Michigan farm integrates livestock with a diverse array of grains and dry beans grown with regenerative, organic practices
Shady Side Farm is a regenerative, organic farm that integrates crops with livestock in Holland, Michigan, near the coast of Lake Michigan. Mike and Lona Bronkema, first-generation farmers, have been farming 155 contiguous acres since 1992. Keeping a small farm going as three nearby urban centers vie for land is no small accomplishment; the farm’s focus on soil health, nutrition, and flavor are surely part of their success.
Mike and Lona live and farm near where they grew up.They actually rode the same school bus as kids, but didn’t connect until after graduating – he from private school, she from public. Lona’s father taught computers at a vocational high school and was a hobby farmer, considering cattle his therapy when he got home from school.
Mike initially worked as a builder. In that life, he saw land as a place for million-dollar homes. Now, he believes farms need to be farms, and he and Lona work hard to make their diversified operation a place where everything feeds everything else, in a continuous cycle.
For each crop they grow, they ask: "How does that feed the next system on? How does that prepare the soil? How does that feed the animal?” Mike says. They consider how each crop and animal helps the next step in the growing cycle. Most of the straw from their einkorn, for instance, is put directly into the ground after harvest. Some of the straw is used for sheep bedding, and ends up back in the soil, adding nutrients and organic matter for the crops.
In the beginning, they raised animals and grew crops conventionally, but their interest in soil health changed things. As the industry turned up the volume on GMOs, suppliers and buyers announced they would exclusively use GMO seeds. Mike and Lona decided to transition to organic in 2008, achieving organic certification in 2010, when they began to grow dry beans. (In case you’re wondering, dry beans do count as grains—please check out AGC’s Learn page to read more!)
Since Shady Side is near Lake Michigan, their micro-climate is ideal for beans: warmer in the winter and cooler in summer than surrounding areas. Initially they grew pinto beans under contract for another farmer.
The following year, the farmer didn’t need them, so Mike and Lona looked into a nearby farmers’ market. Nobody else had beans, and the fact that they were organic made them especially appealing to the market and to shoppers. A few years later, they expanded into heirloom varieties of beans, and now grow about 20 types.
Back while farming seven different varieties of beans, they fitted themselves out for cleaning and handling with everything from hand tools to small mechanical equipment. Because of their niche product line they were able to get into larger, more popular farmers’ markets, which encouraged exploration.
They began growing open-pollinated corn, and brought it to the Holland Windmill, a functional tourist attraction, for grinding. The miller was happy to grind their unusual grains, and is the one who urged them to grow small grains. In fact, she gave them their first einkorn seed.
Getting into small grains necessitated more equipment, and they were lucky enough to find a small dehuller to remove the outer hulls from the einkorn and, later, the spelt that they grow.
At the farmers’ markets, the visual appeal of the many types of heirloom beans – displayed for sale in baskets – draws people in. So does the Wapsie Valley corn, which is yellow-colored and has a red flake. Since Mike is a seed saver, he has selected the reddest ears to plant; his corn is now all red.
“Our customers are looking for regenerative whole food, organically grown,” Mike says. They want to buy direct, and talk about nutrition. Shady Side tests their kernels and beans to assess their nutritional values, and is also working with universities, studying their soil for its levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium and macronutrients.
While quantifying the health of soil and food is a work in progress, Mike and Lona see a strong impact of improved soil health on animal health. They raise 100 sheep and 8 cows, and over time, they’ve nearly erased parasites in their sheep—a normal problem in grazers. They’ve never had to manage diseases in the cows.
Shady Side is part of Regenerative Farmers of America, and the Organic Farm Research Foundation, where you can find an interview with Mike. The couple preserved their farm in 2020, selling the development rights so that it will remain a farm forever., and are currently looking to mentor the next generation to take over stewarding the farm and producing healthy food for their community. See their Farmlink profile here.
“How do we make better food? Good food equals healthy people,” Mike says.
Mike and Lona are glad to have the company of other direct marketers in AGC, and we are happy to have them help advance regional grains.
