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Because you don't want to come to us and get set up with a full grazing system and get locked into that system

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and then realize two years down the road that the system doesn't work right for you.

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Yeah, absolutely. I mean we tried to do a lot of things when we first started and had a lot of ideas on what we wanted to do

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and what farming would look like and some things we like got more passionate about and did better and are still doing

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and a lot of things we drop.

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Welcome to the 356th installment of Ear to the Ground, the Land Stewardship Projects podcast on family farming,

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regenerative agriculture, community food systems, and local democracy.

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I'm Brian DeVore, editor of the Land Stewardship Letter.

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So here's a chicken or the egg situation to ponder. When you're launching a farming operation,

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when should you approach the local Natural Resources Conservation Service office

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about applying for funding to set up infrastructure such as a rotational grazing system?

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It might be tempting to apply for a contract to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program,

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also known as a QIP, right from the get-go. So when you buy that first beef cow or you,

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they're ready to be plopped into the paddocks where they'll immediately start turning grass into protein.

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Not so fast, says Klaus Zimmerman-Mayo and Emily Hanson. Klaus and Emily operate Wet Stone Farm,

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a vegetable and grass-based cattle and sheep enterprise in western Wisconsin's Polk County.

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They market via CSA, farmers market, and direct to consumer sales. They launched the farm on 40 acres

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a decade ago and two years ago added another 135 acres. Over the years, the operation has brought

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together multiple partners and enterprises. It's now run as a collaborative farm consisting of

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several partners. Emily and Klaus recently hosted a field day sponsored by GoFarm Connect,

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a farmer-led initiative that works to build relationships between non-traditional farmers

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and agricultural support agencies such as the NRCS and Farm Service Agency.

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Other sponsors of the field day were the USDA and Renewing the Countryside. The couple led field day

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participants on a tour of their rotational grazing system as well as their vegetable plots and high

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tunnel system. A number of beginning farmers and prospective farmers were present and it was clear

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they were excited by the fact that Emily and Klaus had been able to set up the grazing system and

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hoop house using NRCS equip funds. They're also receiving payments to conduct prescribed conservation

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grazing on the farm. But the farmers made it clear that before they applied for funding from the NRCS,

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they tried out a few enterprises and ways of running them first. That was important, given that

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they ended up dumping some of those enterprises when they didn't work out financially and from a

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management point of view. Figuring out which enterprises you're going to stick with in the

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long term is particularly important when considering applying for something like a multi-year prescribed

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grazing contract. It's critical to know what kind of farming you want to do and how you want to do it

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before establishing the kind of infrastructure that could lock you into a certain system for years

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down the road, advised the farmers. Brandon Wierda agrees with this trial and error approach. He's an

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NRCS resource conservationist for Wisconsin's Pierce, St. Croix, Polk, Burnett and Washburn

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counties. During the field day, he talked about the need for beginning farmers to feel out the

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situation before jumping into all the paperwork required to receive funding for major infrastructure

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improvements. He also reminded participants that the NRCS's priority is to fund on-farm projects

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that help address conservation issues such as water quality and soil health. That's why it's

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important for applicants to look around their farm and figure out what kind of NRCS-funded

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infrastructure can help them be more viable economically, agronomically and environmentally.

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After the field day, I talked to Klaus and Brandon about the need to do a little trial and error

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before signing on the dotted line. They also offered up other bits of advice for beginning farmers

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who are looking to procure financial support as they build up their operations infrastructure.

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As they both make clear, there's a lot of good information available on the internet,

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but sometimes you just got to pick up the phone and start asking questions. So Klaus, you have

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taken advantage of some really good programs through NRCS as well as FSA. Once you got

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established here that kind of helped you along, can you talk a little bit about some of the different,

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I guess, infrastructure you've been able to set up through some of these programs?

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Sure. The first program that we participate in through a QIP program with NRCS was for putting

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up a high tunnel for vegetable production. There's a 96 foot by 30 foot high tunnel that

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we do in-ground vegetable production in. So basically season extension and I guess just

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increasing quality and having more control over summer production, especially for some of those

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crops like tomatoes, which struggle more outside with a variety of factors, including weather and

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disease and all that. We also have put in quite a bit of fencing for livestock for doing rotational

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grazing, which we've been doing. And so we did that first on this original 40 that we've been on for

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10 years. We put in quite a bit of interior fencing. There are definitely different loopholes and

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different requirements they have for different things. So because that was already in pasture,

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they wouldn't do perimeter fencing for us. So we had to put up perimeter fencing, but they helped

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with our interior fencing for subdividing and basically doing these sort of like long lanes

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that we could then subdivide into smaller paddocks depending on what our needs are.

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And then we did a very similar program across the street at the 135 acres that we got. Well,

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not on all of that, but there was about 30, 35 acres of cropland that we've converted into

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pasture. So they helped, NRCS helped pay for seeding that down, buying the seed, getting it planted,

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and then putting fencing in for very similar interior fencing. And we did get some exterior

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fencing there because we were converting cropland into pasture. And this is all like cost share

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thing. They have certain formulas for how much they pay based on like the footage of the crop

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footage of fencing you're putting in or whatever. We also have water lines that we put in over there,

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which has been extremely helpful as far as getting water out to animals grazing on pasture.

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Where in the past we've had to pretty much haul water to animals every day, which

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was a lot of work and a lot of wear and tear on equipment and just like a lot of, yeah,

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I mean, labor is just a huge thing that these programs have been hugely helpful for setting up

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infrastructure for those things. Yeah. And then we're also doing prescribed grazing. They have

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some programs for that for doing rotational grazing on all this. It's basically on the acreage that

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we've been, that they helped with the infrastructure with. They're also doing prescribed grazing,

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which is basically help pay for us doing that more. It's a conservation type of grazing system

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that we're moving them every single day. And that is a lot of labor and I think it's kind of helps

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offset a lot of that. Yeah, that was neat. You kind of, we went out and measured some of your forage

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and so that prescribed grazing system, it's separate from getting the infrastructure set up. It's,

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you're approving, you're kind of reporting into the NRCS that you are doing daily rotations or

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whatever, or that you're managing that perennial plant system in a conservation based way.

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Yeah, that's correct. We've got our animals that we've got grazing. We are moving every day

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and then we're recording which group of animals is moving, how many head is in that group,

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where they're moving to, what the forage height is going into a paddock, what the forage height

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is going out and then any other notes that kind of are associated with that. So yeah, we're keeping

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a lot of records on that basically and which is actually nice because I've kind of been curious

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about that but it's been hard to justify keeping that tighter records in the past but getting paid

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for it makes me want to do it more. That always helps. I'd say too with, from NRCS's perspective,

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helping producers get to prescribed grazing is the goal and the fencing, the water lines,

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all of our other infrastructure pieces are there to support the prescribed grazing because from

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our perspective that's the conservation practice right there. You're getting more forage production

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out of the same land. You're getting more carbon put into the ground because when you're doing

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prescribed grazing or a rotational grazing scheme, your root systems are getting a lot bigger and

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you're not cutting the forage down to the point where it's sloughing off those roots.

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You're allowing them to keep that reserve and they can rebound quicker then too. And when you have

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plants out there with bigger root systems with more actual intact forage on the ground,

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you're getting less soil erosion, you're getting less compaction issues, you're getting more better

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microbe habitat as well, all sorts of benefits. That's a really good point Brandon. You had

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brought up a point when we were walking out and looking at the grazing system and the high tunnel

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that NRCS helped get established here. Sometimes farmers are frustrated that certain infrastructure

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can't be set up but the NRCS has a certain kind of mission or a rule about what they can provide

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funding for. Can you explain? I think that's a really important piece to keep in mind for folks

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who might be frustrated with, oh I can't get, I'm not successful in getting a certain piece of

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infrastructure set up. Yeah, I think a lot of beginning farmers get frustrated with that

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when they're trying to get infrastructure put in and we can't just come in and help them do that

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from the get-go. Our goal as an agency is to be solving environmental resource concerns and so we

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need to be solving some kind of existing problem as justification to use taxpayer dollars to come

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in and help out with stuff. So we're looking at issues related to soil health, water quality,

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air quality, and numerous other factors but those things have to be existing problems in the system

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that we're addressing in order for us to come in and help. We're not just helping farms build their

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infrastructure from scratch. And related to that, Emily, you and Emily, Klaus, talked about a

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suggestion you had for folks. There's a lot of beginning farmers here or perspective, want to be

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beginning farmers here and one of the pieces of suggestion you had for them about working with

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programs like this is maybe don't try to jump right into it right away but learn what you like

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doing, what's working on your land, and then kind of go to the NRCS and say okay this is what we

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rather than get tied into for example a long-term contract on prescribed grazing and maybe you

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figure out well that doesn't really work for this farm. Yeah absolutely. I mean we tried to do a lot

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of things when we first started and had a lot of ideas on what we wanted to do and what farming

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would look like and you know a lot of those things like some things we like got more passionate about

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and did better and are still doing and a lot of things we dropped and we're like this doesn't

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make sense for our systems or what we're doing or kind of our ideas on what this could like look

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like is just not the reality and so really getting a clear idea of like what you actually want to do

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by like putting it into practice is crucial before just like jumping in and like throwing all your

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eggs into a basket and then like taking on responsibilities through these programs if you

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don't actually have the capacity to fulfill them. What Brandon was mentioning a second ago about

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just like the infrastructure being there to make these practices more possible, I'll just say that's

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absolutely true like our capacity to do rotational grazing is way increased from what it was before

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as far as just the amount of labor and just like little things like having water lines that are

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going out to the pasture where we can just like plug in our water tank and it fills up as opposed

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to like hauling water or if you have a machine that breaks down or something happens suddenly

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you don't have water going out there it eats up a lot of your time trying to figure out what to do

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with the animals and then you got to put them somewhere where they have access to water and

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then those areas are going to get degraded more and just like vehicle use in general like when

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they're in the areas that we've like worked with NRCS for getting this infrastructure and I can

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just like ride my bike out there now to do animal chores whereas before it's like I'd have to like

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fill up 120 gallons of water on a machine and I mean it's like a whole thing. Well especially

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you're doing vegetables as well and I mean that's labor intensive enough so like adding a livestock

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enterprise anything you can do to save labor must be huge. Well yeah I mean it's my opinion that the

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like kind of like the traditional nuclear family farm model that we have in this country is

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completely idiotic it's not sustainable and I don't encourage anybody I would not wish that on

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anyone so yeah it's a lot of labor and you need a lot of people who are interested in doing that

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labor and have buy-in on it which is why we're working towards the collaborative farm model and

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not just trying to do it as like a little family out here doing this and there's a lot of potential

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on the land too it's like there's certain limits on land when you're using it as far as like how

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much you can do for say grazing but within that there's also a lot more potential that just a

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couple people working on can actually realize where you have more people you still have certain

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limits on like how many animals can be there but then you can have other people doing other sorts

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of enterprises and projects on the same piece of land but overlapping and just using land and a lot

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just like a lot more conservation minded honestly where you have more of a deeper relationship with

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the land if you have people who are like invested in it in that sort of way so we're trying to move

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more in that direction do you recall call some of the enterprises you dropped that you were like

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this ain't working pigs and chickens i mean i think we had some ideas on like what is

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raising those animals look like in kind of a sustainable way and i mean the fact of the

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matter is if you're raising those animals for meat you've got to well like for chickens it's like

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you've got to feed a lot of grain and so you're like growing like monocropped a lot of times just

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like you're doing commodity grain production which is in itself like often a human food but then you're

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feeding it to a chicken and just like the amount of like resources that goes into that and then

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i could go off on my own like tangents on these things but i fit my personal thing with chickens

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is like they like i think laying hens are like i've got a lot of respect for them but the the

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meat chickens even like the heritage breed ones or whatever they've been bred for meat production

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and honestly the brains have been bred out of them if i can't like have a minimal level of respect

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for the animals that i'm raising i don't feel like i should be doing that and so it's like

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having like these grass-fed animals and like the sheep and cattle like these animals are great and

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like have worked really well with our systems and like chickens just we're not doing it pigs it's a

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whole thing too like they evolved in a different ecosystem than we can provide them and i think

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they make sense in places where you have a specific farm waste like our friends at turnip rock where

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they do uh grass-fed cheese production so they have a lot of whey and that's a great pig food so

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you raise pigs and you can feed them this excess farm product that you're producing anyway and you

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have a good way to like grow food with it but if you're just buying in grains it's like well what's

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the point yeah in my opinion i gotta say if someone who has been around hogs a long time

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they do have a lot of brain power there it's just yeah they i would say i respect their brain power

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i have a lot i have a lot of respect for pigs they i would not equate them to meat birds at all

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those are definitely different totally different like scales of like where they're at pigs i've

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got a huge amount of respect for but i don't think they make sense in our system basically

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so i think that's a good point though that this it backs up this idea that you don't

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jump into some programs right away until you figure out what is working what you like to do

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that kind of thing so what's your sheep in your are you doing with the is it a cow-calf operation

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or what's your beef cattle it's a cow-calf operation and in the sheep what's your market for that

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i mean we've got a flock of ewes and then we're lambing every year and then slaughtering those

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lambs and doing direct market at farmers market and then we do direct sales like to csa customers

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or we'll do deliveries to the cities once in a while and people come and buy meat off the farm

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we've got like quite a few customers who like we have a relationship with and they they find

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us various ways and just it's pretty much all direct market how long were you farming here

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before you did start applying for your first programs that you feel like okay we're ready to

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figure out what we really need support on um i think we did some of like exploratory like stuff

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pretty like a couple years in but we didn't i think we put up with a high tunnel in 2018

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okay so that was four years into being here so that's a good yeah you were kind of figuring out

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that's a good point so brandon what would be some suggestions you would have for somebody who is a

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beginning farmer and are yeah they're just getting established on some land what's some some of the

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first steps they should take as far as approaching the nrcs and kind of i don't know getting familiar

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with that program because it can be and you were very honest i i appreciate this you said yes it

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is a lot of paperwork you know you were honest about that because that is a big complaint and

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that's the way it is but yeah what would be your suggestion for people just starting to dip their

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toes in the water a little bit it sounds like one of them is yeah get established for a few years to

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figure out what works and what doesn't work for you yeah i think getting established is good if

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you want to start an early relationship with people at the usda office that's always good

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and inviting people from nrcs out to see your operation talk about what your potential goals

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are and if you're having issues that you're currently experienced talk through those and see

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if there's some help for them but when we're talking about larger infrastructure projects that

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can potentially set your farm up for the long term you definitely want to have a good idea of what

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you like to do when you're farming what your market is going to be like and hopefully have a decent

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idea of what your five to ten year business plan is going to be because you don't want to come to

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us and get set up with a full grazing system and get locked into that system and then realize two

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years down the road that the system doesn't work right for you you should have designed it different

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from the get-go and having that experience just either bootstrapping it for a while by setting up

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temporary fencing or doing whatever you need to do to make sure it's working out at beginning to

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give yourself that good experience with animals that you're raising or produce that you're growing

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can be a huge benefit to you in the long term yeah and the um mission a business plan is that

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something that's really helpful for the inter sis to see is is a business plan or what kind of i

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guess paperwork or yeah what are they looking for from the farmer when they come in there we don't

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necessarily look for a business plan if we're starting to get into infrastructure stuff we

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we talk about if there is a business plan what kind of animal numbers is going to take

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for you to be sustainable as a business for cash flow and to pay for infrastructure needs

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and to support yourself for how you need to be supported the larger usda ecosystem does like to

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see business plans sometimes if you start talking about getting into farm loans or micro loans don't

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want to see that kind of stuff and along those lines having a good plan and just trying to do

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the best record keeping you can do is going to help you when you start talking with us and it's

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going to help your business in the long run too what's roughly i know it varies but from the time

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you start applying to the time you actually get that support what's the timeline is that a bad

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question to ask it depends on when you're coming in the sign-up cycle but don't expect to get

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any financial support that year usually when you sign up it can often take a year before the

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funding cycle comes to a close and we actually know who's getting funded and in those cases

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sometimes it can take multiple years of being in those funding pools and not getting funded

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until you actually do get funded and beyond that it becomes a it's it's an evolving relationship

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you know you don't want to tackle everything you want to do with us at first do a contract here

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we'll build off of it in later contracts down the road we have ways to kind of graduate people into

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other programs to be a partner with them throughout a good chunk of their farming career clouse it

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sounds like maybe the it's been the paperwork can be a headache and you had to figure out what you

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liked and what you didn't like but some of these practices you've been able to put in you wouldn't

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have been able to do it without this program is that fair to say or would you have figured out

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a way to do it otherwise i mean this is how we want to farm and it's made it a lot more doable

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i guess i don't know what we would be doing otherwise we'd be spending a lot more labor

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trying to make things work basically and such as having the basic infrastructure i mean i think

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that's been a big priority for us is just getting infrastructure in place so that we can do what we

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want to do and it's like we're basically like you know i think a lot of folks us included or at least

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me included like getting into this sort of thing you're kind of like oh i'm just gonna do it on my

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own and this whole like myth of like the individual just like going out and surviving and being

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self-sustaining is like total bs and like ever the the way the whole economy works and especially

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agriculture is it's all like runs through the system so it's like you're not like there's no

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free market and as far as i'm concerned like you leverage the resources that are available in the

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best ways that you can and so we're looking at whatever we can whether it's from the nrcs fsa

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if there's like grants or just like whatever is out there like we're like kind of ear to the ground

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and like how can we like find resources that make the work we're trying to do possible while also

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like there's just the reality of doing all the work too so it's obviously it's like we're not

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like a non-profit who has like the resources to like go find all this stuff but it is like just

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like staying in the certain networks where we can figure out what resources are available a lot of

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this just like won't doesn't work without it and you just it cannot be competitive in like the larger

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sort of like food ecosystem yeah well we're pointing to that too like uh claus had mentioned

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this earlier on the tour but use your use the government employees that you're working with

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like their job is to be the liaison between the producer and the farm programs and that's what

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we're here for and the the programs can be a bit complicated and convoluted sometimes even for the

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government employees themselves but uh that's our job i mean that's totally my approach of like

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i will like find the resources available what the programs are and my approach as i go and i talk to

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the whoever the agent is or the person like running the program and i'll ask them what's available

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if i have questions though my instinct is to just like call up one of the agents and just ask them

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because that's going to be a lot quicker and more reliable than me trying to like fumble through the

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paperwork and like understand it all honestly it's like i'm just going to call the person and

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they're going to tell me the answer and then i can just like do that and i just really encourage

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people like not be overwhelmed by the paperwork but to just like see it as like that's sort of the

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the necessary evil of the system that we're working in and there are a lot of really great

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employees working for these agencies who are like very helpful yeah you said don't be afraid to

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badger them with questions that's that that's that's what they kind of get paid for and a lot

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of people try to look online for our resources and you know it's a country-wide programs that we run

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so the online information isn't very well tailored to what the specific states or counties are doing

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so maybe do a little perusing online but really the best thing to do is just call up your local

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office and talk with them directly we get stuff tailored to the state level into the area level

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and so whatever might be saying on the national website might not necessarily be true on the local

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office i just have a general observation from the many years i've been writing about and and working

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around some of these programs i get a sense that the nrcs is much more i'd use this term but

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friendlier toward maybe the regenerative ag systems and the something that's not the mainstream

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conventional corn and soybean system i mean it just feels like it's i don't know i mean i think

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that's kind of why they exist i mean it's the natural resources conservation service right part

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of this is they changed the name it used to be the soil conservation service and so it was soil

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conservation so somebody who's doing a thousand acres of corn that puts in terraces is considered

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doing good soil conservation this is just my opinion i feel like it's become now it's called

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the natural resources conservation service there that is maybe part of its mission now is to look

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at a bigger picture of not just putting in a single practice but looking maybe taking a more

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holistic approach to to resource conservation i'd say that the current administration has done a

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really good job of really trying to promote access to his programs to smaller producers

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producers who are historically underserved that's been a huge push of this administration

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and we're seeing a lot of results of that we also got a lot more funding through the inflation

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reduction act to our agency it almost doubled our budget so and a lot of that got earmarked

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for beginning farmers and to work on climate smart practices and to work with historically

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underserved producers that being said we work with everybody you know we our goal is to kind of

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protect the public well protect the land in general and in general the ability to use it for

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resources and look at that from a public perspective of protecting those goods and so anyone who's

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willing to come to the table and talk to us about ways to have cleaner water ways to have less soil

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erosion ways to sequester more carbon and we're here to help

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for more on resources available to help farmers build environmentally positive infrastructure on

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their operations see the podcast page for ear to the ground episode 356 at landstewardshipproject.org

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if you have comments or suggestions about this podcast contact brian devore at bdevor

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at landstewardshipproject.org or you can call 612-816-9342 it helps us greatly if you can give

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ear to the ground a rating on whatever podcast platform you utilize and word of mouth is the

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best way to spread the news about our podcast if you like what you hear tell at least one person

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about lsp's ear to the ground thanks to laura borgendale western minnesota musician for ear to

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the ground's theme music and a special thank you to all of land stewardship projects members

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who make initiatives such as this podcast possible if you're not a member visit land

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stewardship project.org to learn how you can support lsp thanks for listening