Around mid-morning each day on Green Ridge Family Farm in south central Iowa, eight lower doors to the hen house swing open.
Rising from their roosts inside the 500-foot-long barn, auburn feathered chickens make their way to the ledge, pause as if taking in the morning and hop down into the 52-acre pasture they’ll roam all day.
Farmer Arlyn Kauffman has been raising cage-free, non-GMO fed pasture hens like these since 2015. He needed a lot of support when he started farming and found it through a nonprofit called Practical Farmers of Iowa and his Mennonite community.
“It’s just nice to be able to call somebody rather than try to find it in a book or some far away office,” Kauffman said.
When Kauffman started producing cage-free eggs, only about 14% of farmers nationwide were doing so, according to United Egg Producers, an industry group.
“The social support of others really helps to kind of reassure that, yeah, it might not be standard, but it’s really not … it’s not crazy,” he said.
It can be hard to be the only farmer in town trying something different. In agriculture, the work is on display.
“People can see what you’re doing and how ... how you’re raising your livestock, where they’re at, what your fields look like,” said Angie Carter, a rural sociologist at Michigan Technological University.
“Also, people talk in town. People know your business. And so it is very public.”
Regenerative agriculture is a movement that aims to take the agriculture industry back to basics and use farming methods that revive the health of the soil and by extension the small farm economy.
Changing growing conditions as well as severe weather caused by climate change puts farmland under economic stress and threatens farmers’ ability to keep producing on the land. Regenerative agriculture is seen by some as a solution.
But making the transition from conventional to regenerative farming methods can include a significant learning curve.
Carter said rural communities are often remote and formal support systems and educational opportunities might be out of reach. She said going against the grain in farm communities can be isolating.
“There may not be programs or support for your ideas as there are for people who are doing more traditional practices. And so all these things reinforce the idea that you’re doing something really strange,” Carter said.
Practical Farmers of Iowa, a farmer peer support network Kauffman is a member of, was founded during the 1980s farm crisis — a period where farm consolidation and bankruptcy was high.
“The farm crisis was really kind of a monumental point in this where farmers were either continuing to increase in scale and efficiency or they were getting out of the business, and unfortunately, we lost a lot of farms during that time,” Executive Director Sally Worley said.
The organization connects researchers and farmers, advocates for agriculture policy and provides cost share opportunities for farmers adopting new conservation practices. But the group’s largest priority, Worley said, is coordinating farmer-led training.
“The majority of our time is spent getting farmers together, helping them build relationships with each other, so that they have that support network,” Worley said.
The organization facilitated 59 field days across Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri this summer, giving farmers the opportunity to visit each other’s operations and share best practices. Worley said there’s no better way for farmers to learn the nitty-gritty details.
“Our technical expertise at our farmer-led events is pretty astounding and pretty detail oriented, where people can leave those events and come away with stuff that they can implement on their farm if they so choose,” she said.
Worley has been with Practical Farmers of Iowa for 17 years and started as a member herself. She said the organization’s membership is a “big tent” with a large variety of different types of agriculture producers. With more than 8,000 members, there’s bound to be disagreements.
“We do expect and communicate that we want civility and that we really are working towards solutions, rather than trying to pit each other against each other,” Worley said.
Farmers set the group’s educational and research priorities, Worley said.
“If a farmer wants to learn about no till vegetable farming, we’ll find a farmer that has experience in that,” she said.
About 18% of the group’s members are in the poultry business, like Kauffman. Since he began raising laying hens, four other farmers in his county started similar operations, he said.
Kauffman tries to pay forward the support he got as a beginner.
“When some others around here started, I was willing to take their calls as well,” Kauffman said. “There’s a lot of decisions to be made on lighting and on feed and how much to feed and when … just a lot of decisions about how to best take care of the chickens.”
Kauffman attributes what he knows about sustainable farming to the communities that have guided him — his family, Practical Farmers of Iowa and his Mennonite congregation.
Kauffman recalled a recent morning spent walking through a soybean field with others from his congregation to help a local farmer pull weeds when other organic weed control tactics had been exhausted.
“It was drizzling a little bit, but we decided to go ahead with it anyway,” Kauffman said. “We got completely soaked pulling weeds out.”
Of the about 35 households in the Decatur County Mennonite congregation, about half are farmers, Kauffman said.
“To be around people that are doing that is critical for me. I’m not a desert saint. I’m not going to survive if I just go out and try to do something all by myself,” he said.
Kauffman grows corn, oats, barley, soybeans and wheat to feed to his hens on about 240 acres. The crops are cultivated with regenerative methods including reduced tillage, cover crops and extended crop rotations — practices he learned from his peers. He’s also hosted Practical Farmers of Iowa field days on his farm to show others how it works.
Kauffman said farming in community with others helps him live out his faith by stewarding the land.
For Kauffman, it’s about understanding the quantifiable impact but also the personal connections.
“To be around and to be in contact with people that have a vision, to try to reach forward, to ask, is there a better way?” he said.
Kauffman’s neighbor Lyndon Miller began rotationally grazing his cattle herd three years ago. Transitioning to a regenerative method of raising cows was a challenge, Miller said.
“Moving cattle to a regenerative system is not all easy. It takes a lot to change your mindset,” he said. “There’s just a lot to learn.”
Miller has struggled with grass quality, herd genetics and finding support for what he’s doing. He leans on Kauffman and other members of Practical Farmers of Iowa for advice. Miller believes the way he’s raising cattle, despite the initial challenges, will ultimately be better for his land.
“I’ve seen all of our pastures over the years, erosion happening and just thin, thin grass and thin soils. I’ve always been bothered by it, but there’s never been a solution,” Miller said.
“Now I feel like I’ve been learning what that solution can look like. I’m not sure I’ve got a full idea of it yet … but it’s a learning experience.”
Regenerative agriculture is a contrast to the large-scale, highly-specialized farming happening across the Midwest. Carter said peer learning, like what is conducted by Practical Farmers of Iowa, can be really powerful in helping farmers move in a sustainable direction.
“Somebody standing at the front of the room with a PowerPoint or lecturing you about what you need to do or might do or try on your farm or in your small business in a rural area is not going to be as effective as hearing from that fellow business owner or farmer who’s tried something new and can tell you from firsthand experience what worked and didn’t work,” she said.
“You’re going to trust that information much, much more,” Carter said. “You’re also going to be more likely to reach out to that person, to have follow up conversations.”
Carter encourages farmers without a support network in their rural community to begin one themselves. She said it can be as simple as hosting a potluck to get farmers together and start conversations. For agriculture environmental and economic sustainability, seeing is believing.
“In working together … in just having more conversations with other farmers and people in their community folks do start to see, like, ‘Oh yeah, I do see how your soil is changing,’” Carter said.
“It starts to be less weird and starts to make a little more sense … and in that way, we can get to more systemic changes,” she said.
