We partner with farmers all around the state. Read their stories and find connections in your area by clicking on the regions below.
Larry Haren farms near Webster City in Hamilton County. Over the past 15 years, Haren has applied several conservation practices to his operation including: no-till, cover crops, bioreactor, a soil retention pond, grassed waterways and restoration of oxbows.
Read MoreILF farmer partner Arlo Van Diest hopes to leave the soil on his farm in better shape for the next generation. To do this, he converted to strip-till in 2001 and has continued using it ever since. Van Diest grows corn and soybeans on his farm located near Webster City in Hamilton County.
Read MoreFred and Vicki Abels farm about 400 acres just outside Holland, Iowa. Fred started farming in 1981 on his family’s farm in Grundy County. It was a traditional soybean and corn rotation with a cow herd. He became interested in conservation practices after attending Practical Farmers of Iowa field days and switched to no-till soybeans in 1994. In the mid-2000s he started strip-till before corn and immediately sold all tillage equipment. In 2009, he started using cover crops, and in the early days, Fred had them custom flown on but then bought a grain drill as he had better germination rates. He no longer has a cattle herd but used to harvest about 20 acres of cover crops to use as cattle feed.
Read MoreWith a lifetime of experience on the farm, Rod Pierce has seen many changes in agriculture over the years. Getting his start in 1973, he has expanded his rural Boone County operation to grow more than 1,600 acres of corn and soybeans. Early in his career, Rod, along with many farmers, used moldboard plows to prepare their soil for planting. Over his many years of farming, he has discovered alternatives to the plow that result in less soil movement and improved soil health. In addition to no-till on some of his acres, Rod also utilizes vertical tillage to redistribute residue and reduce soil disturbance. One of Rod’s recent improvements to his operation was an in-row fertilizer unit on his planter. His hope is to apply nutrients directly where they’re needed to reduce losses.
Read MoreFor nearly 50 years, Carl has been fostering his family’s farm back to the native prairie. He still combines every year, harvesting prairie seed rather than grain, but there is no need for planting or any other inputs. Rather than restarting every year, the prairie’s diversity builds upon itself through Carl’s management of prescribed burns and the physical removal or spot spraying of invasive species.
Read MoreWhen Chris Henning left her family’s farm in Jefferson in 1965, she had no intention of returning. She was 18, and as the oldest of 7 sisters, she knew how to drive a tractor and do any farm chore from an early age. When she did return to Greene County in 1991 with her late husband Max, their idea was to live in the country but not farm. As fate would have it, they did purchase a severely depleted piece of land which Chris has spent much of the last three decades nursing back to health.
Read MoreMark farms just under 1000 acres in Badger Iowa, about 15 minutes north of Fort Dodge. As a young man, he farmed alongside his father and grandfather, who abandoned the moldboard in the 60s. Continuing his grandfather’s legacy, Mark switched to minimum tillage 20 years ago and cover crops in the last 10 years. He admits that when he first implemented cover crops, there were a few years when he “got burned by not listening to how the older farmers made it work.”
Read MoreAlthough Lee didn’t grow up in Iowa, his family has been farming outside Slater since the mid-1800s. Since he returned to the family land in the early 80s, Lee has continually experimented with the cutting edge of conservation practices, while maintaining high levels of productivity. Lee’s strong ethic for water quality has specifically led to the installation of 3 saturated buffers and a bioreactor.
Read MoreIn 1978, Rob Stout began farming 400 acres with his dad. Over the years he has grown the operation and now employs cover crops on his entire 1,100 acres. From the outset, Rob has been deeply interested in the cutting-edge agronomic practices that help conserve our natural resources. He started with minimum tillage, but it didn’t take long for him to jump into no-till and purchase a no-till planter with his dad in 1983.
Read MoreThe 160-acre in Floyd County where Dennis and Patty Staudt raise corn and soybeans has been farmed by Staudts since 1877. When Dennis took over from his father in 1981, both he and Patty (formerly Heithoff) had been math teachers in Fort Dodge. Their love of math transferred well to a joy in finding efficiencies on his farm. Similarly, his Catholic faith informs his desire to leave the land better than when he began farming.
Read MoreDick Sloan was raised on a farm a few miles away from the 320 acres he’s farmed since 1978, both just outside Brandon. While he was raised with a strong emphasis on conservation, his practices continue to evolve as he innovates tirelessly towards greater efficiency and resilience. A strong believer in experimentation, he told us that he’s “not afraid to make mistakes, because it’s the only way to find what works best on your land.”
Read MoreOne of Bryan Sievers’ most vivid memories is of his father planting into an old pasture with an early no-till planter he rented. At that time, it took four men standing on each row of the planter to get adequate down pressure. Continuing the strong conservation ethic of his father, Bryan has made agricultural innovation his life’s work, as he is one of only three farmers in Iowa who utilizes anaerobic digester technology.
Read More
