef John Maxwell website,
and the recipes are up there
along with videos on how to do this.
Alright. Now that this is mixed,
I'm gonna add some baking powder.
Alright.
And I'm just gonna let it sit for a second here,
and let...the baking powder begin to work a little bit.
Alright, now this is all mixed up,
it's nice and smooth, we're ready to go.
I'm gonna put a little bit of oil in this pan.
Alright.
And put a few of these little fritters in there.
And these are gonna spread out just a little bit.
Baking powder's gonna react,
cause it to rise just a little bit.
And you'll see it doesn't stick.
Starting to be nice, golden brown.
Yeah, that's what I'm looking for right there.
So, we'll leave the other two
to go for a couple of more seconds.
Alright.
Turn this off.
You see how -- yeah, I like food that takes a long time to cook.
You're sweating it out in the kitchen all day.
Not.
Alright.
Stamp and go.
In Jamaica still today,
you can get these from vendors on the street.
You just walk up, they're frying them off all the time,
and you take it, you stamp, and then get out of the way
for somebody else to enjoy it.
So, join us next week on "Heart of the Home",
where we get to play with great Virginia food.
-Recipes from the "Heart of the Home"
can be found on the Virginia Farm Bureau website
at vafb.com,
as well as on Chef Maxwell's website,
at chefjohnmaxwell.com.
♪♪
-Cod is not a native fish in Virginia,
but seafood and aquaculture
are a half-a-billion dollar industry in the Old Dominion.
50 commercial fish species
are harvested from Virginia's farms, rivers,
lakes, and the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean.
Thanks to explosive growth in farm-raised clams and oysters,
Virginia's also the largest
shellfish-producing state in the nation.
And Virginia oysters are so popular with consumers
that a combination restaurant and tourist trail
has been developed.
Virginia farm-raised trout, hybrid-striped bass,
and catfish are popular.
And the nation's largest indoor tilapia farm is in Martinsville, Virginia.
-There are 30,000 roadway accidents each year
involving cars and farm machinery.
Farmers will be moving equipment for planting and harvest season.
The slow-moving vehicle triangle
in red and florescent orange colors and flashing lights
allow for quick identification.
When you see an SMV sign on farm equipment, slow down,
prepare for sudden stops and slow turns.
-Patience will save lives.
Just remember we all need to share the road,
we all need to be responsible,
and we need to be guided by the law.
-Motor vehicle safety starts with you.
♪♪
-Every year, Virginia Farm Bureau young farmers
measure themselves against their peers,
and as Dave Miller tells us, this year's winners say
they got more out of the process than just a free tractor.
Each year, the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation's
Young Farmer Program sponsors state competitions
where the winners advance to the national level.
Justin and Lori McClellan of Smith County
and Casey and Stacey Phillips of Montgomery County
were the 2018 American Farm Bureau Federation
national runners up.
They were awarded a new Case IH tractor
during the AFBF annual convention
in Nashville in January.
But both say the experience was a reward in itself.
-The real achievement in this
is going back and looking at where you came from
to where you've ended up today.
And in that is the ultimate award in what we've done,
is from where we originated at to where we ended up at today.
It help us set some future goals
to build, to grow our operation.
To grow some of our community involvement
and to keep interacting with our family here on the farm.
-But I think we kind of learned our weaknesses
and we learned more of our strengths
based in the application.
-You look back and think,
"Wow, that's -- I can't believe all those things
that we have accomplished",
but also the opportunities that it has brought,
like going to the nationals and competing.
That's an experience in itself.
-You'll learn a lot about yourself.
You learn a lot about your operation,
and you begin to see...
where your strengths and your weaknesses are.
-The McClellans came in second
in the Young Farmer and Rancher Achievement Award,
and the Phillips were second
in the Excellency in Agriculture Award.
Both competitions examine
more than just the farm's bottom line.
The contestants were also judged
on their overall contributions to their communities,
to agriculture, and to the Farm Bureau.
Casey Phillips says they deliberately made public outreach
a key element in their latest business venture
on their dairy farm.
-With our sweet corn patch, Dry Valley Farms,
you know, we invite people out to the farm
where they can pick sweet corn during the summer
and take it home and, you know, eat it fresh that day.
And it also helps people see
why farming and agriculture is important, you know,
by getting them here on the farm.
-An elementary school teacher by day,
Stacey Phillips married into her husband's farm family
and brings a new perspective to their outreach efforts.
She uses social media to introduce farming to consumers
and explain modern farm practices.
-Until we started dating,
I had that consumer perspective of the farm,
and so I think that helps anyway,
being able to communicate that side to the consumers
what I have learned just being a part of the farms.
-Both young farmer families believe
being involved in their communities is important.
And those activities help them stand out
in the national competitions.
The McClellans compete in horse roping and barrel riding
and host charity benefits on their farm.
That's on top of their beef cattle and sheep operation
and their excavation business.
In addition to their social media work,
the Phillips host farm tours for young groups on their farm
and share the importance of agriculture
with adults and children alike.
Both couples are dedicated to farming
and eager for their children to follow in their footsteps.
-Yeah, we have a two-year-old daughter,
and we would like to get her involved
and, you know, just raise her here on the farm
and teach her values and morals and things like that.
-Watching the boys on the farm with their dad
and watching them see the value of hard work
and just seeing how hard their dad and their pa-pa work on the farm.
And knowing that they're getting those values
is something that you don't see a whole lot today.
-The average age of a Virginia farmer
is almost 60 now,
and few young people enter the field.
So, it's encouraging to see and recognize
young farmers like these
as they prepare to lead their rural communities
into the future.
I'm Dave Miller, reporting.
That's gonna do it for this edition of "Real Virginia".
We are so glad you could join us
to celebrate the bounty Virginia has to offer.
Whether it's in your home, your garden, or your landscape,
we are proud to say that this is "Real Virginia".
So, for everyone from the Virginia Farm Bureau,
thanks for watching.
Make it a good week.
[ "Virginia" playing ]
♪♪
-♪ Home will always be ♪
♪ Virginia ♪
♪ 'Tween the Blue Ridge ♪
♪ And Chesapeake Bay ♪
♪ Atlantic to Appalachia ♪
♪ Home in my heart always ♪
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