Forging Strong Roots: Farm Beginnings Helps New Farmers Grow

MIX
Midwest Natural Food Co-ops
http://www.mwnaturalfoods.coop/mix/index.php?id=199

July -August 2005

Forging Strong Roots: Farm Beginnings Helps New Farmers Grow

By Kelly Westhoff

When Brad and Kristi Fernholz purchased 54 acres of land in 1999, they didn’t really know what to do with it. The land was in Western Minnesota, outside the community of Appleton. Much of it bordered a wildlife refuge; most of the acres were untouched, native prairie. Because of this, the Fernholzs toyed with the idea of turning their land into a hunting camp.

Yet both Brad and Kristi had grown up on farms. Because of this, they also thought about turning their new land into a farm—an organic farm. Yet that idea created many questions. For these answers, the Fernholzs turned to Farm Beginnings.

They enrolled in Farm Beginnings, an educational program offered through the Land Stewardship Project, a nonprofit, member-based organization in rural Minnesota. The goal of Farm Beginnings is threefold. First, the program strives to help new farmers grasp the financial realities of running a farm. Second, the program specifically focuses on helping participants develop sustainable methods of farming. Third, Farm Beginnings connects novice farmers with experienced farmers to foster a network of organic farmers across the state.

“When you buy a farm … the world is wide open. You could go in all kinds of directions,” explained Kristi Fernholz. “Farm Beginnings really helped my husband and I sit down and do planning. The whole visioning part was crucial, and the program really made this clear to us. We had to decide what kind of lifestyle we wanted.”

The lifestyle they wanted, they determined, did not include a hunting camp. Now, five and a half years since purchasing their land, and three and a half years since graduating from Farm Beginnings, the Fernholzs are growing certified organic carrots, yellow bell peppers and strawberries.

The Fernholzs’ trio of crops is produced on just 10 of the farm’s 54 acres. About 40 of the remaining acres are native prairie. Yet as their farm continues to grow, tilling under these 40 acres of prairie, for the Fernholzs, will never be an option.

“We plan to always manage that land so we can keep the prairie,” said Kristi Fernholz. To keep the prairie healthy, the Fernholzs do administer periodic prescribed burns. Lately, they have considered placing small herds of livestock on the prairie to help aerate and fertilize the fields. Yet their commitment to the prairie is strong. “It’s a nonrenewable resource,” explained Fernholz. “Once it’s gone, it’s gone. We plan to preserve this land.”

This conscious effort to maintain the land is not just a value held by the Fernholzs. It is a value stressed in every Farm Beginnings class, said Amy Bacigalupo, a Farm Beginnings Coordinator in Montevideo.

“Sustainable agriculture,” she pointed out, “is a key component in the program. We have a very strong ethic about the land. It needs to be cared for as a resource for the future.”

Farm Beginnings participants come from a variety of backgrounds. Some are 40-something, professional urbanites dreaming of a career change, a quieter, less harried way of life. Others are young adults for whom farming is their first-choice career. Still others are already living a farming life, yet only part-time. These participants want to take their farms to the next level.

No matter which profile a participant may fit, no matter what each participant envisions raising on a farm, all of them, insisted Bacigalupo, must face the same curriculum. “We focus on planning,” said Bacigalupo. “Everybody could use more planning, regardless of their product—dairy, beef, herbs. They have to investigate marketing, pricing and compare enterprises. They have to develop a sound financial plan.”

Participants also learn holistic management, a system of decision-making that reminds new farmers that any action taken on their farm will have an impact elsewhere, on their land, their finances, their family or even their community. For this portion of the program, participants visit working farms and veteran farmers. “We encourage farmer-to-farmer learning,” said Bacigalupo. “The best people to teach sustainable methods are those that are already doing it.”

According to Bacigalupo, since Farm Beginnings started eight years ago, 222 people have graduated from the program. Of those graduates, about 60 percent are currently working the land. And the program shows no signs of slowing. In fact, the Land Stewardship Project recently trademarked Farm Beginnings’ curricula, received a federal grant, and has expansion programs underway in Illinois, Missouri and Nebraska.

Yet despite its regional and national recognition, Farm Beginnings is successful because it focuses on the local individuals who dream of forging a living from area land. Michelle and Alan Hockersmith are two such individuals. In 2002, they sold their Northeast Minneapolis home and purchased 17 and a half acres in rural Southeast Minnesota, just six miles from the Iowa border. They started Farm Beginnings and left the city. They said goodbye to their established careers and hello to a chance at their dream of a sustainable, organic lifestyle.

And they are doing it—slowly. “I came out here not knowing much of anything about organic growing,” admitted Michelle Hockersmith. “But I’m learning. We have a kitchen garden and I’m working at trying to grow all our own food.”

None of her produce is for sale just yet, and besides, garden vegetables aren’t what she really hopes to grow on her many acres. She would like to begin a dyer’s garden, a garden that grows plants specifically for the colors she and her husband could extract and sell to make organically dyed fabrics. And they’ll get to it, but first, life threw the Hocksmiths a surprise: a baby.

Yet when they do get back to the dyer’s garden idea, they’ll know where to begin. Farm Beginnings gave them a solid base in sustainable agriculture and a direction to pursue. “The program is absolutely amazing in the berth of stuff they cover,” Hockersmith said. “There is just an incredible amount of guidance. And it’s so personalized. You get to eke out every little detail of your business. And you create this whole network of people with like ideas, people who really want to see their dreams come true.”

Kelly Westhoff is a Twin Cities based freelance writer.

A new Farm Beginnings class starts at the end of October. The application deadline is September 15. For more information, call 320-269-2105. You can also read more about Farm Beginnings online at www.landstewardshipproject.org.