Next generation going back to the land

Winona Daily News

Saturday, July 3, 2010
www.winonadailynews.com/mobile/article_b84f6c70-8654-11df-8166-001cc4c03286.html

Next generation going back to the land

By Patrick B. Anderson | patrick.anderson@lee.net | Winona Daily News

COCHRANE, Wis. — Standing in a green valley surrounded by rolling hills, Heather Secrist is a long way from where she thought she would be.

Her family’s old dairy farm near Alma, Wis., is close by, but Secrist refused to buy it when her dad, Bob Secrist, offered to sell. She was still in high school at the time.

Instead, she studied psychology and biology at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, dreaming of a career in veterinary medicine.

With grad school looming, she traveled. Secrist, 32, hiked in Appalachia, Colorado, Utah and California. By chance, she took a farm job in Oregon.

“That kind of brought me back to the land again,” she said. “Working with the dirt, the land, the animals is kind of what stayed with me.”

Secrist is part of a growing trend of young and middle-aged Midwesterners gravitating toward farm life, especially on smaller, specialty farms.

The number of one- to nine-acre farms in Minnesota and Wisconsin grew by 1,810 from 2002 to 2007, according to the U.S. Census of Agriculture. Wisconsin also added 521 farms with 10 to 19 acres and 160 farms with 20 to 29 acres.

Secrist learned a lot about working the land from her family. The rest she took from Farm Beginnings, a hands-on class for rookie agriculturalists sponsored by the Minnesota-based Land Stewardship Project. The group sponsored its first class 14 years ago.

“We realized we needed to train a next generation of farmers,” program spokesman Brian DeVore said.

Programs sprung up in Illinois, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and New York.
Now, full classrooms force organizers to turn some applicants away, DeVore said.

“It’s been kind of amazing to me,” said Karen Benson, who works out of LSP’s Lewiston office. “We get people calling from all over the United States.”

Farmers lecture students during weekly seminars that run from November to March. When summer hits, students visit farms. The program also offers loans and other resources to ease the transition into farm life.

Jim Ideker, 22, expected to work as a welder for five years before accruing the money he and his brother, Alan, needed to start a farm.

“Our thought going into LSP was to just have that program under our belt,” Ideker said.

Class instructors put the brothers in touch with a farmer in Taylor, Wis., who offered them guidance, equipment to borrow and land to rent. Then, the Idekers landed a loan to buy 30 cows.

Next year, they plan to add 100 acres to their operation.

“We’re just about right on schedule,” Ideker said.

Getting a farm up and running takes patience, and making it economically viable can take five to 10 years, Farm Beginnings instructor Parker Forsell said.

Suncrest Gardens, Secrist’s 16-acre farm, ate money for five years until it finally started paying back.

Heidi Carlson of St. Paul, Minn., is one of two interns who work side by side with Secrist in the fields.

Carlson, 45, worked a series of retail jobs in the Twin Cities before moving to Wisconsin to try her hand at agriculture. Her husband still works as an engineer in St. Paul.

“I love it,” she said. “A lot of this stuff I planted, and now it’s going to go into somebody’s box and they’re going to cook it for dinner.”

Secrist started in 2003. She took her first crops to local farmers markets and met people. Familiarity helped her convince some to enter into community-supported agriculture agreements. In 2010, 75 signed up to buy a season’s worth of Secrist’s crops.

All live within 50 miles, and that’s the way Secrist likes it: absolutely local.

“The people that get my food know they can come to my farm,” she said.
Her wood-fired pizzas — topped with farm-grown ingredients — also developed a loyal following. On Thursday she served a record 140 pies.

With the farm bringing in cash, one of her biggest problems now is balancing work with raising her sons Ashlan, 5, and Ethan, 2.

“That is a constant struggle,” she said. “There’s never an end to the work.”
Thankfully, her dad still lives close by. Bob Secrist helps his daughter take care of the farm’s 35 different crops.

On Friday, the two tilled new plots for Secrist’s next round of crops. She enjoys the extra time with her dad, doing the same work she once shied away from — the same work she chose as her life’s craft.

“Watch out on your left,” she called to him as he drove a tractor into the field. “You’re hitting beans.”

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