Practical Farmers of Iowa (PPI) staffers, Teresa and Suzi, recently spent a day on the Scattergood Friends School Farm touring and learning about student projects, seeing herds of sheep and cattle, pigs, flocks of poultry, and tasting bounty such as heirloom tomatoes. The working farm provides lessons and experiences integral to the Scattergood Friends education.

The PPI post also includes a nice set of pictures. Read: ‘Farming for Food”

Read our earlier post, “Scattergood Friends School: Building Agricultural Self-Sufficiency and Local Food Webs:”

For Background, here’s a blurb from the PPI web site:

“In 1985, Iowa agriculture was in a threefold crisis. Evidence of the negative ecological consequences of current farming practices was mounting; the collapse of commodity prices called into question the economic sustainability of agriculture; and the demise of thousands of farms was draining the vitality of rural communities.

From the turmoil emerged a new paradigm—sustainable agriculture—and in Iowa, a new organization emerged to promote that paradigm, Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI). Founded as an information-sharing and community-building organization for producers, PFI has emerged as a leader in science-based approaches to sustainable agriculture and in the creation of new marketing relationships that can more readily sustain family farms.”