Heart and Grain: Learning to farm from my mom and YouTube
By Andrew Barsness | When I started farming in 2011, I had no idea what I was doing or what I was in for. My naiveté spared me the appropriate terror and trepidation that may have deterred a well-informed individual from such an endeavor.
Heart and Grain: When oak leaves are the size of squirrels’ ears
By John Wepking | For my parents’ generation of farmers, repairing a punctured tire or slaughtering and butchering a steer was fairly common knowledge, passed down to them from their parents. When there are so few young farmers, what happens to all this knowledge?
Heart and Grain: Farmers are matchmakers between land and seed
By Mai Nguyen | There aren’t plenty of fish in the sea of heritage grain, so I started growing out and scaling up the varieties I need. To start, I requested a batch of seed from the USDA germplasm, and they gave me 25 seeds. I have one chance each year to grow them out.
Heart and Grain: Big farms require big equipment. And lots of money.
By Andrew Barsness | Along with blood, sweat, and tears, farming requires a significant financial investment, and grain farming is one of the most capital-intensive types of farming.
Heart and Grain: A not-so-restful winter
By John Wepking | As anyone who has had a garden can attest, buying seed is one of the most exciting activities of the farming year. Seed-buying is always full of hope and promise—nothing has had the opportunity to go wrong… yet.
Heart and Grain: Meet John and Halee
By John Wepking | In late January, a surprise calf was born on our farm. We had been looking forward to our first calving, but we weren’t expecting any births until late April, when the weather would be warmer and the cows would all be on good green grass.
Heart and Grain: Meet Mai
By Mai Nguyen | I grew up knowing my roots in stories of loss. Though their home had been destroyed and their country lost, my family shared these stories and the traditions around them so that they could keep our culture alive in a new place. This is part of why I became a farmer.
Heart and Grain: Meet Andrew
By Andrew Barsness | My grandfather was still farming one 60-acre field when he died at the age of 87. Blind in one eye, partially deaf, and unsteady on his feet, he strung wire between the farm buildings to hang onto as he walked from one building to the next.