This Friday, August, 6, 2010 at 9 p.m., come to Howell Living History Farm in Lambertville to watch the premiere of “The Farmer and the Horse,” a film that documents a new generation of farmers inspired by sustainability and the using draft horses for power, by freelance journalist Jared Flesher.

As I started getting more interested in stories about where our food comes from, I began meeting interesting young farmers who spoke with passion about completely rethinking our agricultural system to make it healthier and more sustainable,” said Flesher.  “My film focuses on a few particular farmers who are exploring something really different – using draft horses instead of tractors – but their reasons for doing so are very mainstream: They want to be part of a movement that starts to fix the problems created by the industrial agriculture system we have today.

Where: Howell Living History Farm, 70 Woodens Lane, Lambertville, NJ 08530

How Much: Admission is free. Donations to the Friends of Howell Farm will be accepted.

What to Bring: The screening is outdoors, so bring lawns chairs, blankets, and perhaps some bug spray.

What If It Rains: Check www.thefarmerandthehorse.com for updates if the weather looks bad. We have a raindate set for August 20.

NJ State Apiarist Tim Schuler

Tim is the State Apiarist with the New Jersey Department of Agriculture and also teaches the Bee-ginner’s Beekeeping Course at Rutgers University.

Got Honey?

Would you like to keep bees yourself but need to know more about Bee Keeping?

Tim Schuler tells us some of the best places to find information can be found here:

http://www.state.nj.us/agriculture/divisions/pi/prog/beeinspection.html

http://njbeekeepers.org/

http://maarec.psu.edu/

Tim Schuler and his BEE-Bearded son

Listen here for our interview with Tim Schuler: Apiary

Plowing at Howell Living History Farm

Three month stay on a old-time farm turns into a feature length documentary

In 2008, Jared Flesher started a blog called Farmbedded to document his 3 month stay at Howell Living History Farm, an educational facility that “preserves and interprets farming life and processes from the era of 1890-1910″.

Farmer Charles Napravnik of Asbury Village Farm

An Award-winning freelance journalist, Flesher writes about energy, the environment, and sustainability for The New York Times Online and The Christian Science Monitor. His work has also been also been published by The Wall Street Journal Online, New Jersey Monthly magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, and Gannett New Jersey newspapers. During our interview (podcast below) about this film, Flesher said:

I decided to tell the story about The Farmer and the Horse because it tells a story about sustainability that I don’t think has been told before.

The rough cut of the film, 75 minutes long, is now complete and has been receiving great reviews from local farmers, environmentalists, and land conservationists.

Intern at Howell Living History Farm in 2008.

The Farmer and the Horse will premiere at Howell Living History Farm on August 6 at 9 p.m. Click here for more details:

http://thefarmerandthehorse.com/

Want to help?

The Farmer and the Horse is looking for a local organization, business, or individual to sponsor the screening. Contact director Jared Flesher at jtflesher@gmail.com for more details.

Listen here for our interview with Filmmaker Jared Flesher: Farmer-Horse-2010

Before tractors changed farming forever, horsepower meant hooking up a team of draft horses to a walking plow or seed drill. Farms today are bigger, faster, and more productive than ever before, but are they better? A group of farmers in New Jersey aren’t so sure…

Follow filmmaker Jared Flesher as he documents the past, present, and future of horsepower in the Garden State and beyond.

To learn more visit project website

To contribute to this project, visit  Kickstarter.com

Only a city as food-obsessed as New York could spawn the NYC Food Film Festival. Produced in association with the James Beard Foundation and benefiting the Food Bank For New York City, the 2010 NYC Food Film Festival runs from Wednesday, June 23rd to Sunday, June 27th.  Summer 2010 marks the fourth year of this exciting week of events in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens where food and film enthusiasts are invited to taste what they see on the screen.  Yes, the NYC Food Film Festival serves the food that is seen in the films.  Some of the events feature free food films and free film foods.  What more could you ask for?

As an official selection in last year’s NYC Food Film Festival, we especially enjoyed participating in the special preview event held at the James Beard House. We screened a trailer (followed by an enthusiastic discussion with the audience) from our award winning documentary New Jersey’s Red October,:

Watch New Jersey’s Red October Trailer here:

So we encourage you to do as the NYC Food Film Festival organizers Harry Hawk and George Motz suggest, and go watch what you eat!

View Festival Trailer here: