Farm Kids are Healthier!

I was flipping through one of the many farming magazines that come across my office desk the other day and a short article caught my eye.  It was the magazine Farm Life and was entitled, “Farm Kids are healthier.”  It was a short article that talks about a new study being done that is researching why kids who grow up in an agricultural environment have less asthma, wheezing and allergic reactions than non-farm children.  My first thought was, I had no idea that this was the case…my second thought was, this is really awesome!

 My hypothesis…all that good dirt we eat as kids!

The study that will conclude in 2017 is going to be looking at 100 pregnant farm women and 100 pregnant non-farm women searching for anything that might pinpoint why farm kids are growing up healthier.  Matthew C. Keifer, MD, MPH is the investigator for this study and is working with the National Farm Medicine Center and University of Wisconsin.  “Allergic conditions are overreactions of the immune system.  If we can figure out what it is about the farm environment that modulates or calms down the immune system, we can probably develop a method to get that kid of remedy available to non-farm kids.”

While I’m sure this isn’t always the case across the board. I do think that it will be very fascinating to see if anything can be pinpointed in a life surrounded by agriculture that helps with asthma and allergies. I will say that from a personal experience as a homegrown farm kid from a grass seed farm, that grass pollen that makes many in Oregon miserable for weeks on end has never even caused me to sniffle. It’s not scientific I know, but maybe there is something to that outside exposure….or like I said before maybe it’s just all the dirt I ate as a kid!

 

Swiss Chard

I promised you “more on this topic” last week, and well, I’m just getting to it today for another photo Friday.  I will say again that this is yet another new crop for our farm.  We have added quite a few in the past couple of years.  This is due to many factors.  The saying of “putting all your eggs in one basket” comes quick to my mind.  But more than that, we are always looking for good crops to rotate through our soils.  In our soils good and consistent crop rotation is a huge help with weed pressure, soil preservation, disease management and adding organic matter back into our soils.  I will also point out, that we are incredibly lucky to farm where we farm.  Crop rotation with as many different crops to choose from isn’t the norm in many agricultural areas in the world.

Vegetable seed crops in general are a bit harder to grow because just getting the “permission” or go ahead to plant the seed is tough enough.  There are strict rules on isolation (or area around your field) due to pollination boundaries, plant back timing, ability to get a contract, etc.  Because of many of these reasons we haven’t been in the vegetable seed market for very long.  An opportunity came up last year to put cabbage and radish in the ground and we jumped at the chance to add to our rotation options.  This year Swiss chard became available and we again jumped on it.

  
Swiss chard has become a more popular crop because of the growing market of mixed green salad mixes.  Many of which I buy, many of which have random groupings of lettuces and leafy greens that I can’t decipher from each other.  But thankfully, people seem to love an alternative to the iceberg lettuce head and the added variety of something maybe a bit easier to grab and maybe a little fancier looking on their plates.

  
So not only have opportunites for our farm’s location opened up, markets also always continue to change and make the list of crops on our farm change from year to year.  This coming crop year we plan to grow 11 different crops and if you follow along for the next year I’m sure  you will get to know more about each than maybe you care to…but it’s a sneak peak at what we have to work with as farmers.

In other news it was a little foggy morning here in the Willamette Valley! I love fall, which means by default I love the fog! Here’s a sunrise photo I caught on my way to work this morning.  

 Happy Friday!

 

Looking for Sprout

We have added another crop to our list of plants growing at Kirsch Family Farms! Swiss Chard is in the ground and hopefully going to show its pretty red face here very soon!

We have been doing a lot of searching for sprouts, everyday looks a little something like this…  Then just a few days ago, we dug and found our first little baby chard sprout!! Not quite out of the ground, but heading in the right direction!  

The field overall doesn’t look like something to brag about yet, but I have a feeling we will see a drastic change over the next few days as these little suckers reach for the sky!  

Stay tuned for updated photos and more about this new crop on Monday!