OK folks, it is time to get this thing going. It is the time of year where us farmers have some downtime in our schedules. Downtime where we make up for lost time with our families that missed us during the busy harvest and field work season. Downtime where we have some fun with friends and our hobbies. Downtime where we can take a step back from the daily grind and take a look at the bigger picture of what we are doing on our operations and our industry as a whole. I'll spare you the details of what movies my wife and I watch with our kids, what I'm having for dinner, and where I'm riding my fat bike; but rather focus on my thoughts on and what I've been learning about farming practices in the blog.
Before I get into that, though, here is some background on myself to give you some perspective on where I'm coming from. My wife and I, along with our 2 kids, live in southeast Iowa on the outskirts of Washington. We are Millennials; for better or for worse, that is our generation. We currently grow corn and soybeans, and also raise pigs with my parents. In our farm operation, we strive to be good stewards of the land and use sound conservation practices.
When I was in high school, I was not terribly interested in farming as a career choice. I can't put my finger on the specific reason for that, but I guess I just didn't feel like I was cut out to be a farmer. I went to school for Civil Engineering at the University of Iowa, graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 2009 and got a job in the engineering consulting industry right out of school. Everything was going great; I liked what I was working on, I liked where I worked, and the company I worked for liked me...it seemed that I was going to be there for the rest of my working life.
Things were pretty slow in the office in the fall of 2011 as the downturn in the economy had found its way into the engineering industry. Everyone in my department temporarily got their hours cut back in order to avoid any layoffs. I took advantage of this cut in hours to help with harvest back on the farm for the first time since I was a kid. I really enjoyed getting back out on the farm, driving the tractors, and working with my dad and grandpa. This experience is where I started to get the farming bug, and actually started thinking about the possibility of coming back to the farm.
As time went on, I was gaining experience in the engineering world, starting to take on more responsibility, and working my way up the ladder. In late 2013, I decided that I either needed to continue down the engineering path and be OK with not coming back to the farm for the rest of my life, or quit my perfectly good engineering job and give the farming thing a try. Well, obviously I chose the latter and in the fall of 2014 I was back on the farm full time.
I didn't know much about farming other than my memories of helping in the farrowing house and loading market hogs as a kid along with the tractor rides with Dad and Grandpa during harvest. So for all intents and purposes, I was a blank slate, ready to learn about the industry. It is my opinion that this lack of preconceived ideas and open mindedness is one of my greatest qualities...but I didn't know that at the time.
My first year back on the farm was a crash course in a wide range of subjects. I have never learned so many new things in such a short amount of time. I went from sitting behind a desk in an air conditioned office to learning how to be a business owner, grain marketer, heavy equipment operator, precision ag technician, mechanic, veterinarian, electrician, plumber, carpenter, etc. I was no longer designing things that someone else was going to have to build. I was now having to learn how to build, troubleshoot, and fix things with my hands, which is very satisfying...until you can't figure something out, but when you finally do get that something figured out, the reward is just that much sweeter.
During this time, I was going to a lot of informational meetings that were put on by "seed" (chemical) companies. I was learning a lot about farming practices, eating a lot of free food, and as far as I knew helping myself make good choices for our operation. These meetings typically involved a sales pitch for the parent chemical company's new products giving a barrage of information suggesting yield increases from this product, etc. They did a great job of making it seem like a no brainer to buy these inputs and use them on our farm...otherwise we were leaving yield and $$$ in the field that should be in our bins and pocketbook. I'm not going to go into that topic in detail at this time, but needless to say, I was ready and willing to buy into the system. Why wouldn't I be...I don't want to be left behind in this evolving world and these were the "experts" I needed to be learning from.
After my first full year back on the farm, I went into the off season ready to continue learning about how I could improve our operation. I was ready to do my homework. During this time, I started hearing about this thing called "soil health." It caught my attention, so I started doing some research. It was somewhat difficult to find information on the subject as soil health is a rather new term.
One day on the AgTalk CropTalk forum (of all places), I stumbled upon a YouTube Video of Gabe Brown talking about his operation and the practices they were using. Holistic management: diverse cash crop rotations, diverse cover crop mixes, livestock integration, enterprise stacking, etc. Wow, talk about flying in the face of EVERYTHING I had been learning to that point. But I liked it and I wanted to learn more. From that video of Gabe, I was able to discover these videos of Rick Haney and Ray Archuleta. Then I found guys like Dave Brandt, Dwayne Beck, Ray Weil, Jonathan Lundgren, and the list goes on. Needless to say, I was starting to look at things just a tad bit different after hearing what these guys...the REAL EXPERTS...have to say.
Once I started watching these videos and learning more and more on soil health, ecology, and bio-mimicry, I started to feel very connected to our land and our soils. I finally felt like I had a purpose in life, and that was to join the ranks of the innovative farmers that are striving to grow food using a production system that mimics mother nature's system in our local areas. I was going to do whatever I could to figure out how to bring this system into fruition on our operation...and hopefully help as many farmers as possible do the same.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully you enjoyed learning a little about me. Please check back to read future posts where we will get into more of the nuts and bolts of what we are doing on our operation, what others are doing on their operations, and why we are doing these things.
-Michael
Before I get into that, though, here is some background on myself to give you some perspective on where I'm coming from. My wife and I, along with our 2 kids, live in southeast Iowa on the outskirts of Washington. We are Millennials; for better or for worse, that is our generation. We currently grow corn and soybeans, and also raise pigs with my parents. In our farm operation, we strive to be good stewards of the land and use sound conservation practices.
When I was in high school, I was not terribly interested in farming as a career choice. I can't put my finger on the specific reason for that, but I guess I just didn't feel like I was cut out to be a farmer. I went to school for Civil Engineering at the University of Iowa, graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 2009 and got a job in the engineering consulting industry right out of school. Everything was going great; I liked what I was working on, I liked where I worked, and the company I worked for liked me...it seemed that I was going to be there for the rest of my working life.
Things were pretty slow in the office in the fall of 2011 as the downturn in the economy had found its way into the engineering industry. Everyone in my department temporarily got their hours cut back in order to avoid any layoffs. I took advantage of this cut in hours to help with harvest back on the farm for the first time since I was a kid. I really enjoyed getting back out on the farm, driving the tractors, and working with my dad and grandpa. This experience is where I started to get the farming bug, and actually started thinking about the possibility of coming back to the farm.
As time went on, I was gaining experience in the engineering world, starting to take on more responsibility, and working my way up the ladder. In late 2013, I decided that I either needed to continue down the engineering path and be OK with not coming back to the farm for the rest of my life, or quit my perfectly good engineering job and give the farming thing a try. Well, obviously I chose the latter and in the fall of 2014 I was back on the farm full time.
I didn't know much about farming other than my memories of helping in the farrowing house and loading market hogs as a kid along with the tractor rides with Dad and Grandpa during harvest. So for all intents and purposes, I was a blank slate, ready to learn about the industry. It is my opinion that this lack of preconceived ideas and open mindedness is one of my greatest qualities...but I didn't know that at the time.
My first year back on the farm was a crash course in a wide range of subjects. I have never learned so many new things in such a short amount of time. I went from sitting behind a desk in an air conditioned office to learning how to be a business owner, grain marketer, heavy equipment operator, precision ag technician, mechanic, veterinarian, electrician, plumber, carpenter, etc. I was no longer designing things that someone else was going to have to build. I was now having to learn how to build, troubleshoot, and fix things with my hands, which is very satisfying...until you can't figure something out, but when you finally do get that something figured out, the reward is just that much sweeter.
During this time, I was going to a lot of informational meetings that were put on by "seed" (chemical) companies. I was learning a lot about farming practices, eating a lot of free food, and as far as I knew helping myself make good choices for our operation. These meetings typically involved a sales pitch for the parent chemical company's new products giving a barrage of information suggesting yield increases from this product, etc. They did a great job of making it seem like a no brainer to buy these inputs and use them on our farm...otherwise we were leaving yield and $$$ in the field that should be in our bins and pocketbook. I'm not going to go into that topic in detail at this time, but needless to say, I was ready and willing to buy into the system. Why wouldn't I be...I don't want to be left behind in this evolving world and these were the "experts" I needed to be learning from.
After my first full year back on the farm, I went into the off season ready to continue learning about how I could improve our operation. I was ready to do my homework. During this time, I started hearing about this thing called "soil health." It caught my attention, so I started doing some research. It was somewhat difficult to find information on the subject as soil health is a rather new term.
One day on the AgTalk CropTalk forum (of all places), I stumbled upon a YouTube Video of Gabe Brown talking about his operation and the practices they were using. Holistic management: diverse cash crop rotations, diverse cover crop mixes, livestock integration, enterprise stacking, etc. Wow, talk about flying in the face of EVERYTHING I had been learning to that point. But I liked it and I wanted to learn more. From that video of Gabe, I was able to discover these videos of Rick Haney and Ray Archuleta. Then I found guys like Dave Brandt, Dwayne Beck, Ray Weil, Jonathan Lundgren, and the list goes on. Needless to say, I was starting to look at things just a tad bit different after hearing what these guys...the REAL EXPERTS...have to say.
Once I started watching these videos and learning more and more on soil health, ecology, and bio-mimicry, I started to feel very connected to our land and our soils. I finally felt like I had a purpose in life, and that was to join the ranks of the innovative farmers that are striving to grow food using a production system that mimics mother nature's system in our local areas. I was going to do whatever I could to figure out how to bring this system into fruition on our operation...and hopefully help as many farmers as possible do the same.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully you enjoyed learning a little about me. Please check back to read future posts where we will get into more of the nuts and bolts of what we are doing on our operation, what others are doing on their operations, and why we are doing these things.
-Michael
Hello! Quick intro - I'm friend with Bethany, after meeting on the PanAm last year overlanding. Firstly, congrats on making such a huge choice to move back to the farm. Really cool! Secondly, I'm very interested to hear your adventures farming with "seed" companies and now moving to holistic farming. GMO foods are a big topic in Australia right now, but fortunately we're not at the point that America is. Our only crops that are GMO are cotton/canola, and there is a significant public discourse about it. Additionally, the state I'm from, Tasmania, has a GMO ban that is extended until 2019 and hopefully will continue into the future.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to hear more of your story.
Hi Emma, thanks for reading!
DeleteHere is my opinion on GMO's...they are expensive and they are not needed to grow good crops with good yields, but they sure do make it easier. They are a band-aid that helps cover up poor management practices (aka- not utilizing long term rotations and diversity).
I don't have an ideological problem with GMO's at this time, but I don't want to keep paying to use them on our operation if I don't need them. But as of right now, all of our crops contain at least 1 GMO trait.
Hello! I'm also friends with Bethany. We danced together at Knox College. This is a topic near and dear to my heart. It's the main I was drawn to work at an organic, farmer owned cooperative in Wisconsin. Have you ever checked out Mark Sheppard's Restoration Agriculture? Or Sepp Holzer's Permaculture? Both are great reads, if they haven't crossed your path yet!
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