♪ ♪ JOANNE: From the shore to the mountains and all points in between there's a wagonload of agricultural goodness to be had.

Did you know, that some cow's milk packs a special protein punch?

That a newfound farm can still have deep roots?

And a chef's table starts on a farm?

Don't go anywhere, stories about the people who work the land and feed our state are coming up next on Maryland Farm and Harvest.

NARRATOR: Major funding for "Maryland Farm and Harvest" is made possible in part by, The Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, investing in smarter farming to support safe and affordable food, feed and fuel, and a healthy Bay.

Additional funding provided by, Maryland's Best, good for you, good for Maryland.

A grant from the Rural Maryland Council, Maryland Agricultural Education and Rural Development Fund.

MARBIDCO helping to sustain food and fiber enterprise for future generations.

A grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture, Specialty Crop Block Program.

Farm Credit, lending support to agriculture and rural America.

The Maryland Soy Bean board and Soy Bean Check Off program, progress powered by farmers.

Wegmans Food Markets, healthier, better lives through food.

The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

The Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences.

And by... (theme music playing).

JOANNE: For many farmers, to be successful means finding a unique niche and then creating a market demand.

Hi, I'm Joanne Clendining, this week we're at Deep Run Farms in Westminster, where farmer Greg Horner realized that if his family farm was to succeed, it was go big or go home.

Purchasing a nearby farm, and leasing even more land, he's now growing fruits and vegetables on a sizable 235-acre operation.

Coming up, when it comes to finding your roots, a farmer in Prince George's County, found that hers ran deep.

But first, this Middletown dairy operation found their niche through the genetic of selectively bred cows that produce milk that's both delicious and easy on the tummy.

♪ ♪ Few things evoke feelings of Americana quite like the scene of grazing cows.

But behind those pastoral pastures are dairy farmers like Pam Moser, performing a job that isn't as much full-time as it is all the time.

PAM: When you pick this farming as your occupation, you marry it.

This is with you 24-7, 365.

And it's yours.

You, you own it.

You don't control anything, but you own it.

JOANNE: But like marriage, Pam is in it for better or worse, richer or poorer.

PAM: Somedays are really easy.

And then there are others that are crazy.

JOANNE: And those crazy days make it tough for small dairy farms to stay afloat.

Katie Stevens of the Frederick County Office of Economic Development helps farmers navigate regulatory practices.

And having grown up on a dairy farm herself, she's well aware of the challenges to keep the milk flowing.

KATIE: A lot of people have gotten out of the dairy business.

We've lost over 50 dairy farms in the last 10 years here in Frederick County.

Dairy farmers are constantly hit with extreme volatility in the dairy market.

Extreme highs and extreme lows and so it's hard to plan for the future.

We've experienced a lot of times over the last five years that farmers are receiving less for their milk than what it costs to produce that milk.

If the future of Maryland dairy farming was in question, no one told the Mosers.

They're a family that's going into its tenth generation of farming and it also helps that the herd at Walnut Ridge Farm is a bit special.

PAM: We're primarily Guernseys.

We also have Jerseys.

We've got some Milking Shorthorns, two Swiss, and we have been breeding our cows for years to be all A2A2.

JOANNE: There's two beta-caseins, or proteins, that make up milk, A1 and A2.

The majority of milk produced on a massive scale contains A1.

Some studies have theorized that the A1 protein is what causes digestive issues with people who have a tough time consuming dairy.

But cows bred to be fully A2, produce a milk that might be easier to stomach.

PAM: I mean we're not doctors by any means, but it opens up such a market for people that thought that they couldn't use dairy.

We have repeat customers and they just, they just rant and rave and they're so excited to be able to put milk and dairy products back into their, back into their diets, that you know, they just can't be thankful enough for the things that we're doing.

JOANNE: Pam and her family have used their A2 dairy to create Moo Cow Creamery offering value-added products like cheese, butter, and ice cream.

That direct-to-consumer approach allows the farmer to set their own price.

It also provides farmers the chance to educate.

PAM: A lot of people now want to know where their food is coming from, versus, just thinking that everything comes from a grocery store, because that's not, that's not exactly how it, how it goes, I mean there's got to be a beginning for everything.

What we sell on our farm we can, we can explain every step from the time that the animals are born up until the time that you know you purchase whatever products out of our store.

JOANNE: It's something that customers like Mandy Rhinecker of Frederick appreciate.

MANDY: I think that the care that they put into them, they have a lot of pride in what they're selling and they're making sure that, that they're bringing a quality product to their customers from the time the cows are fed until it's all the way through processing.

I think that that matters and it shows in the quality of the product that you're getting.

PAM: We're gonna be milking 82 cows this afternoon.

Typical time for a cow to milk out is between two to five minutes.

In that time range, two to five, and usually they're, they're good to go.

JOANNE: For Moo Cow Creamery, producing a quality product starts with happy and healthy cows from birth.

AMBER: Sometimes like, from being born their navels don't heal all the way and they can get an infection and that'll cause it, with the weather it could be pneumonia, it's a lot of different things, so you gotta watch everyone, every day.

JOANNE: All the way to the milking parlor.

PAM: You just have to make sure that when you put the milker on that their teat doesn't bend and that it's actually in there the way it's supposed to be properly, because if it bends, obviously she's not gonna milk.

JOANNE: It goes without saying that caring for a herd isn't easy but the Mosers wouldn't have it any other way.

PAM: Most the time we're up by 4:00 and we don't go in until the sun goes down.

There's days that it's not the best, I mean you might have sick cows, you might have sick kids, it's rewarding, aggravating but it's hard to explain, we love it, I mean if we didn't, we wouldn't be here.

They, you know, they love us as much as we love them and it's... well look, look around us, here it is.

JOANNE: Since 2020 Moo Cow Creamery has diversified their products to include eggs and produce.

Plus they're specially licensed for on-farm storage of cheese and butter.

♪ ♪ Alright, it's time to test your inner agronomist.

Here is our thingamajig for the week.

Do you think you know what it is?

No, it's not a medieval weapon.

Here's a hint, you'd have to stretch your imagination if you're farming without this tool.

Stay tuned and we'll have the answer at the end of the show.

In the world of agriculture, specialty crops are the largest category.

They include fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

Here are some picks of the prodigious produce, enjoy.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ While many Maryland farms are family-owned going back generations, there's a new crop of farmers that are pivoting from other industries.

They may not have generations of land and experience, but as our next farmer will tell you, her agri-roots still run deep.

♪ ♪ Deep Roots Farm in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, is only about three years old.

Its owner, Gail Livingston made the switch from accountant to farmer just 10 years ago.

GAIL: No babies.

JOANNE: This morning, she's conducting the day's first audit of the hen house.

GAIL: Raising the leafy greens is completely different to raising chickens.

Chickens are some real stinky animals, ok?

Not growing up farming, some folks would say puts you at a disadvantage.

But I don't believe that.

JOANNE: The farming bug had already taken root when in 2015, Gail found herself standing in a community garden.

GALE: And I was out there one day and I was like, 10x10 plot harvested a ton of food, and I was like "Oh, hm, what if I had more space?

What could I potentially grow?

How much could I grow?"

And it just kind of ballooned from there and here I am today, now farming on 53 acres of land.

(laughs).

This is our propagation house, and it's overflowing right now, we probably have, I'd say over 5,000 plugs in here, easily right now.

So this year, we're working with other farmers and producers in Prince George's County to offer a CSA program.

We also do farmer's markets, we do the Dupont Circle market on Sunday, we do another market in DC on Saturday.

JOANNE: She makes it sound easy, but the road from accountant to full-time farmer was far from it.

GALE: Perseverance, persistence, you know, and wherewithal, I think is one of, some of the qualities that are required to survive as a farmer or as an entre, entrepreneur period.

JOANNE: By 2019 she was working with a farm service agency, developing a business plan, looking at land.

GALE: And in 2020, I actually closed on this land.

JOANNE: 2020, as I'm sure you recall, was the year of Covid.

It was not a good year to start a farm.

GALE: Here we are at the height of the Covid and I'm sitting on new ground, no road, no infrastructure, no electricity, no water, just, basically, raw land.

It was, I mean it was overwhelming.

JOANNE: And to top it all off, her soil tests were not showing signs of life.

GALE: When I first got here, we did our soil testing and we tested all of our different fields and, it was not good results.

The organic matter was really low.

So it was below 1% when I first got here.

JOANNE: 3% to 6% is where she needed to be.

So, she got to work.

♪ ♪ GALE: So from 2020 to 2022 I've spent the last two, three years just cleaning this place up and getting it back into production.

JOANNE: From the get-go, Gale's been feeding her soil a cover crop salad of rye, clover, and hairy vetch and following that up with an entree of mushroom compost with sides of hydrated chicken manure, alfalfa, and kelp meal.

GALE: I've sent off soil samples from these tunnels a few weeks back.

We got the results back and so things are looking really good.

When we first got here, this tunnel pretty much everything was deficient at that time, so all the nitrates, all of our phosphorus, our calcium, our potassium, our manganese was low.

Now, today, all of those are in the sufficient range which is ideal for what we're going to be growing this season.

In the past three years we went from, you know, sitting fallow to working the soil and improving the soil from you know under 1% organic matter to now over 3% organic matter so, you know, we're, hopefully, I guess we're doing something right.

JOANNE: Healthy fields isn't her only goal, Gale's working to be a mentor to the new generation of farmers in her community.

GALE: You see how quickly I'm moving my hands.

STUDENT: Mm-hm.

GALE: You should be moving your hands just a quick.

Mentoring and having a support system as a beginning farmer was so instrumental in my success, so now I've decided I wanted to provide the same opportunity for other individuals in the community that want to embark on this journey.

We have this beautiful old tobacco barn here and when I first came to this property, I saw this tobacco barn I was like, "Wow, this is an awesome space for learning."

And this building will be converted into an education center to offer classes, not just to adolescents, but also to families and to beginning farmers.

JOANNE: Like Gale Livingston, who started with a dream to grow leafy greens all year long.

GALE: You just have to know how to do it.

That's what this education center's gonna offer to the residents of this county and individuals from far and all across the country.

JOANNE: Farmer Gale has big plans for Deep Roots, besides the mentorship program, livestock, beehives, and even camping is in store for the future.

We look forward to a return visit.

STEVE: Look how big and beautiful these are.

Doing what the farmer says.

JOANNE: You've heard of farm to table, well we have a new segment coming up that takes a fun twist on that phrase.

But first, to till or not to till?

That is the question on this week's Then and Now.

♪ ♪ Some of the earliest records of tilling come from ancient civilizations like the Egyptians.

For these farmers, a crop's yield meant the difference between prosperity or troubling times, and farming practices were honed to increase yields.

Those early farmers believed that by tilling the ground they brought good soil to the surface and killed the weeds in the seedbed.

For the next several thousand years tilling would become common practice.

Until an event in the early 1900s made soil scientists begin to pay attention to the effects of tilling.

With westward expansion, farmers moved out west and religiously tilled their soils.

Eventually, the soil had little to no roots left in place to hold the dirt causing massive dust storms known as The Dust Bowl.

In large part, that eye-opening event ushered in the practice of reduced or no-till farming.

This new farming method has resulted in a substantial increase in the level of soil health.

The details are in the dirt as they say, and Marylanders aren't the type to fall behind, just last year, Maryland's no-till or reduce-till farmers worked close to a million acres of land all in the efforts to preserve soil health and stop runoff from getting into the nearby water sources.

Modern-day farmers have the luxury of their time period, considering it took the culmination of human agricultural history and some modern science to finally answer that age-old question, to till or not to till?

We're excited to introduce a fresh new segment to the show, we're calling it Farm to Skillet.

Each Farm to Skillet segment will feature a different chef who sources ingredients from a different farmer's market around the state.

Then, whips up a tasty meal that you can try at home.

This week, we head to Baltimore City for an Asian Fusion treat.

♪ ♪ Hi, my name's Steve Chu, chef and co-founder of Ekiben restaurants here in Baltimore, Maryland and today we're going to be making one of my favorite dishes, lo mein.

But we're gonna do our own luxurious spin on it, we're gonna be making a surf and turf lo mein, so join me while we source all of the ingredients for our dish right here at the Fells Point Farmer's Market.

(dog barking).

VENDOR: What's going on, how you doing?

STEVE: Long time, no see!

VENDOR: Yeah, it's good to see ya.

STEVE: So uh, you got some beef?

VENDOR: Yea, yea we got a ton of beef.

STEVE: So I'm looking for something that's like really well marbled.

Look at the marbling on this ribeye, absolutely gorgeous.

Yeah, I think I'm sold.

VENDOR: Ok. STEVE: And the bone's in, so it's gonna add a lot of extra flavor to the dish.

VENDOR: Yeah, that sounds great.

Hey, Steve.

STEVE: Hey, Jason.

JASON: Steve!

STEVE: How are you doing?

Today I'm looking for alliums, I mean like onion, garlic, anything around that realm, you got anything?

JASON: Those uh, green onions, just, now regular sweet onions that aren't dried down.

I do have scallions, do you like red or you like white?

STEVE: Those are gorgeous too.

JASON: I like red.

STEVE: We'll do red.

JASON: One, two, three.

STEVE: Doing what the farmer says.

JASON: There you go.

STEVE: So cute.

VENDOR: Awesome.

STEVE: Perfect.

VENDOR 2: I got some individually quick-frozen scallops.

STEVE: Look at how big and beautiful these are.

VENDOR 2: Absolutely, it's the cotton candy of the sea right there.

STEVE: Oh yes sir.

(laughs).

VENDOR 2: So there we have our 16-20 count shrimp.

STEVE: These smell incredible.

What are those?

VENDOR 2: These are whale-size, individually cleaned, softshell crabs.

STEVE: Whoa!

VENDOR 2: Yes.

STEVE: Definitely softies.

VENDOR 2: Okay.

STEVE: Definitely the shrimp, definitely the scallops, I'll take it all.

Look at all of this incredible produce that we got at the Fells Point Farmer's Market today.

I cannot wait to cook with all this amazing ingredients.

Come on, let's go, let's do it.

♪ ♪ We're in the kitchen of our newest Ekiben location here in South Baltimore and look at all this beautiful bounty we got from the farmer's market.

So for lo mein, you kind of want most of your veggies to be the same texture and length as the noodles.

So as you see we are cutting these onions length-wise.

So these are mushrooms, the smell really, really intense.

So we're just gonna cut off the end and that's it, see everyone can do it, it's really easy.

Look at this thing, this is beautiful.

Look how well-marbled this is.

So you really got to slice it as thin as possible this meat is partially frozen which actually helps tremendously with the slicing, it adds for more interesting textures in the dish.

So now we're going to take all our cut meat and veggies, this beautiful seafood, and head over to the wok which's actually the most fun part of this dish, let's go!

We make sure this thing gets super-hot, like you'll see it's smoking a little bit, once it starts to smoke then you can add your things.

We got our scallops and shrimp here, I'm going to season with a little salt, and we're just going to sear these until they're golden brown.

Okay, look at that, look at that, that's beautiful, golden brown.

Same thing with the shrimp, sear on both sides until it's golden brown.

And we're going to kind of par cook our beef and get a lot of flavor in it, so we're gonna add some onions, and scallions and we're just gonna let that brown a little bit, until you can smell it.

This is our beef from earlier.

So we cooked this beef a little bit, now we're gonna deglaze the pan with a little bit of Shaoxing wine and we're going to add a little bit of soy sauce to this.

This will like give the beef some color.

Okay, so this beef is about medium rare, I'm going to take it out right now.

Now we're going to add our mushrooms, then we're gonna add our noodles.

I wish you guys could smell this, oh it smells incredible.

So we're going to reintroduce our shrimp and our scallops, and here's our beef.

Look at that!

This is like a $42 carryout.

♪ ♪ Drop this guy in for about two minutes.

Woo!

Look at that!

And here we have it, our surf and turf lo mein with jumbo scallops, succulent shrimp, and this huge, crispy, soft-shelled crab.

It's like if China met Baltimore, it is the most Maryland thing ever.

I'm going to go take a bite out of this.

(crunch).

Mmmm.

It's so crunchy, did you hear that?

This is a 20 out of 10, absolutely incredible.

You have to go online to MPT.org/farm and get this recipe like yesterday.

It's incredible.

I'm going to go finish eating this but, catch you guys next time!

JOANNE: Oh man, that looks super tasty.

Be sure to check out MPT.org/farm for all our recipes and resources.

Plus you can watch all Farm and Harvest episodes there as well.

Also, don't forget to follow us on social media for show updates, pictures, and videos.

Now hold on, we're not done yet, remember our thingamajig?

Did you guess it?

Our hint was that you'd have to stretch your imagination if you're farming without this tool.

This is a wire fence stretcher, it would be used when building or repairing a fence.

This metal clamp attaches to the wire, while these spikes dig into the fence post for leverage.

Congratulations if you got it right.

Join us next week for another thingamajig along with more stories about the diverse, passionate people who feed our state.

I'm Joanne Clendining, thanks for watching.

(music plays through credits).

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Major funding for "Maryland Farm and Harvest" was made possible in part by, The Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, investing in smarter farming to support safe and affordable food, feed and fuel, and a healthy Bay.

Additional funding provided by, Maryland's Best, good for you, good for Maryland.

A grant from the Rural Maryland Council, Maryland Agricultural Education and Rural Development Fund.

MARBIDCO helping to sustain food and fiber enterprise for future generations.

A grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture, Specialty Crop Block Program.

Farm Credit, lending support to agriculture and rural America.

The Maryland Soy Bean board and Soy Bean Check Off program, progress powered by farmers.

Wegmans Food Markets, healthier, better lives through food.

The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

The Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences.

And by...