MPT Series Maryland Farm & Harvest Visits Caroline, Dorchester, Harford, Kent, Queen Anne’s, and Wicomico Counties During January 14 Episode

ANNAPOLIS, MD – Maryland Public Television’s (MPT) popular original series Maryland Farm & Harvest, now in its seventh season, will feature farms and locations in Caroline, Dorchester, Harford, Kent, Queen Anne’s, and Wicomico counties during a new episode airing on Tuesday, January 14 at 7 p.m.

Maryland Farm & Harvest takes viewers on journeys across the state, telling stories about the farms, people, and technology required to sustain and grow Maryland’s number one commercial industry – agriculture. MPT’s production team filmed episode segments at more than four dozen farms in preparation for its seventh season.

The episode opens with introductions at Star Bright Farm in Baltimore County’s White Hall community. Other segments featured on this week’s episode include:

• Farming in Winter (Kent County): Despite being in the middle of winter, there’s no shortage of work to be done at Hill Haven Farm in Kennedyville. There are animals to feed, farm equipment to repair, and seed corn to sell in preparation for spring planting. Viewers find that even in the so-called “off-season,” a farmer’s work is never really done.

• Poultry Flock Management (Caroline County): With more than 300 million “broilers” – meat chickens – produced annually, poultry is big business in Maryland. As a contract grower, Jamie Robinette’s Way Moore Farms in Federalsburg grows chickens on behalf of international producer Mountaire Farms, which provides him with the resources necessary to grow his birds. Viewers meet the Robinette family and gain greater understanding of the state’s poultry supply chain.

• High Oleic Soybeans (Harford, Wicomico, and Queen Anne’s counties): In Maryland, soybeans are second only to corn in total acreage farmed. From tofu to toothpaste and even car interiors, the small beans are used to make all kinds of goods. Through visits to Schmidt Family Farms in Sudlersville; Holloway Brothers Farms in Darlington; Schillinger Genetics in Queenstown, and Perdue Farms in Salisbury, viewers learn about the Maryland Soybean Board’s Soybean Checkoff program and its role in helping to develop high-oleic soybeans, a recent innovation designed to produce new food and industrial uses for soybean oil.

• The Local Buy: Crabcake.com (Dorchester and Queen Anne’s counties): Segment host Al Spoler visits Angelina’s Crab Cakes in Stevensville, which ships the Maryland delicacy across the country through its website, com. Then, Spoler visits the J.M. Clayton Company in Cambridge to see where the crab meat used in Angelina’s signature crab cakes comes from.

Maryland Farm & Harvest airs on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. on MPT-HD and is rebroadcast on Thursdays at 11:30 p.m. and Sundays at 6 a.m. Each show also airs on MPT2 on Fridays at 7:30 p.m. Previous episodes of the series can be viewed for free on the MPT app and online at MPT’s website.

Viewers can join in on the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by using the hashtag #MDFarmHarvest.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture is MPT’s co-production partner for Maryland Farm & Harvest. Major funding is provided by the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board.

Additional funding is provided by: Maryland’s Best; the Maryland Agricultural Resource-Based Industry Development Corporation; MidAtlantic Farm Credit; the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program; the Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation; the Rural Maryland Council; and the Maryland Soybean Board. Other support comes from: the Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts; Wegmans Food Markets; the Maryland Nursery, Landscape & Greenhouse Association; the Maryland Seafood Marketing Fund; the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service; the Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc.; the Maryland Farm Bureau; The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment; Mar-Del Watermelon Association; Eddie Mercer Agri-Services, Inc.; and Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission.

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Follow Maryland Department of Agriculture on Twitter @MdAgDept