There is a certain irony to the recent surge of interest in sustainable agriculture and local foods, for even as the number of courses on agriculture at liberal arts schools rises and the number of books and articles on the food system climbs, as a country we continue to lose mid-sized family farms and the rich cultural history that goes with them.

For this documentary project, students in a course entitled Innovations in Agroecology (changed to Sustainable Agriculture in 2011) taught by Prof. Matthew Mariola planned and recorded oral interviews of local farmers in Wayne County, Ohio, gaining first-hand knowledge of their farm operations and their lives in farming.

Farmer interview questions master list. This master list includes possible interview questions on various topics from personal history to controversial topics in agriculture. The question were created during a class brainstorming session.

Interviewing do's and don'ts. This presentation includes recommendations for successful interviewing and a list of metadata to be collected during the interview.

Interview training lab outline. This is an outline of a class lab session to train on interviewing

Funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the Five Colleges of Ohio [Next Steps in the Next Generation Library: Integrating Digital Collections into the Liberal Arts Curriculum, 2010]

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Submissions from 2014

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Oral history interview with Dan Barker, Morrow County farmer, Seth Goodwin

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Oral history interview with John Linder, Morrow County farmer, Seth Goodwin

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Oral history interview with Ken Bush, Morrow County farmer, Seth Goodwin

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Oral history interview with Mike McKinney, Morrow County farmer, Seth Goodwin

Submissions from 2011

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Oral history interview with Roger Baker, Wayne County farmer, Daniela Asenjo and Alex Hiatt

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Oral history interview with John Anderson, Wayne County farmer, Ellen Godbey and Kristen Sween

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Oral history interview with Fred Cannon, Wayne County farmer and his wife, Phyllis, Alex Haas and Galen Cobb

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Oral history interview with Earl Jentes, Wayne County farmer, Grace Lawton and Lauren Vargo

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Oral history interview with Carl Redick, Wayne County farmer, and his wife, Carla, Greer Morgan and Bowman Lindsey

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Oral history interview with Bob Esselburn, Wayne County farmer, Jason Palevsky and Megan Wilson

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Oral history interview with John Berger, Wayne County farmer, Adam Saad and Danny Tomes

Submissions from 2010

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Oral history interview with Perry Cochrane, a Wayne County farmer

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Oral history interview with Marcus Ladrach, Wayne County farmer and his wife Beth Ladrach, Ellen Baird and Erin Flannelly

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Oral history interview with Fred Finney, Wayne County farmer and his wife Marilyn Finney, Leah Barack, Phoo Pye Zove, and Noah Fisher

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Oral history interview with David Anderson, a Wayne County farmer, Erika Takeo and Jean Quenneville

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Oral history interview with Kurt Mairs, a Wayne County farmer, Ariel Veroske and Whitney Siders