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Our Farm is Your Farm...and our farm needs your help
Give a gift that doesn't require batteries, isn't made of plastic and won't end up in the trash a few months down the road—a truly organic gift to share with family and friends...
Sponsor an animal, hive, or tree here on our farm! This unique gift makes a wonderful present for family or friends (or yourself!) anytime of the year. It’s simple: select an animal, fill in the form, we’ll process it and send your certificate gift directly to your chosen relative, child or friend. Who wouldn't be happy to know they were supporting the important work of Rodale Institute!
When you sponsor an animal, tree or hive you will receive:
- Certificate personalized with your name
- Information sheet about your sponsorship
- Warm feeling knowing you've done something kind for Rodale Institute.
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Our neighbors wanted to transition their dairy to organic so they could stay on their family farm. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough land to support their herd. We wanted to bring cows on the farm to study herd health and milk quality when transitioning to an organic, grass-fed diet.
In a beautiful partnership of neighbors helping neighbors, these dairy cows are now grazing on our farm. We are not only helping our neighbor save his farm, but we are learning more about the nutritional impacts of organic milk. By sponsoring a cow, you can support this important research.
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Lord Siegfried (our boldest rooster) and his harem of heritage and production hens have been training families in backyard chicken production since last Spring. Breeds represented include organic Sexlinks, and heritage Chanteclers, Buckeyes and Delawares.
The heritage birds are on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy’s critical and threatened lists. When you sponsor a chicken, you can support preservation of these vintage breeds and the education of a whole new generation of backyard and market garden producers.
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Heritage breed hogs are coming to the Rodale Institute farm! We’ll be adding six Large Blacks and six Tamworths—both on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy’s critical and threatened lists. Our goal is to document and share best practices for small-scale heritage breed production. By sponsoring a pig, you can support the preservation of these vintage breeds, providing them with food, fencing and shelter here on the farm.
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Over the last three years more than one in three cultivated honey bee colonies has died nationwide, posing a serious risk to our national food supply. We believe the answer to saving the bees is the backyard beekeeper. We will be opening a Honeybee Conservancy on the farm to train new organically-minded beekeepers and host hives for folks who might not have the space. When you sponsor a hive, we will be able to add another chemical-free colony to the Conservancy.
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We’ll be adding a small herd of Spanish and Nigerian Dwarf goats with the hope of studying small-scale goat milk production. The Spanish breed is considered by many to be one of the most efficient and hardy goats in the United States and the Nigerian Dwarf breed is renowned for its high-quality milk. By sponsoring a goat, you can support the preservation of these vintage breeds, providing them with food, fencing and shelter here on the farm.
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Our certified organic apple orchards were originally planted as part of a research project. Although the project ended decades ago, the orchards have become a landmark on our farm. If every tree at the Rodale Institute were sponsored, we would be able to improve our orchard by planting more trees, expand our classes on orchard management, and initiate new research on best practices for growing organic apples in the humid East.
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We're using straw bales to create raised garden beds throughout our 333 acre farm in 2012. This demonstration project is a model for urban gardeners who are limited by space or only have access to areas that are paved, rocky, uneven or unyielding. By soaking the straw bale and adding compost, the straw becomes "conditioned" to create an extraordinary plant-rooting environment. Plants are seeded directly in the bale, creating bountiful gardens even in a paved parking lot or brownfield. When you sponsor a straw bale, you support our urban and brownfield reclamation efforts.
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