This past Wednesday Jeff took a trip down to the Indiana State Fair to attend the River Friendly Farmer Award Ceremony and receive the River Friendly Farmer Award for Wabash County. This award ceremony is sponsored by the Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and we are honored to be recognized along with other farms from around the state. The statewide initiative recognizes farmers who help keep Indiana’s rivers, lakes, and streams clean through good production management practices. The award was presented by the Lt. Governor and Secretary of Agriculture, Suzanne Crouch, and the president of the Indiana Farm Bureau, Randy Kron.
We are grateful that the IASWCD takes the lead to encourage farmers to farm in a way that makes them good neighbors to all living things while leaving healthy, thriving watersheds for generations to come. As Jeff told the Lt. Governor as they were posing for the official photograph while his three-year-old grandson looked on, “I’m thinking a lot these days about what it means to be a good ancestor."
As farmers, we recognize that the health of waterways is inseparable from the health of the soil. That's why we are transitioning to gardening techniques that keep our soil covered by deep organic mulches, why cover crops are an important part of our crop rotations, why most of our farm is planted to perennial pasture, and why we are preparing to plant 14,000 trees on our farm next season. These practices protect our soil from the erosive effects of wind and rain and promote a healthy soil structure that slows the movement of water, resulting in plentiful moisture for our crops--which helps us deliver good food to our table and into local markets while sending clean water into nearby Pony Creek. The practices that make a farm friendly to rivers also makes for the resilient plants, animals, people, and communities required to brave the uncertainties of climate, weather, markets, agricultural policy, and all the other challenges of farming. These practices also make for a beautiful farm—a patchwork of trees, shrubs, pastures, fields, and gardens stitched together with birdsong, a pleasant and unendingly interesting place to live and work, a landscape that is always changing, ever emerging, a daily invitation to stay, and watch, and work, and wonder.
