ANNOUNCER: Funding for this documentary was provided in part by the Maryland Forestry Foundation.

Stewardship is caring.

And with additional support from the following... NARRATOR: According to the United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service or (NASS), there are 1.2 million female producers engaged in AGRICULTURE.

And in Maryland, the largest commercial industry in the state is Agriculture.

The circular growth pattern of urban food production, oysters from hatcheries, a shepherdess and her flock, a tree with historical roots, and a place where horses provide therapy, is woven within the fabric of "Food, Fiber, and The Female Farmer."

These individuals are planting the seeds of change in their communities.

NARRATOR: Backyard Basecamp an environmental non-profit in northeast Baltimore City has a wide array of services.

Nutritious food, outdoor play spaces, harvest management, and hands-on interdisciplinary training are just a few offered.

A green space with narrative changing BLISS.

ATIYA WELLS: BLISS stands for Baltimore Living in Sustainable Simplicity.

Uh, Backyard Basecamp was started, uh, originally as a for-profit organization.

I wanted to do professional development for teachers, um, in teaching them how to bring nature into the curriculums that they were teaching.

Uh, but then we found this vacant land around the corner from our house and thought that, uh, this could be a really cool space for us to bring out those lessons to our community in terms of farming, gardening, getting back to the land, getting back to nature, providing a safe space for people of color to like, engage with the environment.

We were driving to my in-laws who live on the other side of the city.

We'd be like, there's no food around here, there's no food here, there's no food there.

Like, where are people getting food from?

Realizing that there were actually terms for the things that I was observing was a real eyeopener for me and I was like, okay, this is a real thing.

This is an an intentional thing, and how can we work to reverse that and change the narrative and bring our people back to the land?

My background is in nursing, pediatrics was my specialty, and I spent a lot of time just like taking care of kids who could not go outside.

And I remember my childhood, like I wasn't out in nature as a kid.

We didn't go hiking, we didn't go camping or any of those things, but I was outside until the street lights came on.

Um, and that's the type of childhood that I wanted for my own two kids.

So reaping the benefits of being outdoors and breathing the fresh air and talking about the trees and hearing the breeze and hearing the dogs barking, hearing the birds singing.

It is, I think something that people don't fully appreciate until they kind of have a moment to sit down and think.

Maybe about a month or so before we found this vacant lot which is now the farm; BLISS Meadows, we were just like surveying the area, trying to figure out where we were going to start planting vegetables.

And I happened to look up and notice that the house next door was vacant, and I was like, would it be nice to have some indoor space?

We can have our offices, some storage space and also a teaching kitchen so that we can teach people not only how to grow and harvest fresh produce, but also how to cook, um, and make healthier meals or, um, you know, to sort of do a, like a farm to table type, uh, type programming.

Now we have about 11 people on staff, a mix of part-time and full-time staff.

Mostly, to help us like with the farming operations and our educational programs.

So everybody has like a core function, but we all handle, um, pretty much we all make sure that the work gets done, but there are like some core specialties that people focus on.

JORDAN BETHEA: My name is Jordan Bethea and I'm the production manager here for Backyard Basecamp that was founded by Atiya Wells.

Snip here, it's not gonna be growing anymore.

[Birds chirping] This is our Jonagold Apple Tree.

So this will probably be producing in about two years.

Some of the apple trees were producing already, but I snipped them again to make sure that they have more energy diverted towards root production.

We uh, come to realize that so many people kind of, uh, have this, uh, nebulous understanding of how farming works, where it's kinda this mystical, uh, uh, work that only a few chosen people uh, know how to do.

You have to be born with a green thumb, and we wanna say, no, this is a skill that you can learn.

It will take, uh, a few years, but at the end of the day, we wanna make sure that people know that this is something that everyone across the world, across all civilizations has done.

Cultivating food, and you can do it too.

But in order to do that, we need to share information, uh, just as earnestly with respect to our failures as we do with our successes.

ATIYA: So as long as you know, you maintain consistency, you build in the succession plan, like as you're going.

I feel like starting from the beginning with not necessarily the end in mind, but with the understanding that you want this thing to continue.

And so you have to build processes and procedures into ensure that when you're gone, it continues.

And hopefully next year we will have a nice flowering meadow.

Um, really put the meadow in BLISS Meadows.

[Cinematic Music] NARRATOR: During the Industrialization Period, the Port of Baltimore once was the primary seaport hub for Maryland's oyster trade.

Oysters were once the reason for a battle on the Chesapeake Bay.

A struggle over the harvesting of a food source, oysters.

The dispute was between the legal dredgers and tongers, the natural resources authorities, and the oyster pirates.

The conflict was resolved, however, the damage to the oyster population needed repair.

In 2018, the nation's fourth largest conservation law enforcement agency celebrated its 150th anniversary.

Managed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, The Natural Resources Police continue to be the public-safety agency for enforcing the statewide maritime laws.

STEPHANIE ALEXANDER: Welcome to the Choptank River.

There's 23 counties in the state of Maryland, plus Baltimore city.

I would definitely consider the Chesapeake Bay, the 25th county because it's providing food, but also livelihoods way of life for a lot of the people that are working the water.

Oysters are an amazing animal for the Chesapeake Bay.

They are the hard substrate bottom of the bay.

They provide habitat.

They of course filter the water and they clean it up.

They help with shoreline erosion, they help reduce nutrients.

They are spawning and adding to the population.

So here at Horn Point Laboratory, we are part of the University of Maryland System, but we are the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

I am producing baby oysters, not only to restore back to the Chesapeake Bay for our sanctuary restoration program, but also support the oyster industry.

So we have two hatchery facilities here at our Cambridge location.

We have the... hatchery where we're rearing the babies that we produce from the brood stock oysters that we spawn.

We put oysters on the table, hit 'em with nice warm summertime temperatures, and the males and the females are gonna start releasing their gametes into the water column.

At that point, we can tell which one is a female and which one is a male.

By the way they're spawning.

Females will open up and they clap, and when they clap, they release their eggs from the front of their shell into the water, and males will release from the side.

This is what they look like when they're 48 hours old.

Very tiny, very hard to see with your naked eye so we use microscopes, but they're on here.

At one week, now you can see them with your naked eye.

Each one is an individual oyster spat.

At one to two months now it's very easy to see them with your eye.

They're on both sides of their shell, and they still have two sides to their shell.

You can only see one.

Now, clearly two sides to every shell, and they're still attached to this host shell.

At two years, you start seeing the habitat move in.

So the barnacles and the mussels start colonizing the oyster shells, and that's how you get your habitat forming.

That's how you get your reef formation.

This is the base of it.

And then eventually at six years, this is what they look like.

We have our outdoor setting facility where we are introducing the mature larvae that we have grown for about two to three weeks into the tanks to create spat on shell.

And then those spat on shell will be put over into the bay.

This is where we sort or grade our larvae by size.

So I would bring a bucket from a tank that we have drained, pour it through, and gravity will sort the larvae.

And then I can look at each size component for eye spots and feet.

And if I see them, I know they're mature, I'll transfer them to one of our cones, they settle out, we do some math, and then I know how many we have.

Then I can create some bundles.

And these bundles we wrap in a paper towel.

And as long as they're damp and cold, they can survive in the fridge for up to five days.

So this is what everybody needs, whether you're doing restoration work, whether you're doing this on an aquaculture farm, whether you're doing this on a bottom lease, everybody needs these mature larvae in order to move on with the process.

And this is about 4.7 million of them that are ready to attach to something, preferably an oyster shell to continue on with their life.

[Mechanical Sounds] STEPHANIE: I am getting ready to set up the feed on our automated algal feeding system.

This is some technology that we invested in when we moved into this current building.

It helps us feed our larvae at all hours of the night, even when we're not here.

So this has helped us to increase our larval efficiency.

We're getting much higher quality larvae out of our hatchery.

So we have four to six different species of algae that we grow.

We set the diet and then I'll tell it how many times I want it to feed tonight, and the system will automatically turn itself on, deliver the algae from our greenhouse into the larval tanks, and then go into standby.

And then it will turn itself on again in say, three to four hours and feed 'em.

So it's kind of like the larva are always at the buffet, and it's all because of this advanced technology that we invested in.

[Cinematic music] NARRATOR: Picture this, a 10-acre farm that is home to donkeys, chickens, sheep, and a shepherdess of over 40 years.

GWEN HANDLER: I'm breeding for fiber, pelts, meat, all the by products of the sheep, but mostly the fleeces.

I bet I made this one 20 years ago.

But this is Ganzi with this kind of inset sleeve, with this-this is a particular model.

This is, I think shepherds wore these.

When you thread a loom, you get so that you know the length of your garment.

If you're going to make a simple shawl that's maybe 60 inches, almost two yards, right?

But then you need a yard and a half of loom waste.

So you add that on top, and then you decide how many threads you want per inch.

And you have this reed, which looks like a giant comb that'll help you with is it set eight to the inch or twenty to the inch?

So there's a lot of little, there's a lot of parts to it.

A friend of mine and I took a workshop in Georgetown at the Silver Shuttle in how to spin, and it was taught by a woman named Lois Vann, who was Curator of Textiles at the Smithsonian.

And she taught me to spin.

Right now there are three looms that are set up at least once a week, people will come and do something.

They'll spin, they'll weave, they'll knit.

Come on sheep!

Yes, pretty girl!

Come on, good girls, good girl.

[Bells ringing] I feed them twice a day.

You know, I give them hay and I give them grain once a day.

And not so much completely because they need it, but I need to see them.

This is Hannah.

She's the biggest sheep in the flock.

I need to see them.

I need to look them in the eye.

I need to know they're all there, they're all standing on four legs, that nobody is looking to lean.

That their color is good, that they're connecting to me.

I've learned something new about them, which is you give every sheep a treat when they come up to you and they each get a graham cracker.

And some of them were very shy.

They said no, we're... too suspicious.

Now they all come to me.

So I have Wensleydale, Teeswater, Leicester Longwool, uh, Gotland, uh hmm Bluefaced Leicester, I think that's predominantly what the flock is made up of.

[Bell sounds from sheep moving] GWEN: This festival started as a sale of fleeces.

There were like three booths.

The festival committee that gathers is a pretty good, it's a pretty good neighborhood, and it's universal.

I mean, there's sheep everywhere all over the world.

NARRATOR: Nationwide, The Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival is one of the world's largest gatherings of its kind.

NARRATOR: The 2024 Festival Catalog was dedicated to Gwen as she retired to Festival Chair Emeritus.

[Guitar strumming] GWEN: A sheep is a great size for an independent small operation.

I raised my lambs up 'til they're about a hundred and some pounds, if I'm lucky.

And then, with a lot of thought and angst, certain ones will go to the butcher and they will be brought, you know, butchered at a local, federally inspected plant, and they come back here to be sold by me.

And, and meeting that, going through that process is the hardest part for me of thinking that, okay, but you guys are going to keep the rest of the flock viable.

And that's pretty, pretty tough piece.

Shearing and lambing, that's a harvest.

That's fun, you know, but so there, there, you know, you have to be pretty responsible about what you're thinking about.

You know, what's, what's the best, what's the best path?

[Sheep baas] [Cinematic Music] NARRATOR: Harriet "Rit" Green Ross and Benjamin Ross's daughter, Araminta, later became known as Harriet Tubman.

She had great courage surpassing the highest treetops anywhere.

At Mt.

Pleasant Acres Farm, a 111 acre farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore, grows this 2023 Caroline County Big Tree Champion, a Yellow Poplar Tulip tree.

A living witness to enslaved African-Americans fleeing this area while seeking passage North on The Underground Railroad.

PAULETTE GREENE: We have a lot of agriculture, we have a lot of social history, but we have a lot of forestry.

And we want these things to be perpetual, and we want to be able to leave the legacy so that, thank God, it won't depict what Harriet Tubman and our former ancestors had to go through on this land.

We wanna take her legacy and make it into something that can be realized and enjoyed.

Happily, throughout the ensuing history, sometimes we hear about slavery.

It can be a bit distressing.

Harriet, uh, traversed, this area, this farm, because her parents and brothers lived here, but when she left this area, she was able to have a life in New York of service and positive notoriety.

Because there's nothing positive about slavery and to use this area for more than just a slavery destination, but to also use it for some of the things that Harriet Tubman and our foreparents did, you know, before they died.

And that's to be in some kind of a, a business.

But certainly that takes you away from the slavery.

PAULETTE: The slavery is, it's depressing, but it, but it happened.

It happened.

The kinds of things that we are doing here, agriculture, forestry, education, a lot of folks are not doing that.

But that's what we are choosing to do.

And, uh, it's proving to be quite an interesting concept because, uh, we have all kinds of people coming here to learn about the witness tree and to learn about what Donna and I are doing here.

We never had really thought about that before.

That by extracting some trees.

And we had a lot of trees that had, some had already fallen down from storms and so forth.

A lot of trees, tall trees, but trees that had been compromised.

We, we still have a lot of timber standing, lots of timber.

But we can now see how some of the understory is growing.

You know, we can see where the lights coming in, you know, to enjoy other species that would come.

We had not even thought about it until we got involved with the Maryland Forest Association.

So, yeah, that, that has been something to see.

And it has allowed us to navigate in a more, educational manner.

Because sometimes when we visit, we can visit with a purpose because we know that there are certain trees there, there are certain berries there, there are certain things that are growing.

DONNA DEAR: When you speak of this land and slavery.

We speak of Harriet Tubman, true enough, and her family.

But we speak of how she was not only what they called the Moses, but we speak of how she became also an entrepreneur.

And, um, she was a military woman.

I am a military woman like Harriet Tubman.

And I have grown, to do the things that she inspired to do.

She also educated people and that's what we are doing here at the farm.

We're educating the people about... growing food to feed people.

We have venison, we have turkeys, we have pheasants that are here, the rabbits, the squirrel.

PAULETTE: And the coons, and the and the possums, and the muskrats.

I cook all of those and eat them.

I planted string beans one year and every time I planted a string bean, they ate up everything all the way down to the ground.

I did not get one string bean.

DONNA: One rabbit came, two rabbits came... PAULETTE: Four rabbits came,.

DONNA: And, and there were no string beans.

PAULETTE: And so that, that fall when rabbit season came, or when rabbit season came that year, we had six rabbits.

I, I hope it was the same six that invaded our garden.

They were absolutely delicious.

[Cinematic music] NARRATOR: On this equine farm, the livestock are in tune with the needs of their human herd.

[Horse whinnies] CATHY SCHMIDT: One of the reasons that I started this nonprofit organization was I was in corporate America, and I didn't feel like I made any difference at all.

I was simply a number and I got a paycheck.

I've always loved horses since I was a kid, that I was obsessed with them.

And all I could think about was how could I spend the rest of my working career working with horses, but in a different way, and to be able to give back to the community with horses.

A horse farm in Maryland is basically a farm that, uh, provides not only the housing for the horses like here in the barn, but also adequate pasture land for them to graze because horses need to constantly forage.

And our horses here get to be horses.

So pasture management is very important.

Our facility happens to have an indoor and outdoor arena because we need both in order to provide activities year round, which is kind of unique to our industry.

Chesapeake Therapeutic Riding is located at a equestrian facility in northern Harford County.

Our equestrian facility is different from other agricultural farms or farms that have livestock in that it's very important that the horses are gentle and accepting and used to working with people.

They are just the most magnificent creatures you ever wanna be around because of the variety that they provide, not only in their physical presence, but also their personalities.

CATHY: During the pandemic, we realized that we could be doing more to help the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

We planted over 900 native Maryland plants in a pollinator meadow.

We took an area that was unused and was just full of weeds and multi flora and just really an eyesore.

And we removed all of that and we cultivated it using our own horses, compost from our compost station.

And we planted over 900 native Maryland plants in that area, and it's thriving.

The money that we received from the Chesapeake Bay Trust is actually filtering the water that's coming off the farm, the rainwater.

So some of the components that we have on this patio area are, um, 600-gallon cistern that gathers water from the roof that we can redirect when we need water.

Our largest program at Chesapeake Therapeutic Riding is our Horses and Heroes riding program.

We bring veterans in in order to enjoy the activities we have here.

What a veteran could experience are basic horsemanship lessons that could include riding, but it also includes the overall care for horses.

We provide vocational education to some of the veterans who are interested in that particular aspect as well, so that when they leave the facility or go back into the community, they may have some basic skills that they can use in a part-time, or full-time position at other horse farms in the state of Maryland.

KATY SANTIFF: So in lessons, we incorporate many different elements.

So it's not just about horseback riding, they're learning about horses.

But what we've found that's really important and healing and learning, is adding art and music and sound.

But engaging the whole body network really helps in the process.

We also have a Sensory Trail out back.

So part of that Sensory Trail incorporates the music wall.

Riders get to ride up on horseback, they get to bang on pots, make chimes ring, so they're engaging like all their senses when they're out there on the sensory trail.

[Banging on pots] [Chimes ringing] [Horse neighing] [Cinematic music] NARRATOR: The future of Agriculture is moving forward with female farmers one acre at a time.

ANNOUNCER: Funding for this documentary was provided in part by the Maryland Forestry Foundation.

Stewardship is caring.

And with additional support from the following...