We once lived in villages and tended the commons. A community. Even though modern life has pulled us apart, the ancient communal spirit lives in each of us, yearning for a reconnection to land and each other.
Ryan Pesch
Lida Farm
These photographs and interviews are about the life and work of food producers who value and practice sustainability. I sought to emphasize the why, over the what and how of their approach to food production: what the work means to them, and their responses to the trials and rewards of their life’s work. This project celebrates holding an ethic of living well on the land by practicing good environmental stewardship while building economic resilience. The interviews address the essential relationships: between farmer and land, food producer and community, among farmers and within families.
I was struck by my subjects’ clear vision for an improved food environment, their optimism and energy, and their realism about the barriers and struggles along the way.
Thanks to all who made this project possible. I truly appreciate the time and thought contributed by the subjects of the photographs and interviews, as well as the support of West Central Initiative and the Sustainable Farming Association.
Jon Solinger 2022
Lida Farm
Ryan Pesch
Interviewed at Lida Farm
Lida Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota
7/31/2022
What do you grow here?
We’re a commercial vegetable farm, so we grow anything that we can grow. You maybe could grow an artichoke or something, but we don’t. It’s 30 some different crops. Last we counted for my organic certification, we’re up to about 89 varieties, but I keep cutting that back, it’s too many to keep track of. So yeah, we grow the standard, you know, melons, peppers, and tomatoes, and potatoes, and winter squash. And there’s a lot of variety in each one of those crops.
Tell the story of how you found your way to this life and work.
I blame the St. Peter food co-op. I went to Gustavus Adolphus in St. Peter; I went there to do physics. I kind of got bored with physics; you can solve a math problem, but it was a “Who cares?” kind of thing. Didn’t really seem meaningful, but then I got to this food co-op. It’s a small, little place, right downtown St. Peter. And it was just sort of neat, people were changing the world, but not through politics or whatever. They’re changing the world through this little store. It’s always local foods, it was kind of neat hanging out. There was community, and there was this economic angle. And that just sort of inspired me to get more into the food movement, this whole idea of, we can do better by getting into good food, right? There’s community around it, there’s health around it, there’s building businesses around it. Once I left Gustavus I wanted to explore farming and teach English abroad, so for two years I got into vegetable farming as an apprentice at Foxtail Farm. And then I did one year on my own in the Cities, and we sold in Northeast Minneapolis. When we moved up here and I had my day job with U of M Extension, part of our plan was to be on the organic frontier. You know the Wedge Food Co-op isn’t just down the street in western Minnesota. And so it was our plan all along to get into commercial vegetable production, because at that point, I was three seasons in. And in 2004, we were just gonna do a farmers market, and two people found me and wanted me to do a CSA, and I’m like, “Well I’ve done that for two years, so I could do that.” We’ve been doing that ever since, and we’ve done farmers markets every year, except for two years, so ever since 2004, and the same year we came here and bought this farm. Sylvia was born the same year. It’s a big year, 2004.
How did you find this land? This place?
I like to think it was like some kind of mystical journey or something. But honestly, it just happened that we were in the Cities and there was a realtor in Fergus Falls and this was actually listed there for a very long time. It was close to half a year it was on the market, which is weird. We found it, and then we went up on the hill, and we were able to look across the land, we’re just like, “This is it!” At the time, it seemed expensive, but we basically spent the same amount for this place as we sold a two-bedroom, one-bath house for on the west side of St. Paul. It’s almost like it was meant to be, because it was on the market for so long. It seemed weird that nobody had bought it before. It was just kind of here waiting for us. And there you go, that was kind of mystical. It was meant to be.
What do you find most personally rewarding about the work, and what part could you do without?
You know, that’s changed over time. If you think about it, when I got into vegetable production, I was 23 years old, and I’m now 45. That’s a long time at this point. And what excited me about the work? Some of it’s still the same, but some of it’s changed over time. It’s certainly a kind of an excitement, I think, in starting a farm that motivates somebody. It’s like, “Well, let’s do this setup, let’s do this.” It’s like starting a new business, you can get the same feelings you’d have with starting a pizzeria or something, it’s like, “This is kind of exciting!” You’re setting up systems, you’re meeting customers, you’re selling them a product, you’re figuring out how to grow something right. When I was 23, when I first got started, and where I am today, there’s this thing about something physically really tangible about growing stuff. I think that’s always been there. It’s very satisfying. I always say, in 21st century America, a lot of people make their living by moving pixels around, which isn’t all that satisfying. But there’s something about raising the tomato from beginning to end and then selling it to a person face to face that is extremely satisfying. There’s a sense of honest work that I still haven’t really gotten rid of. That feeling that you get at the end of the day where you’re really tired, but in a good way. And that just feels good, it’s satisfying. And there’s something about it that’s meaningful, I think, maybe spiritually too. For me, it is these little mystical moments, right? Where there’s a certain something that happens in the farm. We used to have these sheep, and I remember distinctly this time where I was just outside with my cup of coffee and the steam was coming off the coffee. And there was this fog that was enveloping the sheep on the hillside, but I heard them baaing and coming towards me. You just can’t recreate that. It just this moment of you with nature and God and it’s a “This is what I’m meant to do” kind of thing. So, there’s something about this mystical calling, there’s something about this honest work that I think motivates me.
But now that I’m older I’m more motivated to think about trying to help grow a bigger community of new growers, and people who want to connect with the land in a certain way. That’s more meaningful for me now. Maybe I’m helping somebody else become what I was when I was 23, turning them on to how this is actually meaningful, good work. At this point, there’s been, I think, six people that have worked for me. And maybe 20 years from now they’re like, “I have this meaningful thing in my life because I hung out with Ryan for a summer.”
But the stuff we want to do without? It seems all very romantic, right? And I’m kind of this romantic person. So that sort of works for me, I can believe my own romanticism; I really think that way. But for a lot of people on the outside, they think it is all romantic. The part you can really do without is that there’s still something extremely stressful about farming. If you think about, okay, so we have these 30 odd crops and all that’s sort of fun to talk about, but there’s too many things to juggle. And each one of them can have their own little problem, and you can get in this place where you’re very overwhelmed. It kind of gets under your skin. It can be an extremely big ball of stress that you can’t escape, especially when you do CSA, because it’s almost like the stress somebody feels if they’re, I don’t know, a concert pianist, you got to perform. You just got to get that thing out each week. Every week, it’s got to get out. I call it the hamster wheel. Once you get on the hamster wheel for the season, you can’t get off it. Last year was a terribly stressful year with the drought. You couldn’t escape, it just wore me out. And it isn’t so much the physical stress, although it can be physically stressful. I think more so it’s a mind game. It’s the mental stress of things that are completely out of your control that you can’t do anything about. And you get dozens of calls from people looking for this, that or some other thing and it’s like, “I don’t know what to tell you.” Crops are dying out in the field, there’s not a darn thing I can do to really save it, so it’s some of that mental stress.
What’s it like being part of the sustainable farming community here? Do you feel a little like a pioneer in the local food movement?
When we first moved out here in 2004, I did think about that. In the Twin Cities there’s a certain community, a certain food community built around the co-ops and the markets there and all that. It was kind of mature. I did kind of feel like I was coming to the organic frontier. In our initial years here, maybe because it just takes a little while to get rooted in the place, or it was our first kid and just getting established, so you’d really get focused, and I didn’t feel like there was much of a farm community. There’s a farm community here that we came into, that were our neighbors, and they certainly did welcome us in, but there really wasn’t an established sustainable ag community. I find it meaningful because it went from seeming like nothing to something by the time we were seven or eight years in, and we were involved in this program at M State, a sustainable food production program. There got to be people who were our students, and then people who were associated with the program, it felt like an honest to goodness community. And at the same time as we grew our CSA, there was a community built around that too.
We’re gonna do the Deep Roots festival, but when we first started the CSA, we didn’t have a potluck, Maree and I just cooked for everybody. That’s just what we did. At some point, it just got too big, and we couldn’t do it anymore. It’s meaningful when you’re able to be together on farm in a place, eater and grower, but I think it’s more meaningful when it comes to the community of growers, because there’s built-in support with one another, right? For a while, we even did this thing called a weeding bee. We would go to different farms on a Saturday or a Sunday, and together, we would just weed at one person’s place, so a community of people would get this weeding done. And then we go and swim in the lake. And then we go to the next person’s place the following week, we did that for a couple years, that was good, it felt meaningful, that there was a support there. Together, we were building something bigger, building up to that whole food movement that brought me in to begin with.
What do you want the public to know about sustainable farming?
I always want everybody to get into the gateway drug of local foods in some way. For a lot of people, it’s a farmers market. What I want people to know is that there’s an alternative to what they’re fed in a big box store or fed at your standard greasy spoon. A lot of times people get this sense that, well, that’s just what food is. It’s about finding cheap stuff that comes from wherever. And you just stick it in your gullet, and that’s that. I just think there’s just so much more. The local food movement is an alternative that is about not just healthy foods, but community and putting a face to the food. And what I’ve always found is, especially at the CSA when we do tours, is that people that are members, maybe they join because they just want a fresher tomato or something, they’re just uninspired by this. I’m inspired by the whole community aspect. And they’re maybe just inspired by wanting a better product. Well, you can get a better product. But once I’ve gotten those people on farm, they see that it isn’t just them. And it isn’t just me and them, but there’s something bigger to it, that food can be, and should be, a meaningful part of our whole community. I think it’s this ancient thing that’s inside of all of us. It’s about this human desire to break bread with others. And for a long time, the food system kept getting further and further away from us. There was a time when the dairy farm was literally down the road. And the milk was processed in a Pelican Rapids, and there was a Dairy Association, there was a community, the community of Main Street and the community of farmers; you could see it. And then as time went on, the supply chains got longer and longer and longer, to the point where it’s like, I don’t know where this milk came from. And people were told it didn’t matter where it came from as long as it was cheap, but I think it left something to be desired. People felt so divorced from the food that they’re putting in their body, they had a poor product that they’re putting in their body, and there was none of this kind of understanding of where it came from, or much less any kind of a tangible breaking bread, or being touched by the people that work to bring the food to them. I think if people have a realization of that, I think they can find a richer life.
That took me a long time to say, but I think there’s something to be said about embracing a local food movement and growing this group of growers and understanding that they are a pretty high mission bunch of people. And we really believe that we can build a better connection between people and the land, nature and the people that are growing the food. And that’s meaningful for us, but it’s also meaningful for the people that eat the food. And I think that there’s a richer life, once you cross over that precipice, and you’re like, “Oh my God, this is something that’s meaningful to me.” I think in this day and age, industrial ag doesn’t seem meaningful, it seems kind of lonely and alienating, and there’s not much there there, other than just cheap food. And I think we’re the alternative to that.
Stout Farm
For me, it feels amazing. I always ask people, “Where does your heart
Brittney Johnson
live? When you go somewhere far away, how long does it take for you
to think of home? And where’s home?”
Brittney Johnson
Interviewed at Stout Farm
Maine Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota
7/22/2022
Tell the story of how you found your way to this life and work.
It starts with my parents. They grew up in Barnesville, then they moved down to the Cities, but my aunt and uncle stayed in Barnesville. They farmed: milked cows, got into beef, and did some row crops: soybeans, corn, wheat. We spent a lot of time on their farm growing up, we came up here every weekend and we’d go visit them, their farm was my favorite place in the world, so I’ve always wanted to have that life. Going back to the Cities where I was growing up was never the fun part of the weekend.
I graduated from high school and went to college, I studied agronomy and plant genetics, and I thought I was going to work in agriculture, but a lot of the work in agriculture these days is done on computers. I didn’t get a master’s degree, which is what a lot of people do, I just started working for the Soil and Water Conservation District in Perham doing irrigation scheduling. I would do soil moisture sampling at different depths, figure out the moisture content of fields and do water use projections. I did that for about three and a half years. I looked all over for land, and I wasn’t having any luck, because it’s really tough to come by a nice property. When you’re young, it’s hard to afford something expensive. I put an ad on Craigslist, and I said, “Hey, looking for a house and 40 acres.” The people who owned this place before me responded. They said, “Hey, we have a house and 40 acres.” I got it and for what seems like a steal these days, you can’t get a 40 for under $350,000 these days, it seems.
Then I started. I always knew I wanted to do sheep, I started knitting when I was eight. I was like, “I want to make my own yarn, I don’t want to buy yarn.” I have my sheep, I shear them and I use their wool to make sweaters, and I sell the lambs for meat and I also sell my wool. I got my sheep from Mark Roer. He was my mentor when I was living in Perham and working at the Soil and Water Conservation District. He would need help every now and then, as farmers do. It was a workshare where I would work for a couple of hours and he’d record it. When I bought my place, I had enough time at his place where he gave me five of my starter ewes as payment. He comes over and helps me shear, and I go over and help him shear. Sometimes I’m shearing 10 or 15 sheep, which is more wool than I could ever get through, especially because I work full time. I pick the colored wool that I want to keep, because it’s the fun stuff. Then I’ll market the white wool and send it to a wool mill in Nome, North Dakota.
You have lived in both the city and the country. How does it feel to be living here in the country now?
For me, it feels amazing. I always ask people, “Where does your heart live? When you go somewhere far away, how long does it take for you to think of home? And where’s home?” When I was studying abroad in college, it was really a great experience. I had the opportunity to go to Senegal, West Africa, India and Southeast Asia. Every time I left, I wanted to go back to Rollag. The Cities weren’t even like my home a little bit. Isn’t that weird? I liked them well enough, but the things that I love aren’t there. Nature, green, being outside with my chickens, my sheep. I think that connection is becoming less and less strong as more people live in cities. One or two generations ago, everybody had an aunt, or an uncle or grandpa or grandma or mom or dad who farmed, and they could go home and have that connection. That’s almost disappearing now. I was lucky enough to have that.
What do you find personally rewarding about the work?
My favorite part of farming… and it is a job, right? It’s a job even though I don’t make a whole lot of money at it. My favorite part of my job here is just watching my sheep eat. I can just sit there and watch them graze all day long. Or I can sit there and watch them eat their hay all day long. I don’t know why, It’s just my favorite part. No matter what happens in the world, they do not care, and they want to be fed. It just grounds you, because you’re like, “Well, this thing may be going on, but I got to get home and put some put some fence up, otherwise my sheep are gonna be out on the highway, and we’re gonna have a bad time.”
What are sheep like to work with and live with?
They’re a lot different than cows and goats. If you have either one of those other animals, and you try to switch, you’re shocked because they act so differently. They can get all lumped together, but they’re so incredibly different. I’ve only ever had one steer on my property, but he respected electric fences. Even when they weren’t there, he’s like, “I know that’s where that line used to be, I’m not going through it.” Whereas my sheep will test and test and test and test. We’ve been having rolling blackouts up here, which is a bad thing when you’ve got sheep with electric fencing. The fence turned off, and five minutes later they were out. Oh, my gosh.
They know who I am for sure. By working with them every day, it’s actually made it a lot more fun, because they know who I am. They can be all the way across the pasture, and I’ll just shout “Sheep!” and they’ll come running. It’s great. I don’t think they particularly like me, but I really like them. They’re excited when I’m going to feed them, but my ram is another story entirely. He would try to kill me if he could, so we just keep him far away from everybody and everything.
How do you market your products?
I market most of my lambs every year. This year, I’m going to keep nine probably, I’m trying to grow my flock. That front field was planted to warm season grasses like prairie grasses, big bluestem, little bluestem, Sudan grass, so they grow better in the hot months of the summer. I’ve doubled my pasture, almost. I’m hoping to have more because this year there have been so many people who have wanted a lamb that it’s kind of crazy. I’ll have people who want some through word of mouth. That’s pretty much how I market everything. I talk to people who know I have sheep and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I love sheep neck. Is there any way I can get sheep neck?” This year, I actually had to say no. I don’t have enough because I want to keep all my girls, and I had a lot of ewe lambs this year. On the years that I don’t have people who want them, I’ll just bring them to the sale barn, because I don’t have freezers to store 10 lambs worth of meat when I pick them up from the butcher, I’ve got to deliver them right away. Prices at the sale barn are honestly pretty okay. Once I start paying for the processing fees, if I don’t charge the right amount, I’m losing a lot of money, versus what I get at the sale barn. I go to Perham, which is a great market. Every third Monday of the month is the sheep and goat and pig sale, and you can watch it right online, which is actually heartbreaking for me. I’ve watched them go through the auction before and it is really sad.
It sounds like you have compassion for the experience of the animals.
I think if I can’t handle that, I’m gonna stop eating meat, right? If I’m not doing it, and going through those emotions, I’m asking someone else to do it. And maybe some other people don’t have as strong of an attachment to their animals. Once you start getting like 300 cows, it’s hard, they’re not as much individuals as they are for me, with my 15 sheep. It’s hard, but it’s the price we pay for animal agriculture. The hardest part isn’t the lambs, it’s the cull ewes that you’ve had on your farm for a while, and you just don’t have enough grass. I didn’t want to get rid of the ones that I had for years, because I’m really attached to those ones, so I sold some two-year-old ewes that I’d had through two lambings, and they just look so scared when they go through. It’s really sad. In a way, when you bring them to the butcher, it’s a lot less stressful for them. It’s still sad, obviously. But when they go through the whole: load them up, bring them to the sale barn, go through sale barn ring, get loaded up again, go somewhere else, get fed out, get loaded up again, and get butchered. It’s just a lot more moving.
Does your work in local food build connections to the community?
When I started, I was like, “Yep, I’m gonna be a farmer, and I’m gonna make money.” Now I’ve just entered year six, And I’m like, “Well, I would just like to feed people in my community.” I’d like to break even, but there’s so many good things that come from just having small farmers, like close supply chains, and local food systems where whatever you don’t get back in money, you’re getting back in something else. I get to live in a beautiful place, and I get to eat local food too. I think that our food system right now is a little confused, it’s a little exploitative. I don’t think it can continue on the way it’s going.
What does “sustainable” mean in sustainable farming?
That you can keep doing it. There are places out West where they’re not going to be able to keep farming, and places like Kansas and Nebraska, where they have had to stop irrigating. You’re really hurting people like your kids and their kids, your grandkids. You’re using up all these resources for you, and then there’s nothing left for them. What if you would put that effort into creating some sort of sustainable system that would leave something for everybody else? It just seems selfish to me the way that we’re farming. I think about all the people in our farming system who are undocumented, who are being exploited. In my supply chain, there’s no exploitation, right? Unless I’m exploiting myself, because that’s maybe a little bit true. Sometimes I come home and I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m ready to sell these things right now. I can’t believe you guys are out again.” It’s me going to the butcher who brings it to the customer, right? There’s nobody in a packing plant being injured. If anybody gets kicked, it’s me getting kicked, and everybody gets paid. It feels like there’s a lot less exploitation in a close supply chain. The same goes for any other type of agriculture. With vegetable agriculture, especially, we’ve gotten so used to cheap produce that we’re like, “I’m not paying more than three bucks for carrots.” But the people who pick our food have bad working conditions with little control over those conditions, and maybe not the greatest pay. They’re not even respected by the people who are eating the food they pick. There’s something wrong with that.
I think about the economy we’ve created. There are weeks where I work 60 hours, I don’t want to come home and cook, I’m exhausted. My staple dinner, as odd as it is, is just eggs and toast, because it takes me about three minutes to make. It’s delicious, and I go get eggs from right outside my front door. Because of the way that we’ve done things, people are sick. Americans have higher rates of high blood pressure, diabetes, people are obese or overweight. It’s this system we’ve created of people not having enough time to feed themselves the right kind of food. But at the same time, one of my original interests in food and agriculture was making sure people had enough to eat. Having affordable food is really important to me, I want food to be accessible for everybody. Part of me thinks that the solution isn’t just cheap food, the solution is making sure families can afford good food. I feel guilty charging what I charge for my food, but I look at the math and this is what I have to charge. Then I wonder how the heck are they selling it for so much cheaper?
They’ve got the economies of scale and specialized equipment, which is really hard to compete against. But there are just so many negative economic externalities of that system. I have a minor in economics, so I think about that all the time. There are costs that we’re not paying right now that other people are gonna have to pay later. I think about hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, and how much nitrogen we’re sending down the Mississippi River. How can we be doing that to the people down there? We’re polluting their water. That’s so selfish. I get it, I’m not a perfect farmer at all. I have made mistakes; I do things that aren’t great either. We still can admit it and work towards being better. I think on a one-on-one basis a lot of farmers can do that, but I think maybe once you get so big, it’s tough.
Talk about your relationship to other small farmers in our area.
You don’t find them right away, sometimes you just have to wait. Working at Soil and Water is really great because I met a lot of farmers. Then I joined the Sustainable Farming Association, and a lot of us are just small. That’s been really great. I’m lucky that so many people in our chapter are close to me, like Amy Beckman right down the road, Kelsey Wulf is right up the road, and that’s nice to have those people around. You can share equipment. I finally got the thing I’ve wanted forever, which is a stock trailer. Now if anyone needs to use it, they can. Sharing is how you overcome the disadvantages that we have with our farming system.
Are people who practice sustainable farming doing something new, or going back to the old ways?
I don’t think it’s new. I think it’s almost all old. The equipment I use, like the scythes out there that I cut my grass with, those were designed like a thousand years ago.
It comes down to low inputs, that’s what I think about. I can’t go buy a bunch of fertilizer, I can’t go buy a bunch of seed, I can’t go buy a bunch of equipment. I’ve got to work with what I have, so that means low input. You got to figure out how that works for you. One of the most amazing things I’ve been trying lately is called bale grazing, where you just feed hay out in your pasture instead of in the barn, which doesn’t sound life-changing, but it is. It makes a difference in my pasture if I bale grazed or I hadn’t. I’m not kidding you when I say I get four times as much grass in those areas. I’m doing nothing different besides changing the location of where I’m feeding. That was low input. Same input, changing one thing about it.
I’m lucky I have land. This is the first year I’ve got a hay share going on. Others will pretty much do all the work and get most of the hay, but I get a little bit, so I benefit from their equipment, and they benefit from being able to farm my land.
We’ve created this system where it’s easy for us to just go along with how things are going. The pandemic made us question that a little bit. Packing plants can work at full capacity, but logistics and supply chains are messed up, so goods weren’t getting where they needed to go. That was a reality check for a lot of us. I think there’s a lot of problems we need to address. The reason I farm is because I want to be the one fixing those problems. It’s not easy, and regardless of what kind of farming you’re doing, whether it be organic and sustainable or traditional, it can be really stressful. It takes a lot of work to break out of the system we’ve created. I think a lot of the small farmers in this area are trying to do that. We see problems with water quality, we see problems with soil erosion, and we’re trying something new to see if we can fix it. That little slough down there drains all the water from my property and it eventually goes to the Ottertail River, which goes to the Red River. Eventually, this water that I have right here is impacting somebody else. So even though I’m an hour from the Red River, what I do here is going to impact those people up there. My ability to retain water on my land is going to impact whether our river floods someone else’s home. We’re all interconnected, and I want to do the best I can to make sure that my actions aren’t harming someone else.
Yellow Rose Organic Farm
I just enjoy farming. I would say that I’m an organic farmer looking towards the future. Climate change is here and we need to react to that. We can’t continue doing things the way we do things.
Larry Heitkamp
Larry Heitkamp
Interviewed at Yellow Rose Organic Farm
Meadow Township, Wadena County, Minnesota
8/15/2022
What do you raise here?
I try to stick with people food, and I raise chickens. So that’s a little bit of a conundrum right there. I guess I should qualify that, in that I try to stay away from corn and soybeans, which feed into the CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) system, whether it’s conventional or organic. It really feeds into the CAFO system, so I just try to steer away from growing corn and soybeans. I grow pinto beans, I grow peas. I just harvested amber and green peas which I want to use for chicken feed. That’s what I try to feed my chickens.
Tell the story of how you found your way to this life and work.
My mom was always into Prevention Magazine. Usually she was feeding us dandelions, things like that, and I think that’s where I got my early start going towards organic. And I think my mom got that from her daughter that died from cancer. Nancy died when she was five or six, she had leukemia. I think that’s what got my mom into natural healing more than anything. And so I grew up with that.
In what year was it? ‘75 I think it was. I was kind of tired of playing music. I’m not a great musician. Not a terrible musician, but not a great musician, and I didn’t like living out of motels and things like that. So, I came back to help my dad, and I really spent that summer trying to decide what I wanted to do, and what drew me back to farming was organic farming. I figured that out the year that I came back. I wanted to be an organic farmer; I didn’t want to be a commercial farmer. Life happens, my brothers and I form a partnership, life goes on, all kinds of financial problems, the Reagan years, just the family dynamics, my dad didn’t have the capitalist drive that our neighbors did. And a car accident that my brother had in which somebody was killed.
Basically, just mishaps. Anyway, I learned a lot about the legal system and the financial system and just how corrupt they are, through that whole ordeal. It was that car accident and the Reagan years that led to the dissolution of the partnership, that led to me farming on my own, and actually finally coming to the realization or the fruition of my dream of becoming an organic farmer.
Is the land you are on now that same farm?
No, this is land I acquired. In the dissolution of the partnership, there were two separate tracts of land, one in Richland County (ND), one in Ransom County (ND). The Richland County Farm was the home farm and that was the profitable farm, and the Ransom County farm was the poor land.
I was saddled with so much debt when the partnership broke up, and I did my best to stay on top of it. Again, life goes on. My one brother had moved over here, and these two quarters of land came up and I said “ Why not sell the North Dakota land and get rid of the debt and come over to Minnesota?”
What do you find personally rewarding about organic farming?
I just enjoy farming. I would say that I’m an organic farmer looking towards the future. I don’t see organic farming the way that a lot of people do it as necessarily my way, or the way that I want to proceed. Climate change is here and we need to react to that. We can’t continue doing things the way we do things. That’s the catch 22. You have to continue doing things the way you do things, in order to make the money to keep going. But at the same time, if we keep doing that, we aren’t going to change in time to save humanity. I’m not gonna say “Save the planet” because the planet is gonna live, the planet is gonna survive. This is the sixth mass extinction, it’s not the first. I’m trying to become as climate friendly as possible, carbon neutral as possible. I look for new ways of doing things.
You want to contribute to the change that needs to happen?
I want to be on the cutting edge. Yes.
I didn’t start farming organically until 1996. It took that long because I had to play the game, I had to make money, I was burdened with a lot of debt, that’s what I had to do.
Do you feel like you’re part of a farming community that’s making progress toward these changes?
Yeah, I do and I don’t, because there are the people that absolutely won’t hear of change. And there are the people that that embrace change. When I came over here my financial history followed me. I sold the land to come over here and have a new start, but when I got over here, I didn’t get a new start. The financial industry wouldn’t allow that, because my history followed me over. It’s been a real struggle over here, too. It’s a whole new set of circumstances over here, learning the soil, learning what works and what doesn’t, and always trying to make things work.
One of the people I admire is Gabe Brown. Now, he’s not really organic, doesn’t want to be organic, but he’s regenerative, and really pushed multi-species cover crops. Well, on my ground over here, as sandy as it was, I couldn’t do a multi-species cover crop at first. Ankle high. That’s what I got in the fall of the year. That’s all the growth that would happen. When I talked to Gabe about it, Gabe was, “Well, I don’t know what’s going to work for you.” I know what would work: animal manure, but I’m not financially set up for that. It costs money to get into that, so my hands are tied. Plus, all of the animal manure that you buy has glyphosate in it. It’s loaded up with glyphosate. It’s got chemicals in it, and I want to stay away from that, too. But I think I got it figured out, I think, I’ll never know until I do it. You know, you just got to do it.
How do you bring your products to the public?
The grains are contracted to the bigger companies. I raise peas and edible beans. And I also grow rye and vetch. I look to maybe grow some wheat, maybe grow some sunflowers. I need to diversify a little bit more. All of it is organic.
When I go to the store and buy organic peas maybe they came from you?
No, and this is where I don’t like raising these peas. They grind them up and they make protein. And then they come to you in cake mixes and fake burger. I’m more of a purist, I guess, and I really have problems doing that. Because I really believe, I think that gets back to Prevention Magazine, I believe in the whole food. I don’t believe in breaking it down into bits and pieces, and then expecting the food to keep you healthy.
Then what about the eggs?
I sell straight to the stores. Every now and then I’ll get a call from a customer wanting to come out and get a deal, and I don’t have time for that. I tell them $6 a dozen; I sell to the stores for five. They want to come out here to get a deal. I’ll sell it to them for $6. And it’s not that I’m against selling right off the farm, but if I have to take time to sell my eggs off the farm, I have to be paid for that.
What do you want the public to know about the importance and the urgency of the work that needs to be done to change farming and our food system?
I have a graph I would like to give you. It’s about longevity and health costs. It shows how in the rest of the world, the average age has been climbing, and health costs have been getting a little bit bigger. And then there’s the United States, and we’re actually declining. We’ve peaked, and we’re coming down. I recently got on Audible Books and listened to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s The Real Anthony Fauci. To me, that’s the legacy of Anthony Fauci. While the rest of the world is still climbing, we’re declining, because he doesn’t research food, he doesn’t research allergies, he doesn’t research human health. He researches drugs, and he researches vaccines. He is sick care, he’s not health care. Dr. Fauci follows the science of conventional agriculture. He doesn’t look at the organic side.
To answer it in a different way, I just watched a movie, Racing Extinction. They focus on the sixth mass extinction, and I really did appreciate that. But then they threw in a couple of little clips about animal agriculture, and cows emitting methane. Whereas if you follow the science, and I guess the only reason I know this is I started looking at grass-fed beef back in around 2000, and learning about CAFOs versus grass-based agriculture. If you follow the science, the cows sequester and build soil health, much more than they damage the atmosphere with methane, if it’s a grass-based economy. But if it’s a CAFO, where the farmers spray the ground and fertilize the soil, and use the dirt as the growing medium instead of building soil health, and put the cows in a feedlot and truck all the feed to the cows, that’s the model that doesn’t work.
Should farming return to some of the old ways?
Yes and no, because organic farming today isn’t what organic farming was at the turn of the century. There’s been lots of changes. With grass-fed beef, it isn’t returning to a pasture system that people used in the 30s, and 40s, and 50s, because they would just turn their cows out there and let them eat grass all year in the same pasture. Well, what that does is, if you allow the cattle to take more than 50% of the forage of the grass, then the grass is actually going backwards and losing root mass underneath. You’re actually degrading the soil if cows are out there on the same piece of ground all year long. What you try to do in a regenerative system of grass-based agriculture is, optimally, you move them every day or maybe three or four times a day. What you’re doing is mimicking the way that nature actually grazed the prairies here in the Midwest. Thousands of buffalo would come through and they would eat as they moved. That’s what grass-based farmers try to do. What they call that today when they mimic nature is mob grazing. Mob grazing is putting a million pounds of beef on an acre and continuously moving them so they do not eat more than 50% of the grass. They eat the tops and leave the bottoms. They eat the most nutrient dense part of the plant to grow healthy and strong, leaving the plant with a stem for faster regrowth of leaves to grow deeper roots!
Doubting Thomas Farms
I just really want for people, when they eat something, for it to be of value. And really important for generations to come, is that the whole grain is so much better for health. There are so many things that the (Red River) Valley can provide.
Noreen Thomas
Noreen Thomas
Interviewed at Doubting Thomas Farms
Kragnes Township, Clay County, Minnesota
9/22/2022
What do you raise here?
Most of our product is organic grains, or combination of grains. The grains can be used straight for cooking, like our oats, much like rice. We also combine grains for pancake mixes, flour, seven grain cereal, so we have the basic grains like buckwheat, oats, wheat, winter wheat, rye, and barley, but then we also can combine those to make other foods as well.
Do you do combine and package the grains here?
There is a rented facility, and we also have a packing house where we can do small sample sizes.
Tell the story of how you found your way to this life and work.
I married into it. I was not going to marry farmer, but I did. The two worlds were very separate, I didn’t quite see how they fit together. But now they fit perfectly, because the overlap of nutrient-dense foods is where I lie. I just really want for people, when they eat something, for it to be of value. And really important for generations to come, is that the whole grain is so much better for health. There are so many things that the (Red River) Valley can provide. Our grains are some of the nutrient-dense grains, the antioxidants and phenols in them are over the top compared to other areas. It’s a richest soil in the world.
These benefits are from the special nature of this soil here?
Yes, and we’re continuing on with soil health and making sure that we’re also giving back to the land. We’re not just stripping it and leaving that problem for the next generations. We work a lot with cover crops. Melany and I are both clean water certified, because we’re right by waterways. It’s important to not send contaminated water up North, to be a good neighbor. It’s something that we’re proud of when a child or family eats, I feel good about that. And the flavor is picked; all the seeds varieties are picked before they’re planted for flavor, by some of the chefs we work with.
How has being on a multi-generation family farm affected your work?
Our grandchild, Melany’s and Evan’s child, is the sixth generation. To keep the farm going forward, we had to navigate, you know, get bigger, get out, sell out or find a niche, and the organic really appealed to us. And it took a lot of growth. It took us time to figure things out, we’re still figuring things out. But it’s something that I feel really good about, because what’s not in something is just as important as what’s in it.
What do you find personally rewarding about this work?
It’s very hard work. It’s difficult work. Physically, mentally, emotionally it’s very hard. But I think I never understood what the love of the land is. When a farmer would say that, I said, “That’s kind of strange.” But I think it’s just taking care of the land. It’s rewarding when you see things work that maybe are experimental, and sometimes it all clicks with nature when you’re not sure. I think it’s rewarding to see how I can work with what I have, going forward. Like the cover crops, you know, we’re eating them now. We’re sending them to New York to some of the finest restaurants there are, and big deal, but it is a big deal that somebody recognized that the flavor is very much like the European old-time rye, and that they bond with that because they love the flavor that’s unique to this area and unique to us. And traceability, I’m here, I’m not in some other country where we don’t know the practices and how they treat the land, and children that work the land. Those are some big questions.
It’s interesting to me to hear how the soil makes a difference in the flavor of the grains.
Terroir, it’s very much so. Our grains do not taste the same as what’s grown in certain other areas of the country. And some of it they just can’t do because our varieties are Northern. They’re trying hard red spring wheat, because of the protein. Here is the bread basket, there’s nothing like it. They’ve tried it in other states and it just is not the same. I’ve done intense back-to-back variety testing, and we’ve settled on some that don’t yield as well, but the flavor is there and the millers, who are the people working with it, love it.
Tell me about how your product gets out to the public.
That’s me, I’m kind of the marketing arm. Melany’s the GPS queen, so I said I’d be the marketing arm. I put it in the hands of some of the very top chefs. Dan Barber is a good friend of ours in New York and he’s at Blue Hill. He tells me the variety and the flavor is different. And I hear that from BernBaum’s downtown in Fargo. Chefs say to me, “I never thought grains could taste so diverse.” I’ve heard that over and over again. They tend to stick with us because we work with other organic farmers who grow things that we don’t have, we can work together to make a product. One of the bakers that we work with in Kentucky said “I want wheat.” I said “What kind of wheat?” So I sent him 10 samples, and he called me back he goes “I can’t believe it. We milled them the same, we checked them against Montana and they were different.” He said it was like seeing color when you only saw in black and white before.
Do you have working relationships with others in the sustainable farming and food communities?
Yes, very much so. A couple of things that started are that women would call the farm and ask for me because either they were inheriting land or they were coming coming back to the farm. They’re under 30 and saying “What about this? What about that?” There’s really nowhere for them to go. Women learn as a community. I kind of just gather them and help them, because it’s straight up growth. I mean, it’s a lot coming at you fast and furious. Helping make choices about how that land is managed is important. I have no vested interest in renting their land or taking advantage of them; if they ask me a question, I will tell them an honest opinion and also help them with resources. In my older age I’ve kind of became a spot where people call, even the chefs: “Where can I get hazelnuts? Where can I get this? We’re gonna get that.” So collectively, if we want that land to move in the right direction, we have to be a resource for others or it’s not going to happen. And people gather here, I don’t quite understand why. I don’t understand, but it happens all the time.
What are some things you would like the public to know about farming and food?
I think that picking nutrient-dense foods and whole grains makes a difference in their family long term, makes a difference on our farm, makes a difference in the land. If they vote with their food dollar; if people wouldn’t buy our product, we wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t survive. That relationship is much tighter than they ever can imagine. Voting by putting Melany’s pearl barley on the menu, that’s a huge decision. Plus, if they’re worried about environment, our grains are minimally processed. We’re saving all sorts of energy by not shipping it here and there, processing it, steaming it. And it usually goes through five different hands by the time it gets to the consumer, minimum. Here, you’ve probably got one turn, two turns, and it’s right to them. So, when you vote with your dollar, yes, it’s not going to be the cheapest, but the cheapest gets you to the mindset of the big corporations. And is that something you want? I’m supporting the school system; I’m intermeshed with the community. I can’t say that when you buy a grain from somewhere else. And what are they spraying on it? Things are allowed in other countries that are banned here in the US. We’re not putting any ‘cides, on: herbicides, insecticides.
For community, if you need somebody to show up, these farmers are probably on five different boards, five different agencies that they volunteer for, from the fire department to whatever. I’m not sure you can see that in other areas because they’re tapped so much. That community member, that community farm, gives access to it for your children. We have open days, Ryan Pesch has open days on his farm, no one else is gonna offer that for your children or your grandchildren. It’s me, it’s Ryan Pesch, it’s Zachary Paige. And our farm supports another four or five other farms, from the beekeeper to the chef that uses our property to grow his herbs for his herb tea. You know, there’s five different people that are depending upon us.
Dana Trickey
You always feel good when you go take a hike in the woods, you come back, you feel better. People can’t quite put their finger on what that means, but there’s something to that, and when you start connecting and understanding that, tapping into your own connection, which is your own spirituality, then you can start understanding it a little bit better.
Dana Trickey
Dana Trickey
Interviewed at her home
Oakland Township, Mahnomen County, Minnesota
9/29/2022
What do you do here?
I do a number of things, all around wild foods, things off the land. Started with birch bark baskets. I learned from my, we call him a Niyawen’enh (or Weh Enh), my adopted dad. He and his wife taught me how to make birch baskets and quill work. I started out with that, which was a really good base, because those are our containers to keep food in, and that’s learning how to work with a tree, and in the woods, and with different materials. Then I learned sugar bush, harvesting maple syrup, cooking that down to syrup, sugar and candy. More recently, in the last three years, another friend of mine taught me how to turn maple syrup into vinegar. I learned wild ricing quite a few years ago, but I’ve been ricing here pretty seriously the last five years or more. Wild rice has really taken off as something I work with. And then a lot of wild foods. Just wild foods, everything. From acorns to all the wild berries, wild grapes, you name it. I’m an avid mushroomer. I don’t always sell all of those things. Sometimes I do, just depends on who’s looking for what, so I kind of ebb and flow with the growing season and what’s available and what the passion is.
I Started out just locally, small scale, a lot of teaching classes to people who wanted to learn these things. A lot of what I do is education, to get it out there, trying to educate people on living with the land and with plants. And sustainability, of course. And then my adopted brother said, “We’ve got to get your stuff out there.” So, we started putting it online, and it just took off. Then I made a Facebook page and it’s taken off, and now I’ve got clientele and followers, fans I guess, all over the world. I’ve sent wild foods and my quillwork baskets and birch work to New Zealand, to Japan, to Colombia, the UK, Canada. I know there’s been some other places, but it’s gone all over. So that’s pretty cool. You know, it’s been a lot of fun.
You work exclusively with food that is wild, not cultivated?
I do a lot of wild harvest. Yeah, I really like the wild harvest, and then taking that and turning it into fun and unique products. Vinegar has been a fun one that I started really getting into during the shutdown of the pandemic. I wanted to really master that because I’ve done a lot of fermenting over the years with garden vegetables and things like that. I’m really interested in vinegar, the health benefits of vinegar, and the health benefits of all of our wild foods and the knowledge around that. Fermenting those foods also brings back traditional Indigenous ways of not just preserving foods, but food as medicine, with health benefits for digestive systems and whatnot. When I started researching vinegars, I was finding nobody was doing them just from the fruit or the food, whatever the wild food was. If you were buying for example, fig vinegar, it wasn’t just from figs that were fermented. It would be some type of balsamic or other vinegar that was a base, something like grapes, because they’re easy to get in quantity. They make a lovely vinegar of course, but then they would add fig juice, something to enhance the flavor. So, I’m like “I want to do just those foods.” If it’s maple, I’m doing just maple vinegar, maple syrup is the base. This year I’m experimenting with birch syrup for vinegar. Wild grapes turn out really well, highbush cranberries turn out really well for vinegar. I’m just fermenting the highbush cranberries into a wine and then into a vinegar. I don’t stop at the wine; I just go right to vinegar.
How did you come by your knowledge of wild foods, and how do you continue to learn?
Yeah, it kind of comes naturally. For me, it’s just always been a passion since I was a little kid. I always wanted to be in the woods, you know: “What’s this, what’s that?” checking it all out. Making relationships with plants is really important; we need to make relationships with them, just like we do with people. And when we do, there’s so much we can learn, not just about what they can offer, but how we can take care of them, of the Earth, of the land. I had a lot of really good teachers, elder teachers, traditional cultural teachers, from Anishinaabe way of life to Lakota lifeways to other ways. A lot of those teachers have passed on, so they’re not around anymore, but I learned a lot from them, and I keep carrying that forward to teach others, because that’s a responsibility of carrying knowledge. We don’t get to keep it, it doesn’t really belong to us, we just carry it for a time. I have a lot of other folks that are more my age that I get to learn from, because they’ve also learned from their elders, and we get together and share that knowledge and share those experiences. I really enjoy teaching, getting it out there to people who are interested. They could live healthier, there’s a cure for every sickness we have, and it’s a good way to live. If you’re eating wild foods, you don’t need a huge plate of food, you just need a little bit because the nutrients are so concentrated. A small wild food salad will fill you up as much as a huge plate of something you might get at a restaurant. The same can be said for organic farms, but especially with wild foods. It’s just been really fun to research that and be able to share that knowledge.
You live here in this beautiful maple and birch forest; how did you find this place?
I’ve been around this area for a long time. It came up in the market about a year and a half before I actually noticed it. I looked, but I moved on, and then it wasn’t on the market, but then it came up again later. The first time it came up with only part of the land, then the second time it came up with the whole nearly 40 acres. So, I’m gonna go look at that. It felt like a place I should be at, so I asked permission, not just from the land, but from the tribal elder who owned this land previously, because it is within the reservation and I wanted to live here respectfully and honor the folks that carry the rights to the land. I wanted to live here in a good way, and also create a space where young people can come learn on the sugar bush, and other things, and my friends can come out and have a place to walk through the woods, just to make it a family space and to take care of the place.
It sounds like you have a real heart connection to the land and everything that lives here. Did you always know you wanted to live in a place like this?
I always have since I was really little. I can remember that I’d always be out in the woods, always be out in the garden, always out on my bike or running trails, I’d always be out somewhere. I grew up on a lake, which is really nice. My parents have a lake place, my dad built a log cabin, so we grew up that way. The only thing this place doesn’t have is lakefront, but I’ve got a pond in the back so I’m good, and lakes all around. I always had that connection to the land. We gardened and harvested wild berries, but with limited knowledge. As I moved into my teen years, and especially my young adult years, I really wanted to know more. I was always seeking out that learning.
Do you have connections with others in the local food and sustainability community?
Yeah, absolutely. I really enjoy going to different food conferences or farming conferences, I try to get to the Native nutrition conference down in southern Minnesota, the Indigenous farming conference here in White Earth, that Land Recovery puts on. There’s a lot of connections, I have connections to people in a lot of other places around the country and in Canada, who do a lot of these things, whether it be farming, seed saving, traditional foods and medicines. We have friends in Michigan who build birch canoes and dugout canoes, and those are related to our food. We need that canoe to go get the rice, we need birch baskets to collect the berries and nuts. They’re all connected, the tools that we use. I make some of my own tools, I have a lot of friends who make some of their own tools. We can’t just go buy a tool from the store, we have to make our own, because it’s a certain kind of tool we need, like a crooked knife. I can’t just go buy that at Menards, somebody has to make that crooked knife, because that’s an old style, a knife that you use for certain things. I have a friend who makes those, so I buy from him. It’s a way we can all support each other too. That’s an old way of living, it’s community. It’s not just self, it’s community, we all bring a skill to the table that we can share.
What do you want the wider community to know about the work you do?
I think probably the biggest thing is, we need to be intentional about making connection. I think our society is so disconnected nowadays. I think that’s the root of most of the problems we have, from overconsumption to pollution to our weather; I see that affecting a lot of what I do. I think we’ve lost connection to our roots in nature. We need to really find a way to connect there, because when we do, when we’re in the woods, when we’re on the land, when we’re slowing down, we’re listening, and we’re feeling and we’re connecting, it softens us, it makes us more kind, it makes us more gentle. And it diminishes our ego, and we need to check in with that. There’s a lot to that, and we can find balance in ourselves and in our life.
Would you call this a spiritual practice?
Oh, yeah, it is. It has to be, but spirituality is an individual thing. We can do things collectively as human beings, that’s more religion, but that’s a whole other conversation. But spirituality, we each have it. And we can suppress it, we can ignore it, or we can find our way to connect, and we’re all going to do that a little bit differently. There’s no right or wrong for what that looks like. We just have to do that in an intentional, heartfelt kind of way. So how do we connect? Nature is a space where we can figure that out.
Is wild food a path for making these needed connections?
It isn’t just the food, it’s the spirit of those plants. That’s what we’re connecting with. You know, people don’t always recognize it, but that’s really the connection that we’re making. That gives us nourishment and healing, but also feels good. You always feel good when you go take a hike in the woods, you come back, you feel better. People can’t quite put their finger on what that means, but there’s something to that, and when you start connecting and understanding that, tapping into your own connection, which is your own spirituality, then you can start understanding it a little bit better.
Deb’s Corner Foods
Honestly, I just love feeding people, I love working with food. I know I’m not the only one on the planet, but I talk to my food. And I’m not trying to talk my way through, hoping it makes it, I’m talking, appreciating the fact that it took the time to become flour, or to become mushed up and rolled out and beaten. And then we eat it.
Deb Jenkins
Deb Jenkins
Interviewed at Deb’s Corner Foods
Fargo, North Dakota
8/8/2022
Tell the story of how you came to work with food.
A little history on my food: I used to be partners with a lady by the name of Betty, and we had TSW Catering. We started that together when we were both working at a restaurant that was downtown, and were both working for nonprofits. When she decided not to participate anymore, she said, “I’ll help you, but I’m not interested in being a business partner.” I had to come up with a name, and I couldn’t think of one. And at the time, quite a long time ago, the Moose Lodge was still downtown across from the Fargo Theatre, and they had a little concert going on. I was just starting doing catering, and I said that I wanted to participate, but I didn’t have a name yet. I walked in and I asked, “Where am I supposed to set up anything?” And this guy that was putting it on had made a sign, on his own, and it said, Deb’s Corner, and he goes “You’re right over there.” And I said “Oh, my gosh, can I have that name?” Because I hadn’t found one, I sort of liked that Deb’s Corner, I like being in the corner. So that’s where the name came from, and then I just want to mention that the verbiage for my catering is “The kind of food mother nature would feed her children.” Again, stolen, I have to say, because when I was at the restaurant, David Martinson, a good friend, was eating in the restaurant, and I was in the kitchen. And he goes, “Deborah!” “Yes, David?” He said, “This is the kind of food and mother nature would feed her children!” And I went, “Oh, my God, can I have that?” And he said “Absolutely” so that’s how I got that.
I do feel like quite a mom with the food. When I was growing up, I was the only one in a household of five people that didn’t get sports. I mean, I just didn’t get it, I still don’t. But I’m the one in the kitchen, bringing in the food to the people that are whooping and hollering because somebody either caught a ball or threw long or ran or whatever. They’re watching the sports and they’ll eat whatever you put in front of them. I found this is sort of fun. You know, I’m just gonna try a little of this and see what they think. I don’t know if they were even tasting the food, they just weren’t throwing it out. But they were eating it, so that was fun. And then I went to nursing school, actually three times. I went for an LPN, then I went back for a diploma, and I went back and got my BSN. And all through that time, whether it was studying or working, I would always bring my own food to eat. And people were like, “Oh my gosh, where do you buy that?” I’m like, “I didn’t buy it. I made it.”
Later on, probably in the early 90s, when the cafe was closing, I had already started the business with Betty and found that one of the things that the restaurant had that wasn’t truly going on in Fargo, was we had on our menu vegetarian. We didn’t have vegan, we didn’t have gluten free, and I don’t think we even thought about it, but we had vegetarian. I knew that a vegetarian obviously wasn’t eating meat, so it was like “Okay, guys, this is the pot for vegetarian, this is the spoon for vegetarian.” I truly believe that at the time the other places in town that would have vegetarian on the menu simply put some broth on, it usually would be chicken broth, but it had vegetables in it and they would consider that to be vegetarian. And it’s just like, if we’re gonna say that word, we’re gonna be true to it, you know. And that sort of started a little movement at the cafe, we got introduced to different things from different people, listening to what the community was asking us about, “Do you have this and not this?” And then I think that’s when I started hearing the word gluten, for people that had to worry about gluten, or, “I don’t do cheese” and it to me became a challenge. I like a good challenge. I personally think if you’re vegan, that you’re the beginning of making food. People go, “Oh, my goodness, vegan!” I don’t think it’s hard, you always start out vegan, it’s what you put into it that changes it to everything. You can start out with a broth that’s vegetarian and not put any kind of dairy in it. But you can keep going and all of a sudden, it’s a cream soup, not vegan anymore, or you can add beef and okay, now it’s carnivorous. I personally feel you always start out vegan, and then vegetarian, because then you start adding all the other things that vegans can’t have.
I love the fact that people are happy when they eat. I should just say that I have a hard time with people giving me compliments about stuff. I just really hope they enjoy it, and I get it, you know, but when I start getting accolades about something, I get almost anxiety about it, because, okay, now what are they gonna say? I also know how to take criticism on my food. Usually from that you learn how to do something a little different, add or take away or, “Oh, I forgot, I should have known that.” And I don’t mind that either. I really think it’s important to learn from those people around me that this is what they do for their life, not so much for their living.
I eat everything, I’m not a vegetarian or vegan. I don’t eat a lot of meat, but I do like my steak, I’m not gonna say don’t like my steak. But I appreciate people that are true to their, “I don’t eat any of this because…” I’m okay with that. I’m less okay with people that, they can’t do this, and they can’t do that.
On my sign it says Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Dairy Free and at the end, (and they’re all the same size), it says Carnivorous. However, what I find is when that sign is up, which is always on my tent or somewhere, when people walk by, they start reading with the first and they never get to the end. They’ll be standing in front of the booth going “I can’t eat any of that stuff.” I said “You don’t eat meat then?” “You have meat?” Come on, keep reading, I do it all.
Are there food traditions or food cultures that influence your work?
My mom and my dad were very good cooks. My mom’s side of the family is Southern; that was a lot of really heavy food and I loved every bite of it, and I still do. But I got to the mindset to figure out how to make those types of foods and not make them so heavy, but make them just as delicious. I find that Southern cooking, Jamaican cooking (love Jamaican cooking) and learning more about that is something that I go to, and Cajun, I go Southern a lot. But truly my favorite food on the planet is Asian. I love playing with all kinds of spices and you know, sauces and things to learn about.
How do you get your food out to the public?
I have my food at Natural Grocers in Fargo on 45th. It’s in what they call the Grab and Go section. However, when people see me at the farmers markets or festivals, usually those foods I’m selling are not at Grab and Go. The kinds of things that I sell at the markets and at MANNA in Detroit Lakes are curry chickpeas and brown rice because I can freeze that and it lasts a long time, and the people that purchase it in the stores can buy a lot of it and put in the freezer. I sell hummus and jalapeno pesto And Mike’s jerk sauce, I sell my cookies, I make a vegan chili that’s really good, and I chickpea salad that’s really good. You have to have a label for everything, you have a barcode for everything you have to have an approval. I don’t do anything with meat at any of the stores because I’m just not gonna go there with the health department and plus state things. I also make chips called Deb’s Texas Chips; I did not give it that name. As I’m talking, I realize I didn’t do a lot of naming stuff. Linda Boyd helped me do my labels years ago, and the chips are pretty big size, and she goes “Wow, these are like Texas chips.” And again, said “Maybe we should use that name.” Those are at Happy Harry’s, this the only place I sell them, and only at one of them, and that’s on 45th.
Can people get ready-to-eat foods from you at markets and festivals?
They can with the spinach pies, and the other thing that I sell is breakfast burritos. I put them together there and hand them to them, and they can walk around and eat those, and the cookies and chips. The spreads always come frozen, so it’s something for them to take home. My goal is product placement though, I just started the process of becoming a member online with the new Red River Harvest Cooperative. It’s new, but it’s also a co-op that’s online and people will go there to order stuff.
What are the some of the things you find personally rewarding in your work?
Honestly, I just love feeding people, I love working with food. I know I’m not the only one on the planet, but I talk to my food. And I’m not trying to talk my way through, hoping it makes it, I’m talking, appreciating the fact that it took the time to become flour, or to become mushed up and rolled out and beaten. And then we eat it. I love the fact that no matter which dough I rolled out and picked up, they were all different. But you know, we’re all the same, and so is the food. They could have all fallen apart and just said “I’m not working for you today” but they didn’t. I really do love working with food and making food, and I’m really picky. I said to my husband today, he was putting something on the dough that was rising, he’s putting something down on the cover. And I’m like, “I’m sorry, don’t do that. It’s pretty. It’s rising right now it needs all of its area, you know.” And that’s the other reason I sell my chips only one place, because they crumble so easy. People will pick it up; and I’m one of those people too, who pick it up and just put it back, but not gently, you don’t think about how you’re insulting these chips when you just throw it back on. Those chips to start to crumble, so I only sell them in one place, in a basket.
What’s one thing you want the public to know about how you think about food?
Honestly, your taste buds will tell you, you can tell the difference. You know whether it’s coming from a can or the garden. I just seek that respect. And I use that word a lot about food: respect it. It could be not there; it could be there and not edible at all. Or it could be there and just say, “Oh, I’d love for you to taste me because I’m so good. I’m the best sweet little strawberry you’ve ever had.”
Just put me in a grocery store in the middle of a whole other country and I’ll never come out, because I’ll just be like, “What’s that? And how do you use that?” And it’s just amazing. The things that you find out. But you know, the planet gives you so much, just respect it and take what it wants to give you and enjoy it.
Jake’s Syrups and Natural Products
We do try to take really good care of the land. We also care about our product, we care about having a quality product, there’s nothing artificial, no color, no preservatives, in any of our products. We care about having a natural product, as well as caring about the land.
DMae ceryes
Jerry Jacobson and DMae Ceryes
Interviewed at Jakes Syrups & Natural Products LLC
Dunn Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota
8/12/2022
What do you do here?
Our main product is maple syrup. We also do about 10 different berry syrups, such as chokecherry, wild plum, raspberry, strawberry-rhubarb, as an example of some things we do. We raise most of the fruits here, but that’s kind of secondary; maple syrup is definitely the main thing that we do.
Tell the story of how you found your way to this life and work.
Jerry:
I grew up here on this land, my parents owned it, they bought it back in the 40s. I was raised here, went to school in Pelican Rapids, so I was pretty local. When I turned 18, of course, I went into the service. And then from there, I went to vo-tech school, and then I moved to the Twin Cities. I lived in the Twin Cities for about 25 years, and at that time, I worked for the University of Minnesota, designing computer systems, and maintaining and developing computer systems for the U. After living in the Twin Cities for about 25 years, I decided I’m kind of tired of living in the big city, my father had died, and my mother lived out here. I bought the property from my parents a little bit before my father passed. I always had the idea that eventually I’d want to move back here and live, so that’s what I did. I met my lovely life partner down in the Cities. She lived in Maple Grove, that’s where we met.
DMae:
When his parents lived here, they always had a garden, she canned and they had their own animals. They were kind of subsistence eaters, very local, sustainable subsistence eaters, and they did maple syrup, just for the family. When Jerry was at the University, he started doing some maple syrup for fun, and he would give it to his friends down there, and they all said, “This is so good, you should be doing this.” And so that’s, I think, how that idea got hatched. I don’t think you saw it going where it’s gone, but I think it hatched the idea.
Jerry:
Right, we had never intended for it to be a big business. You know, when I moved up here, basically, I had retired back in ’93, roughly that timeframe. And you get tired of hunting and fishing, and I was like, “Well, you know, I need something else to keep me entertained.” so we started doing maple syrup on a very small scale. And then like I said, people really liked this stuff. Then I said to her, “Well, we’re gonna double the number of trees we tap next year” 200 or whatever it was, and then it seemed like it took off from there. Eventually we were up to 2000 trees that we tapped, now we’re cutting back. It kind of had a life of its own as far as the demand and people liking it, and the compliments we were getting about the product and it being local.
The fruit stuff started a few years after the maple syrup. We got into that, and I started planting the trees I needed for the chokecherry and the plum and other fruits, the raspberries and so forth. We just kind of fell into it. We started doing craft shows and people kept asking if we could wholesale for the shops in the area, so we started doing that. It just kind of developed over time.
Are all the maple trees you tap on your property?
Most of them are. When we first started tapping, we tapped here, and we tapped at 80 acres we have east of Frazee. We pretty much tapped everything that was ours. It’s 40 minutes to drive up there by Frazee, so it’s a long way to haul sap. A few years ago, I found a neighbor that lives about a mile from here, and we started tapping 500 trees on their property, and it was easy to haul it home and process it. But now lately, last year, we decided that we’re probably going to just cut back to what we have here. We’re in the process now of retracting our business or getting smaller.
This land that has been in your family for many years. Does it hold emotional attachment for you?
Well, it does, part of why I bought it is that I knew that someday I’d like to move back here. So yeah, there was an attachment. I have no children, so after I’m gone, I don’t know what’s going to happen to it. It probably won’t stay in the family, but at least now I’m attached to it.
I wanted to move back to this area, but the actual making it a business with the maple and the fruits, that was never really in my mind. But it just sort of happened once I moved up here. I don’t really have a lot of hobbies, so it was something to do, something to keep me busy.
DMae, do you have a background in farming or rural life?
DMae:
Not at all. I’m not a country girl. I grew up in the middle of Duluth. No, I’m not a country girl. I’m a bloom-where-you’re-planted kind of a girl. I’m in to gardening and sustainable living, and I’m a Master Gardener. Also, I volunteer with Becker County, and what that means is that I have a certain amount of horticultural knowledge, and I help people figure out what’s going on with their fruits and vegetables and flowers. So, when he comes in and he says “There’s some worm on my gooseberries” I have the knowledge base to look it up and figure out what it is and what we can do about it. It kind of dovetails nicely my hobbies and his.
What are your personal motives for doing this work? What is your “Why?”
Jerry:
Well, every spring we look at each other and say, “Why do we do it?” It’s very labor intensive. The snow is two feet deep, maybe three feet deep some years when we’re out tapping and we’re doing it in snow shoes with sleds. Physically, it’s a lot of work, but it is that time of year there’s not much else going on. March and April are the timeframes where we do maple, so in that respect, it’s nice to get outside. I enjoy the outdoors, I’m an outdoors kind of guy. It gives me an excuse to be out in the woods, and it’s good exercise. That’s probably why we do it. You look forward to it, but then once you get into it, you’re dog tired at the end of the day, because it’s a lot of work.
DMae:
I would say too, on a nice March or April day, there’s just nothing like being out there. It’s just so awesome. Some of my best sights and sounds that I’ve ever had in my life have been when we were maple syruping. Every once in a while, you’ll get some geese that fly so close overhead that you can hear their wings. When we used to have more buckets, once you empty the buckets, and you hear this drip, drip, drip in hundreds and hundreds of buckets, it’s like the woods’ heartbeat. That’s just the best sound ever. We’ve seen tracks of otters that we never would have seen had we not been out there in the woods. There are some real gems every once in a while.
You must feel a connection to your customers and the community, you must feel like you’re doing a service to the world.
Jerry:
That’s kind of why we got into it as a business. We could have kept doing it as a hobby and just giving stuff away, but we started doing craft shows. And when people stop in here to buy syrups or jellies, whatever, the compliments you get about your product, where people say “I bought other stuff, and it just doesn’t taste like yours.” Or if you’re at a craft show, they say “You’re the only reason we’re here, to pick up our stuff from you.” You feel like you’re doing something right, that you’re actually making a good product. And so, there’s a lot customer loyalty.
DMae:
There’s also the education part of it too. We have a lot of people that stop in to buy syrup, and we say, “Well, would you like to see the equipment? Or would you like to learn more about the process?” We’re quite often showing pictures or showing people the process and the equipment that we use. I think people like that relationship, too. It’s better than just going to Walmart, right? You know where it comes from and who’s making it.
Jerry:
We’ve also had school groups out here, mostly homeschoolers, Boy Scouts, that sort of thing. It’s a good way for them to learn a little bit about nature.
Have you made contacts with other producers with the local farming community?
We have contact with other maple producers all over the state. We’re part of an organization with 120 members that are maple producers. We meet twice a year at different locations, so we have a lot of friends that are in the maple business, not so many that do the berry syrups and jellies.
DMae:
We don’t really consider ourselves farmers, so we don’t belong to any farmer groups. We don’t do farmers markets, so we’re not really connected with that.
What would you like the public to know about the work you do here?
DMae:
We do try to take really good care of the land. We also care about our product, we care about having a quality product, there’s nothing artificial, no color, no preservatives, in any of our products. We care about having a natural product, as well as caring about the land.
Jerry:
I think the one thing I enjoy most of all are the tours, to show people how we do it, walk them through the process. A lot of people, if they’re able physically, go walking on our trails to see how we have stuff set out in the woods. It’s just amazing how much people enjoy that sort of thing, just the nature walks and nothing else. It’s that contact with people and explaining to people how we try to keep our trees healthy and not over-tap and that sort of thing, and just take care of what’s here.
North Circle Seeds
It feels good to be part of the work that is going to sustain us in the future and is connected to the past. There’s a certain sense of purpose, and feeling wanted or needed. There’s not a lot of seed companies that grow seeds that are specialized in this area of the Midwest, that has short-season reliable, organic seeds that will hold up to a lot of the diseases and different kinds of pressures that we’re getting, climate pressures.
zachary paige
Zachary Paige
Interviewed at North Circle Seeds
Dunn Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota
7/12/2022
Tell the story of how you found your way to this life and work.
I started out living in Long Island, New York, played a little bit of music, and had loving, supportive parents and family. I was looking for something deeper in nature, connecting to the earth, rooting myself more to live a sustainable lifestyle, and started working on some farms. A friend of mine worked on an organic farm in Pennsylvania which I really liked, and decided I’d go for it and start working on farms, and really enjoyed connecting with the earth, like I was searching for. Over time I realized that’s what I really enjoy doing, and spent a lot of my time doing, then found my way out to Minnesota.
I figured a lot of people weren’t saving their seeds, and I was kind of curious about that. I wanted to learn more about why. Why didn’t people that farm sustainably save their own seeds? I went to a bunch of different schools and asked them a lot of questions, and the Native community and White Earth, and went back to school for plant breeding. I met some really amazing people along the way that guided me deeper into that path of wanting to save seeds, and also breeding new varieties, like different colors of corn and different varieties of pumpkin and watermelon. This whole new world opened up of creating your own food. It’s just a lot of fun to work with seeds and other farmers and communities that appreciate open-pollinated seeds that they could save every year.
What is your work life like?
Well, I’ve got a few jobs, I’ve got a job at White Earth as food sovereignty specialist where I work with the White Earth band of the Minnesota Chippewa tribe, and we work on soil health projects, three sisters gardens and personal gardening. And then I have a job with Pesticide Action Network, we’re doing a lot of water testing to see if pesticides are spreading into the environment. And I’ve got my own farm, North Circle Seeds, which is certified organic. I did that certification to be able to say I’m organic and not have to explain it, and because we never spray anything. Being here is fun, because it’s like a weekend thing. It’s basically how I spend all my free time when I’m not at the other jobs, which maybe seems crazy to some people, but on Friday and Saturday when I’ve got the full days off, I’ll just farm from dawn to dusk and it’ll be kind of a marathon, but it’s good when you’re done with the day, and also all the other days you’re just walking around and seeing the plants grow.
How does your work serve the community and give you a good life while practicing good environmental stewardship?
It feels good to be part of the work that is going to sustain us in the future and is connected to the past. There’s a certain sense of purpose, and feeling wanted or needed. We’re one of a very small handful of seed companies in Minnesota. There’s not a lot of seed companies that grow seeds that are specialized in this area of the Midwest, that has short-season reliable, organic seeds that will hold up to a lot of the diseases and different kinds of pressures that we’re getting, climate pressures. So yeah, it feels good to have that small place in the sustainable food world where I feel comfortable, because I enjoy that little place of the seeds, and everybody else has their place that they thrive in. It’s nice to be connected to the seasons: maple syrup in the spring and grinding garlic and the fall, and everything in between.
Thinking of the name North Circle: when I worked in White Earth, I was a part of helping this movement of the Indigenous beekeepers’ network. I’m not a Native American person, so I didn’t play a leadership role, but I was there helping out with the grants and managing projects to help support them. I noticed at our gatherings, whenever we sat in a circle, I felt more comfortable, because everybody’s looking at each other. It felt like there’s this sense of balance and sharing, sharing of ideas, and respect that can play into all the small cycles of life, cycles of the bugs and the pests in the soil. And every day is a cycle, and every month and every year, and that’s kind of interesting to think about. If we’re living closer to our Earth, and paying attention to cycles that are naturally happening around us, it’s healthier to be aware of those things rather than to just ignore them.
What do you raise on your land?
I’d say all sorts of diversified vegetable seeds and flowers. I’ve been adding some more flowers recently, because they’re pretty and people like them, and I’m starting to like them too. My specialty is corn and garlic. I’ve been breeding different colored corn; I have orange corn and a red corn to make it simple and not have to have hundreds of varieties, because there are hundreds and thousands of varieties out there. I thought it was fun, I saw a farm somewhere where they did this, they grew blue corn and white corn. But I took it in my own way, where as the corn breeder, I’m like, “Well, I get to pick and choose what genetics I want in my white corn and the purpose for it. I want to make tortillas out of that one, and the orange corn is good for cornbread, and also tortillas, and then the blue corn is also good for tortillas and baking.” And the garlic I’ve been doing for a decade; I worked on a garlic farm in Vermont and really enjoyed it. Some people just get totally cultish about garlic and they get hooked like there’s no other crop, there’s a whole festival for garlic, there are a bunch of garlic festivals in the country, and people get pretty serious.
How do you do corn breeding?
Corn is, I think, the most fun; just the way that the genetics work is that you have to grow a population. There’s a bunch of species where you have to grow in a population, they are outcrossing species. I think the cool thing about corn, open pollinated versus hybrid, is you are growing a population, so your selection methods aren’t just one plant or a few, it’s hundreds. It’s interesting to think over time that population is going to change. And you’re not going to notice the very subtle ways, because there’s so many different traits. And you can really only select for a few traits, because it’s just impossible to select for more than three or four things really hard, so if you’re selecting for yield and color and cob size, that’s enough. If you keep adding to that list, it’s gonna get more and more diverse, because there’s so many differences amongst the heirloom varieties that I’ll mix in. If I have an orange corn, I’m mixing 10 or 12 Different orange-colored varieties that came from all parts of the world. Argentinian corn and Otto File corn from the East Coast and everything that’s orange colored mixed in, and then over time I just selected out what froze the best. And in that way, you could save the seed from what’s not a hybrid population. With hybrids you don’t know what you’re gonna get, you’re basically gonna get something similar, but at the same time, you’re gonna get something a little different each year.
Are you out to resist the monoculture corn we see all around us?
I think it’s hard to describe exactly the style of corn breeding that I do because I feel like it’s right in the middle of where you’ve got your heirloom corn people over here, where they’re just like, “We got to preserve every little variety, every rare species out there, and we’ve got to preserve and preserve and preserve” and who is that feeding? In my mind, it’s not worth it unless you’re actually growing something that’s gonna be good for a farmer. I’m not interested in these collections. But if you did find something rare and it was beautiful, and it was also growing for food, or you could cross it with something and add those genetics in, and maybe select for that color to come back. Then you’ve got something really rare and special with a story, now it’s integrated, and a farmer can grow it and you could share that story, because It’s useful. All this preserved heirloom stuff, to me it’s kind of like you could be collecting keychains. It’s like a collector mindset which I don’t understand. Then you have the whole other mindset of, let’s kill every living thing with glyphosate, except for the one item, which is the corn that’s hybridized, that has this genetically modified trans gene in it. That kind of corn has absolutely no nutrition to it because it’s so stripped of good nutrients and qualities. I feel like I’m in the middle between, where, on the highly industrial side, they want to grow for food, but they’re feeding cattle, with the corn at least, and on the other side are the heirloom corn people.
When I grow something that actually works, but also has a story, and is in some way special and tied to the land, it also produces almost as much as the commercial stuff, but it can never really outcompete it. But that kind of stuff, the commercial stuff is so highly dependent on a lot of other factors, like highly specialized technology that isn’t interesting to me.
I found being honest with myself is important. I don’t have to grow it all, don’t have to compete with all these other seed companies and just grow a million varieties, I’m just growing what I’m personally interested in, and I also learn from the people and community around me, like Simeon in Fargo, who has these great African eggplants; I’ve grown them and they’re wonderful, and they taste great. I’m turning into an eggplant kind of person like, “Hey, I’m gonna sell five different varieties of eggplant.” I never thought that I would be doing that.
Rolling R Ranch
I find rewarding just about everything I do out there with the bison. First of all, you’re taking a species that was almost extinct, you realize they roamed this area, by the hundreds of thousands they came through here. To put them back on this land, but to do it in a way that is ecologically very friendly, restores the soil, puts things back, especially on this marginal land, in a state as much as you can, back the way it was way back when. And I just love the animal.
dale rengstorf
Dale Rengstorf
Interviewed at Rolling R Ranch
Scambler Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota
8/2/2022
What do you raise here?
We raise bison as our main thing that we sell. We also we raise grass and put up hay to feed to our bison. At one time I was also selling hay, but now we utilize all the hay for ourselves. Those are the two products that we raise: bison and grass.
Tell the story of how you found your way to this life and work.
I had at one time been a teacher, Beth and I both were teaching in Iowa. And after about five years, I started realizing I didn’t want to teach for the rest of my life, but I had a love for agriculture. We were able to get started here on this piece of property through her dad who owns some land out in this area. He had been farming at that time in the Red River Valley and bought some land out here, and said that we could start on this land and try to figure out a way to do it. I had grown up on a diversified farm in southern Minnesota, but raising hogs turned out to be the main thing at the end. I decided to give the feeder pig business a try up here, raising feeder pigs on a low investment, high labor situation, and it didn’t take long to realize that hogs are not adapted to this kind of country. It takes a lot of work and a lot of expense to keep them alive and help them do well in freezing temperatures. And also, they can get too hot. You know, they’re not adapted to this, they take a lot of work. Somewhere along the way, going out to do chores on the coldest day of that winter, I walked out against wind chill that was just about setting records. I was rubbing my face to warm it up, and I said “This land isn’t good for anything but Buffalo.” And that was a light bulb that went off in my mind about buffalo. Maybe we could raise buffalo in this country. And my thought was, at least they are more adapted to it than hogs are, so I came back to the house and was going through the want ads or the green section of the Fargo Forum later on that day. I found a guy who was selling Buffalo. I called him up and we talked for a couple hours. I knew then and there that I wanted to move into giving it a try.
I thought at that time, we could just raise a few, sell halves and quarters to neighbors, and if nothing else it would be a fun hobby. After two years of searching and looking into it, we decided to purchase our first 13 head, and I was still doing hogs at the time. After one winter, I’m seeing how those animals are adapted to this climate, how they can get by, they’re going to survive whether you’re there or not. They’re going to be okay. It was, we’re getting rid of the hogs eventually, and we’re gonna go into bison. A few years later, the hog business was ready to crash again, and I decided I’m not riding out one more cycle, and I ditched all the hogs and we bought some more bison. And for a while we were running about 90 to 100 cows, running a cow-calf operation, and I was working pretty extensively off the farm doing different things. When the first round of CRP program contracts expired, a lot of land opened up northwest to me a couple of miles with gravel companies, and I was able to rent a significant amount of land from them. My intention was to take that CRP land and leave it in grass. When I talked to them about it and said that’s what I want to do, they said “We got to get together and talk, because we would like it left in grass too.” It’s very marginal soil. There’s a reason the gravel companies own that land out there. Very little topsoil, then it gets down to gravel, high grade gravel. And because of that, it’s very drought prone. As you can see when you drove up here, it’s very hilly. It erodes easily if you till it, and so leaving it in grass is what I wanted to do. I needed to figure out a way to get it leveled off out there with the gopher mounds and stuff, which I did. But I did not plow it down, I did not reseed it or any of those things. I thought that would be the best thing, not only for me financially, but it’s best for the land too, because it’s too highly erodible. When people settled the land, they didn’t know that, they didn’t know that most of our crops are going to dry up, but now we know that. I think the best thing for this land around here is to be grazed. And I think personally, because bison have worked out good for us, the best thing, for us anyway, is to raise bison on it. We try to do it in the most natural settings that we can, but of course you can’t just turn them loose, you have to have fences. A lot of people will say Yellowstone National Park has a wild free-roaming herd, and I’ll tell them “No, when they wander out of the park, something happens with them. They either get hazed back in or they end up getting shot.” They might have the biggest pasture in the world, but they aren’t really free-roaming in the sense that they can go anyplace they want, they have to stay in the park. My animals have to stay on my land.
We’ve gotten involved with the Natural Resources Conservation Service quite extensively, and received some grants for cross-fencing the land so that they aren’t continuously grazing the plants, which eventually destroys the root system, which eventually destroys the plants. Then you end up with erosion and problems. Because we’ve cross-fenced, and we rotate, usually about every week, I move them to a different pasture so that the grasses get eaten, and then they have a chance to regenerate themselves and come back and form a good root system. And you know, when you’re doing that, you are sequestering carbon. If you never till the land, the carbon they take from the air goes into the soil, and then it stays there. Carbon sequestration is another benefit of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. We’ve gone from running a cow-calf operation to finishing some of our own animals and selling them to commercial market. PJ and Karla, they’ve moved home now, and they’ve started taking some of them to a local slaughter plant and getting involved in a local market for selling bison. We also run a cow-calf operation and a breeding stock business where we sell bison to other producers throughout the United States.
How have your farming methods changed since you started raising bison?
I developed a philosophy when I first got into bison because I realized how much they’re adapted to the climate and the area. Wherever you can work with nature, you’re better off than battling nature, and so when it comes to a lot of different things like weed control, we try to use spray as little as possible. We would rather mow with a rotary mower. I’ve found that if you have a problem with thistles in an area, you can mow them three years in a row, and then they’ll be gone. You can spray them for three years in a row and then they’ll be gone. Or if you want, you can just leave them for three years in a row and then they’re going to be gone. That’s my philosophy on controlling thistles. We like to go with either leave them go or mow them. But we’ve got to be careful with our neighbors, if they’ve got land next to you, and they don’t want thistles blowing in there, then we mow it or hay it so that we maintain good relations with our neighbors. But a lot of what we consider weeds are really just part of the natural ecosystem, where if the land is disturbed, or the grasses aren’t doing really well for some reason, weeds will come. They’re a deep-rooted plant, they’ll bring up minerals from deep down and bring it up to the top soil. They have a lifespan where they’re there for a few years, but they allow the grass seeds to get started. And after a couple of years, you see the grass coming and the grass is gonna take over. It’s a regenerative process, that takes some time. If you’re just patient, you get some other benefits, and that’s the minerals being brought up and all those kinds of things.
How do bison compare to other animals in their ways and temperament?
Bison are much more athletic. They can run fast; they can run long. They’re much hardier than cattle, disease resistant, able to take the cold and able to take the heat. Like I say, they’re adapted to this area, and they’re very intelligent, they never forget. I always say, everybody who sets up their handling system the first year, they think they’re a genius, it works so well. And that’s because when bison are in a corral, they want to find a way out. So as soon as you open a gate, they run through there, and you just kind of run them through and then you finally got them through your chute and your handling system, and it works so well. And you think “Oh man, I’m a genius.” Then the next year, first of all, you have trouble getting them in there, second, once they’re in there, you open that gate, and they don’t want to go through that gate, because they know that last time they went through that gate, they ended up in that squeeze chute and an ear tag or shot or whatever. They don’t forget, so you have to build a stronger corral system for them. You have to develop an attitude of patience, and you got to learn, to know their reactions to stuff, where their angles are that they’re going to run away from you, versus cut back the other way and so on. It’s kind of a learning process for bison, it’s not the same as cattle. They’re not necessarily mean, but they finally get to the point where they can say, “Okay, now it’s you and me.” And when that tail goes up in the air, and they’re facing you with that look on their face, now you get out of there, because you’re done working them for at least that day. But typically, if you know what you’re doing, you can set it up so things work fairly good.
What do you find rewarding about this work?
I find rewarding just about everything I do out there with the bison. First of all, you’re taking a species that was almost extinct, you realize they roamed this area, by the hundreds of thousands they came through here. To put them back on this land, but to do it in a way that is ecologically very friendly, restores the soil, puts things back, especially on this marginal land, in a state as much as you can, back the way it was way back when. And I just love the animal. I mean, they’re just such a majestic animal and it’s so pretty with them out there on the hillside grazing in the evening with the sun shining on them. Some of those bulls are to me just so majestic. There’s a challenge of trying to improve the genetics on them all the time, because they went through a bottleneck, there was a lot of inbreeding that went on way back when. Now we’re breeding that out and trying to improve the animal and get it back where it was before they were almost all killed off. We’re getting there, and I enjoy that challenge. I just really enjoy everything I do out there.
What would you like the public to know about what you do here?
I would like them to know that, first of all, the product is such a good product. The meat is similar to beef, a little bit sweeter, and it just seems to have a richness to it. And the cuts are the same as beef, you can cook them the same as beef. Bison tends to be leaner, so if you grill a steak, you would want to pay attention to it. When you’re tempted to leave it on there just a little longer, pull it off, because it will go to the point where it loses its moisture, and then gets done really quick, and probably more done than you wanted it to be. Roast, you cook a little lower heat than beef. You end up with a very nutritious and good tasting product, and very healthy.
And then I would like them to know that most bison ranchers really are into sustainable agriculture. Most of them are very much into trying to raise them naturally as much as possible. Hands-off as much as possible. We don’t use implanted hormones. We use antibiotics only if animals need to be treated for something specific. It’s a natural product, grown naturally, usually grown regeneratively and I’m pretty proud to be part of an industry that in my opinion really does try to do things right.
Wild Wood Farm
I think that the act of eating is an act of taking, and there’s no better way to give back than to buy your food from people who are purposefully raising it in a way that gives back more than you’re taking.
Kelsey Wulf
Kelsey Wulf
Interviewed at Wild Wood Farm
Maine Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota
7/25/2022
What do you raise here?
We raise registered Jersey cows, and right now registered Nubian goats. We have pastured chickens that are laying hens, and we raised them corn free and soy free. They’re completely free range, so they have the run of the place. And that’s it for right now.
Tell the story of how you found your way to this life and work.
When I was in college, I knew I wanted to have a job and serve somehow where I was helping people, and it was really important to me to make a difference for people. I was kind of overwhelmed by just how much need there is in the world, and in so many different areas, I had no idea where I was going to focus my attention. Because everything’s important, you know, water quality is important, and animal welfare is important. Growing up, I was a horse kid, and I always wanted to have animals and a farm someday. It was around that time that there was a lot of food documentaries coming out, 2008-2009-ish, somewhere in there. I started to learn more about our food and where it comes from and how it’s produced, and it became very clear to me that food, what we eat and how we eat it and how we raise it ties into basically every single issue there is: immigration and people’s health and environmental health, just everything. Food is the root of all things. I realized that this idea of having a farm just because I liked animals and liked working outside and that sort of stuff could also be where I could legitimately make some of the biggest differences for people. I was at a Happy Dancing Turtle conference, and I met a guy named Andy Haner, and he had been part of the sustainable food production program that used to exist in Fergus Falls. It was a one-year diploma program. I went into that program; I had another thing lined up for after college that I backed out of, and went and learned how to farm. That’s where I met one of my teachers, Ryan Pesch. Several years later, I ended up working at his farm because he needed some help. I was going to be there for a season and stayed for four years. I had an off-farm job, of course, and met my husband through that. We liked this part of the country and decided to settle here, so that’s how we ended up physically here.
Did you grow up on a farm? Or did you have any exposure to the farm life as a child?
Not really. I babysat for a teacher whose neighbors had sheep. It was the first time I ever saw sheep in my life. And my grandparents lived on a farmstead in North Dakota, but it was just the house, and by the time I was there my grandmother didn’t even have a garden or anything anymore, and the land all around it was rented out to somebody else. I did have a horse growing up, so I spent a lot of time in elementary school and middle school and up until partway through high school at a riding stable or at whoever’s house I was keeping her at. I wouldn’t call that a farm really, a stable’s kind of different.
But you had experience working with large animals.
I’d say that’s a huge thing. My husband grew up on a corn and soybean type farm up in the Red River Valley of north of Crookston. I grew up around horses from the time I was eight years old, had the opportunity to be around these humongous creatures. I noticed the difference, in that it doesn’t bother me at all, or make me nervous, and I know how to move around them, and watching my husband while we’re trying to move the cows and like, “Why are you standing there? You need to stand over there, and that’ll make them move there.” But he didn’t grow up around them, it doesn’t really come naturally. And there’s definitely a learning curve.
What do you find most personally rewarding about the work, and what part could you do without?
I really love when things are working right and looking good. When I’m out rotating the animals on new pasture, and I’m seeing improvements in the land from when we moved here based on how we are doing things, and seeing that our animals are happy and healthy, and those sorts of things. That’s big for me, and getting to see when our products are bought by other people, or at the co-op, or when we’re able to actually feed people good food. That’s Ryan’s tagline: Good Food Grown Well. It always just makes me so happy, knowing how much effort and time and love we put into something, and getting to see it come to fruition where someone gets to take it home and share it with their family.
What does “improving the land” mean to you?
I always think of eating as just an act of taking no matter how you do it, if you’re vegan or vegetarian, the amount of input on the soil and the impact of how much soy or whatever it is you’re eating. Soil is the big one, seeing how our pastures have improved is humongous. We’ve been able to see our forage change drastically from when we first moved here. Forage is the biggest one, seeing that difference, and then we’ve been trying really hard to plant a lot of pollinator things and get perennial gardens started and things like that. We’re seeing more pollinators and monarchs here. We’ve been here just four years, but we’ve already seen an increase in those, because of the things that we’ve added and done.
Tell me what forage is.
Forage is grass, whatever your animals are eating, or legumes and things like that. There are three different families of forage: grass, legumes, and I can’t remember the other one. You want to have at least three different types of each of the three families to have what’s considered a healthy forage ecosystem. Striving for that has been big, and we haven’t done any interseeding or anything. But there’s, believe it or not, seeds in the seed bed that will all of a sudden come up, we’ll see a plant like: “Where’d that come from?” or birds bring it in, or however, it just shows up. You can see too, where we bale grazed out there, you can see the exact circle where we grazed that bale because the grass will be a foot higher and eight shades greener too. It’s just really neat. It’s a very stark difference.
Do you have struggles or disappointments or things you’d rather do without?
Our biggest struggle at this point is trying to balance the fact that we also are still very much in the family-starting stage, as you can see. In the four years we’ve been here on the farm, we have already been through so many changes. When we first got here, I was just trucking along, doing my thing, adding enterprises, and then my first daughter came and I cut back a little, and then when I was about seven months pregnant with my second one, I just went, “Oh my gosh, we need to sell the pigs. We need to get rid of the geese, we have to really cut back.” We’re actually looking at selling our little Nubian herd of goats to Zach and then focusing just on our Jersey herd, because my husband travels a lot for work. It’s a lot for me to manage, so just having to be realistic about where we are in our stage of life right now. Not being able to do as much with the farm as I know we could, but these little pumpkins just kind of have to take priority for a while. So that’s definitely tough.
How did you find this place? How did you find this piece of land?
It was just looking at real estate listings, it took a very long time, it took us a year of looking at properties actively. We were out probably at least once a week, if not more, visiting places that were for sale, and places with any kind of acreage are so hard. We would go to a place and it would have the sort of acreage that we wanted and knew we could do something with, but the house would be just unlivable, or the house would be livable and nice, but it would be just nothing but woods and swamp, so it was something you can’t really change. When we found this place, I was leaving for a trip to England and my husband was leaving for a work trip to Ecuador, I think two days later. I was in the Lake District of England, hiking around the hills while on my phone negotiating the sale of a house. It’s such a horrible thing that buying a house is such a big decision. And the way the housing market is right now, you walk through it once and have to say “I’ll take it” or you’re gonna miss it. This place was on the market three days when we bought it. Our range was all the way up to the Hawley area, Park Rapids, down a little bit south of Fergus, I’d say, as far east as Perham, so it’s a pretty big range that we were looking in, but this ended up being it. We do plan on, probably not anytime particularly soon because of how crazy the housing market is, looking for something that does have more acreage because we only have five, which is very limiting. If we wanted to be market gardeners, I’d have plenty of room, I’d have more room than I know what to do with. But when you’re trying to graze livestock in a regenerative fashion, you need quite a bit of acreage.
Tell how your products get out to the public.
We sell eggs through the co-op when we have them, and we direct market eggs. One of our other main things we sell is raw milk to some customers, and that is very challenging, because you are not legally allowed to advertise raw milk. That strictly has to be word of mouth. It’s almost like selling drugs because it’s legal to sell, but there’s certain things around it you have to do, so when someone wants to buy raw milk, it’s kind of like, “Are you cool, man?” It feels like this nefarious thing. You just have to be so careful with it. Down the road, we’d like to have a small creamery type of a situation to legitimize it more and offer pasteurization so we can actually advertise our good milk.
Do you find personal satisfaction in the relationships you have with your customers?
Definitely. Being part of that community and that kind of scene is so nice and just empowering, and makes me feel good that people are able to get access to that stuff, because it is hard to find. Especially with the baby formula shortage, they’re looking for goat’s milk. The fact that we have that, and I know that we are providing it in a safe, good fashion, to know that we are an option for people.
Oh, and another thing that I should have mentioned is, I do consider it a farm enterprise at this point; we have a farm blog and YouTube channel where I share information about small farm stuff, both to help consumers with doing these things, and then also to help people who want to have a small farm or a homestead, helping them find resources that are backed not only by research, but by experience. I noticed it’s mostly guys that run the YouTube channels, so I thought it was important to show a woman out there doing it. When it comes to farming, I know what I’m doing, but a lot of the stuff that comes with farming, like construction and plumbing, I’m just kind of blazing through it and making it happen as best as I can. I always appreciate when I see someone’s “Well I’m not exactly sure how to do this, but we’re gonna try.” I think that’s so important to have that out there.
Do you have any thoughts on the value of the farming community that you’re a part of?
Oh, absolutely. It’s incredibly good company to keep. I think small farmers and SFA folks are some of the most kind and generous people you could ever meet, they are always willing to share a meal and share information and have you stop out, and lending a hand when needed is so important. Brittany Johnson, our neighbor, was kind enough to come when we ended up with a goat who only had a single kid. She had the single kid, and then we had a family trip planned. It was like, “Oh, my husband’s gonna kill me, someone has to come milk this goat. She’s producing more than her kid will handle.” Brittany was so kind and just so Intrepid, she’s like, “I got it. It’s cool. I’ll make sure she’s milked, don’t worry about it.” And of course, the Pesches. I always joke since that was kind of my agricultural upbringing, I show up there, like a kid coming home from college, almost eating all the food, I’m like, “Hey, what can I go pick, what’s ready?” and just leave with a box full of produce they never let me pay for. You never go to anyone’s house without leaving with “Oh, here’s a jar of honey” or “Here’s some jam” it’s such a hospitable and caring group, it’s a wonderful group of people to be a part of.
What do you want the public to know about your work?
Like I was saying before, I think that the act of eating is an act of taking, and there’s no better way to give back than to buy your food from people who are purposefully raising it in a way that gives back more than you’re taking. We had a beef steer that was born here and raised here, and then went over just across the road to our neighbor’s house. And then we processed him on-farm. He fed our family for over a year, another friend for a couple months and another friend for half a year, from one beef animal. The impact that he had was nothing but positive, his carbon footprint was next to nothing, he fertilized our pastures, he fertilized the neighbor’s pasture, we used his tallow to make soap. it’s just incredible how much one steer was able to provide for people. And by having him be part of a sustainable system, it really took nothing out of out of the environment, which is big for us. I realize that it is more labor intensive, and it is probably going to cost you more. But the value of what you’re getting nutritionally and the value of what you are giving back and putting back into the cycle is so huge. Just knowing that it was something that was produced with intention and focus and a lot of care.
This is a little more expensive, but for the most part, nobody knows how much their food really actually costs to produce. I remember working for Ryan, we were at the farmers market one time. I think it was a bundle of parsley, and it was these two ladies that were shopping, and I think it was $1. And this lady leaned over to her friend who’s gonna get the parsley and she’s like, “Well, you can get that at Walmart for 34 cents.” And of course, I didn’t say anything, but I thought, lady, I seeded that parsley, I weeded that parsley, when it was really dry, I watered that parsley. I went out there and I cut that parsley myself. I trimmed it so it looked nice, put it in a nice bundle, washed it and I brought it here for you. And if you do not think that that is worth an extra 70 cents, I don’t know what to tell you. Then go to Walmart. You don’t want to be mean to people, but people sometimes don’t understand how much goes into making food happen, and how much the people who do make their food happen are not being compensated fairly, and are not in conditions that are…yeah sorry, it’s a bit of a tirade there.
Maple Hills Orchard
For me, it’s a green space, and it’s connecting people. When people come in and say, “Oh, I turn in here and I feel at peace.” That, to me is exciting. Or seeing grandparents and kids interact, I like that.
Jonna Goreham
Gary and Jonna Goreham
Interviewed at Maple Hills Orchard
Burlington Township, Becker County, Minnesota
10/4/2022
What do you grow here?
Gary:
I would say that we have several products, so we are diversified, even though it’s an orchard and we do grow apples. We also raise bees for honey, we’ve got grapes, raspberries, cherries, plums, squash, gourds and pumpkins.
Tell me the story of how you came to this work and to this piece of land.
Jonna:
I grew up in a big city with no experience with farming. Gary grew up on a farm and wanted to get back into farming.
Gary:
I did grow up on a farm in South Dakota, and then went off to college. After an undergraduate degree in psychology, then a master’s in psychology, a master’s in theology and a PhD in rural sociology, I ended up as a faculty member at North Dakota State University. But I always, as Jonna said, wanted to get back to the farm, back to the land. We thought “What could be easier than putting a few sticks in the ground and watching them grow?” Well, we had a huge learning curve at that point. So as a rural sociologist, environmental sociologist, I am the person who would have done research in sustainable agriculture from a social science perspective. We have a lot of theory. I wanted to find out if the theory in fact works in real life, the realities of it. So, we ended up over many years looking for some land, and then this parcel came up in 1998. We bought it and started planting trees, then we discovered some realities, things like weeds are, stuff eats stuff, what you feed or water grows. The ideals that we have, the sustainable agriculture, no sprays, no chemicals, no tillage, no any of that kind of thing; we ran head hard into those realities, and we’ve paid the price in some cases. But we’ve learned a lot as well.
Jonna:
We were trying to do it as Gary was working. He retired two years ago, and we’ve been able to invest more time into the land.
What do you find personally rewarding about this work?
Jonna:
For me, it’s a green space, and it’s connecting people. When people come in and say, “Oh, I turn in here and I feel at peace.” That, to me is exciting. Or seeing grandparents and kids interact, I like that.
Gary:
And I’d say the same thing. We want to be bridge builders, connectors. We’re also coming at what we’re doing here from a faith perspective. We want to connect those parents and grandparents with children and with friends, people to people, but we also want people to be connected to God’s creation, and the beauty that’s here, the goodness that’s all here, and as a result, having that connection to the environment. So, we really are aimed at environmental education. That would be the second bridge, people to God’s creation, but through creation, almost in a Franciscan sense, connecting people to God, because as they are out here, seeing all of this creation and recognizing in an incarnational sense, that God is in the midst of all of that. It’s intriguing to see people come and have that spiritual sense. So those are our three points: God, people and the land, and then some bridges or connections needed all the way around.
What connection do you feel with other sustainable producers and the community?
Gary:
When it comes to the community, we really want to follow a sustainable approach with a three-legged stool, with the needs to be environmentally sound, socially connected, and financially settled as well. So, when it comes to having those kinds of connections, we are involved with other organizations like the Isaac Walton League and what they’re doing, and the Minnesota Apple Growers Association and Minnesota Grown. We’re members of First Lutheran Church, and we have what’s called the Creation Care Team, and one of our goals is to provide a space for them and others to grow things. For instance, we have what we call the abundant grace gardens, a patch right down in the corner, where people came from the church, and other churches, to plant a variety of vegetables. All of that was harvested and taken to the local food shelf. Well, that would have been about 3000 pounds of food every year that we’ve taken in. We’re giving that spot kind of a sabbatical, a rest right now, just to recharge it. We planted rye as a cover crop, and we’ll work out what to do with it next year.
The other kinds of groups we’re connected with are local schools. We have tour groups come out; we’ve got a number of programs. There’s a pumpkin program, an apple program, a honey bee program, so people can come out and learn about those. We had a group of ladies from Walker, Minnesota come out last week, and they wanted to taste apples. So, they were all in here, about 25 or 30 of them. We had five apples and the chart where they could list out what they were eating and the color, texture and taste and sweetness, and if they liked them or not. But through all of that we were able to discuss the environmental connections, the bees, the symbiotic relationship of the pollinators and the different plants, and then how we as humans are part of that ecosystem. Not separate from it, but a member of it. So that’s a long-winded answer.
Jonna:
Yeah, he’s a professor, he likes to teach. I think that’s a lot of what we’re doing here. Unique, because I know with Minnesota Apple Growers, when we go to the meetings and summer tours, it’s all about entertainment and corn mazes and that kind of thing, and we just aren’t in that spot.
Tell me about the ways you get your products out to the public.
Jonna:
We pretty much sell everything out from here.
Gary:
We are members of MANNA Food Co-Op, and we do sell apples and honey there. There is Becker pet and candy store downtown, we sell our honey there, and that’s really it.
Jonna:
That’s it, because the demand here is so high. Most of what we get doesn’t fill that demand.
You have made this place a destination that attracts a lot of people.
Jonna:
And we want to make it affordable. We had people this last weekend from Grand Forks, from Bemidji, Fargo, Alexandria. And we, for our area, get a lot of diversity here, which we don’t see in town, but people will come out here from the University or wherever.
Gary:
Native American, we’ve had quite a crowd of Muslim folk last weekend, African American, international, who were probably associated with universities or hospitals, from wherever they’re at, but we celebrate that diversity.
What do you want the public to know about your work here?
Gary:
This is our elevator speech, isn’t it?
Jonna:
What we know about social bonding, just connecting people. And with climate change, I think our culture is going to be shaken up, and we need those connections and connections to the land. And to be looking toward the future, you know, what can we do?
Gary:
I would say in another sense, we want to build the assets of our region here. Other names for those assets are the strengths or the capital. We have natural capital here with this land and the green space and the beauty of that, we have people who are coming in with a lot of skills, the human capital. Building those connections can be social capital, and we hope from a sustainable point, that we can build financial capital through this. As we see all of those types of capital assets in the area, if we push on one of those buttons, that brings about change in the others. It’s like a mobile: if you pull on one part, the whole thing starts to move. That means that we can start to spiral up with building one capital, building another, building another. We’re hoping that what we can do is be an asset to this entire community and the region, by building on all of these different assets.
Anderson Farm
The part I love about this work is when people step into my orchard, and they say it doesn’t look anything like this from the highway. And they stand there in awe, and just look at these rows of beautiful trees. Then I invite them to pick an apple and eat it, and the expression on their face when they taste an apple that’s not from a store, but a few seconds old. The look on their face is so rewarding.
Edward Anderson
Edward Anderson
Interviewed at the Anderson Farm
Scambler Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota
7/15/2022
What do you grow here?
I grow apples.
I have killed quite a few varieties since I found out that the winters here are too harsh. And like I’ve said before, I’ve learned a lot about a northwestern Minnesota orchard by killing trees. I’ve made many mistakes. And I’ve had some wonderful successes. And I’ve learned a great deal about growing trees here on the north slope, outside of Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. I would say the varieties I plant are varieties that I have tested somewhere on the farm and realized they can tolerate the weather. If they tolerate the weather, they graduate to the orchard. I have a test plot. I’ve had a test plot for years down here in the pasture, where it’s colder and wetter. If they survived there, they get to go into the orchard.
Tell me the story of how you came to this work and this place.
My grandparents bought this property in 1905. They established this farm when it was nothing but prairie and small oak trees. And they built a barn, they built a house, and my father was number eight in a family of 10 children. Seven of the 10 went to find their fortune out West, three stayed in this area. My dad stayed home to take care of his aging parents and run the farm, and he finally bought the farm from my grandparents. He met my mom who was nursing in the hospital, married her and moved her out here. I remember growing up with my grandparents in the house, and I remember my childhood here, and this was just a wonderful place to grow up. A beautiful property. We had the lake to swim in. We had fields to work in, we had gardens to plant and I knew someday I would come home no matter where I went in my life. And I always knew I’d be a pastor.
I always also knew that I’d come home someday and take care of the family farm. When I was in my early 20s A wonderful human being named Bud Andrews befriended me. I would spend almost every Saturday with the Andrews family. Bud would take me out into the woods to teach me tree identification. He would take me out to dig up the wild plants and find things out in the wild that we could eat.
I was over there one Saturday morning, and he said, “Do you want to go with me to work with the apples? I take care of a few apple trees for someone.” And I said, “Yeah.” I guess that I had never seen an apple tree before. Here we were, first part of October, and I’m looking at these several tall, beautiful trees with great big red globes on them. The variety was Connell Red, Bud told me. I picked one and ate it. I’d never tasted an apple like that. Bud was out there to spray or to do something, I can’t remember what we were doing out there. But Bud told me, “I was watching you, you had your eyes on those great big ones at the very top of the tree.” You know, he would tease me about that. And so, I got the bug in me, that someday I was going to have an orchard here on the farm. When the time was right, and when I had the money, I planted this orchard, which now is, I think, 21 years ago. That’s how I got that orchard bug in me. I wanted to do this, but I didn’t only want to grow fruit. I wanted it to be beautiful to look at. I wanted people on the highway to look up and see beautiful trees and beautiful blossoms, beautiful fruit in the fall.
What do you find most personally rewarding about the work, and what part could you do without?
The part I love about this work is when people step into my orchard, and they say it doesn’t look anything like this from the highway. And they stand there in awe, and just look at these rows of beautiful trees. Then I invite them to pick an apple and eat it, and the expression on their face when they taste an apple that’s not from a store, but a few seconds old. The look on their face is so rewarding. I get a big smile every time. Last fall, some guys came out and I invited them to take a bag of apples home with them. One of them took a bite from an apple and said “This is my childhood apple; this reminds me of my childhood. This is what apples used to taste like.” I said “Yes, they did.” And last fall, selling at the farmers market in Pelican Rapids, it was so rewarding to meet new people and then to have people come back the following week and say “Do you still have some of those apples?” That part was great fun, too. Very, very rewarding season, looking forward to being back out at the farmers market on Friday afternoons.
But I can’t think of anything I could do without, except the discouragement I feel when I realize a tree hasn’t made it through the winter, when I realize I’m losing an old tree that I’ve really loved. And when I’m trying to tie down a branch, and I snap it off by mistake, and then have to profusely apologize to the tree, which I do. It just happened yesterday; I broke a branch that I was trying to tie down.
It sounds like you get to know these trees as individuals?
Yes. And some of them I praise and some of them I chastise. “You’ve been here for eight years now and you have done nothing. You’re still the same size as when I planted you eight years ago?” Yes. I know every tree. And that’s a lot of trees to know, since there’s about 130 of them out there.
How does living and working here build connections to family, friends, other farmers, the local food system?
I’m not the only one who calls this home. Since there were 10 kids in my dad’s family, all of their children call this place home. And so many of them look forward to coming home and staying at the house or just getting together with other cousins here. Two years ago, we had the most magnificent cousin reunion here at the farm, maybe that was three years ago. And then we were going to do it again, but COVID put a kibosh on that. So, I feel really proud that I’m still able to keep the farm for my cousins.
You know, so really, I’ve been gone for like 40 years. One time a friend of mine from Milwaukee, a therapist I worked with, we shared an office, she would hear me tell stories of the farm. She wanted to come to the farm the next time I went here, so she traveled here with me and stayed here for about three days. And as we’re driving back to Wisconsin, she said, “Edward I noticed something. In Madison and Milwaukee, I see you walking around very stiffly. But I was surprised to see you on the farm moving with such grace and ease.” She said “this is really your home, isn’t it?” And I said “Yes.”
Getting your apples out for people to enjoy must give you a lot of satisfaction and a sense of connection to the community.
It does. And I have to tell you, it was very fortunate when I met Ryan Pesch, and later Maree. When I would walk over to the Pesch vegetable stand, and I would just hand Ryan an apple that I had at the market that day. All of a sudden it was “What if we came out and picked apples for the co-op?” And that’s exactly what I wanted, you know, to get to get my foot in the door in a store. And I’m very proud that it’s MANNA Food. And so, I provided them with some Zestars and Sweet Sixteens and Haralreds last year. It was great fun to be able to see my apples sitting on their fruit and vegetable section.
I get up early on Friday mornings, and I’m out here picking apples mostly by myself. Sometimes Steve Toso comes to help me pick, and he helps me load up the car. Because I have a back injury from age 26, I can’t lift a bushel of apples by myself. So I bring a wheelbarrow up to the back of my car. And that’s where I do quality control, I put them into the bushel baskets. And once I get to the farmers market, there’s always somebody I can grab. Either Phil Breen or Jeff McCracken, or somebody will help me set up. And someone will help me load up what I don’t sell. And surprisingly, starting two years ago, people would just drive up into the yard and say, “Are those your apples back there?” “Yes.” “Do you sell them?” “Yes.” “Well, you call me when they’re ready.” “They’re ready. Why don’t you come back after work tonight.” And now I have a faithful customer who comes two or three times a season and buys like 100 pounds at a time, and they love my apples. And there are several other families like that who like coming to the farm for the experience of being out there picking their own apples. There are some people who wanted to come out here last year, but I had no apples left, or I was in between varieties, but I had nothing left to offer them. This year, I don’t have a lot of apples. I think I have enough for the farmer’s market, and that might be it. But my orchard is kind of taking a year off. It’s resting after a really busy season last year, which apple trees tend to do.
Is your circle of friends and colleagues in the local sustainable farming community expanding?
It hasn’t so much yet. I envision that it will. I have been slowly getting to know the Pesches and getting to know Zach Paige now a little bit, and what he’s doing out there on Franklin Lake. I made some connections with other people last year at the Deep Roots Festival over at Milt’s Barn. But again, I’m such a small operation, and I didn’t have a lot to offer at that time. Someone was interested in me selling apples to restaurants in Fargo, but I just don’t have that kind of capability. And I’m kind of content selling them at Pelican and the co-op and to the people who come up in the yard. I see new people up here every year. Again, I’ve only been here two years, but I can tell that the circle is expanding to the other small farmers in the area.
I’ve also still been very involved with a couple organizations in Madison that keep pulling me back. I’ve now told them no, this is it. I’m done with Madison, you have to find somebody else to be the development director of this organization, you have to find somebody else to take care of this therapy project. Not going to do this anymore. And I think Madison has kind of hindered me from really establishing myself here completely.
I have so many friends from Madison who want to come up and visit, and a couple of guys are coming up this weekend to stay overnight, then in August about seven or eight are coming up to play croquet for three days, and then I have many, many friends who want to help with the apple orchard in the fall, want to go to farmers markets with me, want to help me do something in the orchard.
This place, and your work here, sounds so contemplative and hands-on. It makes me think of life in a monastery.
Yes, that’s exactly it. It’s… well, I’ll take you out there and just show you one of my favorite places in the orchard. And it is a place where I just think as I’m sitting there with a shears, cutting off sucker branches, talking to the trees, talking to myself, singing, whistling, doing whatever, but I can also feel my age. I used to walk up and down that hill all day long and never feel an ache or pain. 20 years later, I poop out a little earlier. But I still am out there almost every day.
Amy Beckman
I think having a local food market is so important because the food is so much better. First of all, because it just tastes so much better, plus, you don’t have to transport it hundreds of miles, so that’s taken out of the carbon market. It feels like you’re doing a little bit of good in the world.
amy beckman
Amy Beckman
Interviewed at the Beckman Farm
Sverdrup Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota
8/3/2022
What do you raise here?
We grow variety of vegetables. We also do small grains: corn, wheat, soy and alfalfa.
Tell the story of how you found your way to this life and work.
I grew up here. I’m the sixth generation to be on this farm. It was homesteaded by my great-great-great grandfather, or however that goes. And so growing up, I always helped with chores. We had dairy cattle back then. I was always helping, mostly with feeding, and every once in a while, it’d be thrown into the milking, and so by the time I got to high school, I was ready to get the heck out of Dodge. My plan was to leave and never come back. I went to college for athletic training, and was an athletic trainer for about 12 years, and then I decided move back to the Cities and got my massage therapist certificate. Eventually, my dad was getting ready to retire. My sister and brother-in-law had moved up here for a while, and had kind of toyed with the idea of taking things over, but decided that 2017 was going to be their last year. That spring, the rent on my apartment went up, and so I started debating what I wanted to do, and coming back here just kind of called me. I decided to move back here the beginning of that summer and helped out my dad and my brother-in-law, who stayed for one more summer, to help me learn the ropes.
Back then we were just doing crop farming, and growing up, it was all just crops. My grandpa had a garden, but we really didn’t do a whole lot of gardening and vegetable growing. That kind of came when I lived in Illinois, there was a CSA that I joined as a member. It was a really unique setup, because you would come out to the farm every week and harvest your own stuff. It was a little unique in that way, we really got to see the stuff growing and how he did what he did. I did a couple of work days with him, and then he held a class of how to do small-scale market gardening. That was a seed planted in the back of my head back in 2013, when I took that class, so it was always kind of there. I spent a summer doing a community garden down in Minneapolis, kind of coordinating that and working with that. When I moved back up here it was, well, I also want to do vegetables. That’s when we took out the corner of the field and started planting a few vegetables, and that’s really taken off too. The big motivation was just coming back and keeping the land in a small family farm, because there’s not many of those left around. And this year, we’re starting our transition to organic crop farming. Because just looking into it, that’s one way to keep it viable, because small conventional family farms aren’t very economically viable.
What organic crops might you raise in the future besides the vegetable?
I’m not entirely sure. My long-term goal—I don’t know how feasible it is—but is to just raise food for people. A lot of the times what organic farmers grow is going to be feed for cattle and livestock, and I’d rather focus on raising food for people.
What do you find rewarding about the work you do?
The Fergus Falls farmers market is where we do most of the selling of our vegetables. Having people walk by the booth and say, “Ooh, look what you have today!” and “Ooh, beets!” And “When’s the sweet corn coming in?” It’s fun to have those interactions and to know that you’re providing good food to people that’s been raised and touched by human hands every step of the way.
Do you feel like a pioneer in doing something a bit different with this multi-generation family farm?
Yeah, it’s gonna be an interesting transition. My mom and dad are still here and helping out, so it’s been a little bit of a challenge trying to work through that.
Does being part of the Sustainable Farming Association feel supportive and inspiring as you work toward new ways of farming this land?
It really does. If I didn’t have that support group, I don’t think there’s any way I’d be taking this on. There’s nobody in our group that does organic crop farming, so that’s a little bit unique. But I can call one of them up and say, “Am I doing this right?” or just give me a little pep talk like “You can do it, just keep with it.” And so yeah, it’s really encouraging that they’re all so supportive.
You’ve had a long family connection to this land. Do you have any other thoughts about being the sixth generation to work the farm?
I definitely have conflicting feelings about it, because it came through the Homestead Act, which was a way to displace the Indigenous people of this land, so in that way, you feel a little unsettled about it. But on the other hand, I had ancestors who came from Norway and probably didn’t have the easiest life, because you’re certainly not gonna get on a boat and come across thousands of miles just for the heck of it. I’m proud of what we’ve built here and I acknowledge that it’s under crappy circumstances. There’s probably a more eloquent way to say that but…
Tell more about how the how your product gets out to the community.
Right now, all I’m doing is farmers market. Last year, we had a little veggie wagon that I would pull out to the end of the driveway, but this year, the market in Fergus has been going so well that I haven’t had any extra. Last year I would come home from market on Saturday and have a bunch of extra stuff, so I pulled the wagon out. But for the most part, things have just been going on so well with the new building in Fergus that I haven’t needed that yet. If I end up with surplus, I’ll have the wagon at the end of the driveway. But other than that, it’s just direct to consumers through the market.
Do you feel personal satisfaction in this direct connection to your customers?
Yeah, absolutely. I think having a local food market is so important because the food is so much better. First of all, because it just tastes so much better, plus, you don’t have to transport it hundreds of miles, so that’s taken out of the carbon market. It feels like you’re doing a little bit of good in the world.
Do you suppose your regular customers feel a connection to you?
Yeah, I would think so.
What is something you want the public to know about your work that they might not be aware of?
I would say that the land and the soil is our number one priority because if we don’t take care of the soil, then we’re gonna be in trouble and we’re not gonna be able to grow food. The soil is our number one priority, and doing things to take care of the soil, so we can continue growing good food for years and years to come.
Is that what sustainable means?
Right, to continue pretty much perpetually. If you’re not doing things that maintain your soil and build it up, then you’re just gonna deplete the nutrients and eventually it’s not gonna produce unless you keep using synthetic inputs.
It’s doing all kinds of crop rotations and having diverse crops instead of growing just two or three crops. You’re gonna deplete that soil unless you put back the nutrients you take from it. And so, with longer rotations of doing four or five, six different crops, you’re gonna rebuild that soil and make it last longer.
It’s all about working with the soil, not fighting it?
Right, farming with nature instead of against it.