Renee Wilde

Before the coronavirus pandemic, County Lines producer Renee Wilde met with faculty and students at Wilmington College in Clinton County and heard their ideas about rural life and the prospects for a career in agriculture.

Clubs like FFA, which stands for Future Farmers of America, serve as both social and educational roles in rural communities. Kayla Wise credits FFA for her decision to pursue an agricultural degree. Kayla also never believed in climate change until she took a class at Wilmington College called Individual and Global Policy.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, County Lines producer Renee Wilde met with faculty and students at Wilmington College in Clinton County and heard their ideas about rural life and the prospects for a career in agriculture.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, County Lines producer Renee Wilde met with faculty and students at Wilmington College in Clinton County and heard their ideas about rural life and the prospects for a career in agriculture.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, County Lines producer Renee Wilde met with faculty and students at Wilmington College in Clinton County and heard their ideas about rural life and the prospects for a career in agriculture.

Wilmington College is a Quaker College founded on the tenets of the Quaker religion -  simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship.

Two months ago, before the coronavirus pandemic hit Ohio, County Lines producer Renee Wilde met with faculty and students at Wilmington College in Clinton County and heard their ideas about rural life and the prospects for a career in agriculture.

Agriculture is the largest major for Wilmington students, and surprisingly those AG students are predominantly female.

Ohio’s stay at home order has led citizens to look for coping mechanisms to stave off boredom and fear over the virus.

County Lines producer Renee Wilde lives in rural Greene County and shares the unique way her husband is dealing with this, and how it parallels what another Miami Valley resident did during the Great Depression.

Laura Lengnick, soil scientist and the author of Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems For A Changing Climate, says that climate change isn’t a calling out - it’s a calling in for all of us to pull together. 

Just a stone’s throw away from downtown Loveland, Ohio sits a cluster of turn-of-the-century barns and houses. These empty buildings used to be a working farm and spiritual retreat founded by two Dutch women and 16 other U.S. Grail members 80 years ago, in 1940. The Grail is a women's movement that grew out of the Catholic church, and the women of the Grail had a vision for world peace, justice and renewal of the earth.

78 percent of the world’s seeds are now owned by three companies, and it’s those companies who decide which ones to make available to the public. 

That’s quite a turnaround from America’s early years, when the U.S. government was giving billions of seeds away for free. But it’s not just the variety of seeds being lost, it’s also the history that those seeds represent. 

Jackie Hampton has pulled up to a small, self-serve, farm stand. It houses seasonal produce from That Guy’s Farm and floral bouquets from That Girl’s Flowers. She’s here to buy flowers for her daughter’s anniversary.

“Actually this is my first time. I’ve always bought their produce and stuff.” Jackie says looking opening the door to the small, refrigerated building, “ They have beautiful flowers. You don’t see this kind in the stores.”