Serving farmers since 1985 with farmer-led research and education focused on farm viability and stewardship of land and resources.
Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) has been serving farmers in and around Iowa since 1985. Their work includes supporting farmer-led research and sharing information in pursuit of farm systems that help people and the environment. Their farmer-focused approach, and the success of their many programs, makes them a model worth studying for anyone interested in changing agriculture – like you, dear readers!
“Our goal is to be a network where farmers, land-owners, and enthusiastic eaters alike can reach out with questions and share knowledge,” says Solveig Orngard, Field Crops Education Coordinator. When asked about PFI’s work in the regional grainshed, she adds, “We want to build a community of people that are willing to ask questions and work together to answer them. We can then dive into the particulars of finding markets, accessing land, using the best equipment, and much more.”
This spirit of collaboration and inquiry reflects PFI’s beginnings, grown from grassroots, self-help responses to the farm crisis of the 1980s. Dick and Sharon Thompson were part of an informal group of farmers doing research on their farms. When Larry Kallem from the Iowa Institute for Cooperatives attended a field day, he was impressed. Larry worked with them, and other researchers and farmers, to expand opportunities for farmer-led research and information sharing. Initially focused on field crops and livestock, PFI’s programming now includes horticulture, habitat and conservation, and initiatives to help beginning farmers and farmers of color.
“We work with farmers in three primary areas, farmer-led research, farm viability, and farmer-led education,” says Solveig. Farm viability efforts include incentive programs, and technical assistance – an umbrella term that includes outreach, education, and training.
In PFI’s research program, farmers work with staff to plan trials on relevant topics at their farms and receive a payment to compensate for extra time and also offset some of the risk involved in doing on-farm research. Participants in research projects then share about the process with peers at a field day, PFI's Cooperators' Meeting or through another educational channel. The organization hosts conferences, webinars, field days, workshops, meet-ups, and more, and Solveig says, “we really focus on having the farmers share their knowledge with each other. Even when we write stories about farmers for the quarterly magazine, we highlight their voices. What they're doing is what we want to showcase.”
Farmers lead the knowledge transfer at PFI’s many field days – this year they’re hosting an impressive number, 59 (!), between June and November. Field days are open to the public, and topics range across all farming enterprises, including some that focus on heirloom and small grains – such as one at AGC member Hazzard Free Farm in Illinois in July. The “Rye Resiliency” field day showcases an Iowa farmer who is using rye as cover crop and as a harvested grain. “Farming Outside the Box," a field day in northeast Nebraska, will take a closer look at food-grade grain sorghum on a farm transitioning to organic.
Other field days are in Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, a geography that indicates the reach of PFIs work, and reflects its broad membership. In April 2021, they had ~4,600 members, but now, in May 2024, they have more than 8,000.
“More than half of all our memberships are connected to our cost-share programs,” explains Solveig. Cost-share programs promote practices that boost soil health and have other benefits that don’t immediately pay. In a system that doesn’t put a cash value on ecological practices, wanting to change what you’re doing isn’t enough. Farmers need help financing the costs of diversifying rotations through less immediately valuable crops, including planting cover crops.
PFI’s first cost-share program began about a decade ago and started small, paying about 30 farmers to plant fall-seeded cover crops. The program is now widespread, and the incentive is stackable with other publicly funded cost-shares. In 2023, PFI supported 1,943 farmers in planting 627,747 acres of cover crops.
The small grains cost-share offers $20/acre for raising a small grain, such as barley, oats, cereal rye, triticale, or wheat with a cover crop that contains a legume. The program has further expanded to coaching farmers on reducing nitrogen in corn grown in extended rotations. In 2023, 291 farmers planted 23,824 acres of small grains and reduced nitrogen on 7,578 acres of corn that followed in rotation.
The small grains cost-share is just one part of a broad push to support small grains in farm rotations. “Our work with small grains started when we learned farmers were seeking more support to branch out from corn and soy into extended rotations to maintain healthy and clean soil and water,” says Solveig. PFI’s promotion of small grains includes a monthly email newsletter focused on small grains, and hosting "shared learning calls" as an opportunity for farmers, and occasionally researchers or specialists, to discuss a topic in a phone or video call for an hour. AGC member John Wepking of Meadowlark Organics (shown at right) recently spoke to fellow PFI members about frost-seeding red clover into winter wheat.
PFI’s staff numbers are rising to match their wide-ranging programming and surging membership. Currently 45 people work at PFI, nearly all of whom are full-time employees, working either fully in-person, hybrid, or fully remote beyond their office in Ames, IA. Specialties range from formally trained agronomists and people with farm-developed expertise to staff whose skills support the layers of research, information sharing, and agricultural development involved in PFI’s integrated approach.
With all this going on, PFI plans to keep on growing in order to reach more farmers that are seeking support with their farming ventures. AGC is glad to have this organization also sharing and spreading grain-related resources. Their decades of work helping local agriculture and helping the public pay attention to farming and our food streams is invaluable.
