At our annual Grain Place Foundation Field Day on July 17, guest speaker David R. Montgomery shared about his work on soils and civilization (and why he’s hopeful!) as our keynote speaker. His presentation gave a big-picture frame to the importance of our work, and underlined the importance of making farming decisions that promote the health of our soil.
Grain Place Farm founder David Vetter offered this year’s farm tour, with a description of our 9-year crop rotation system, as well as some history about rotations we tried over the decades of organic farming on this land.
Grain Place Foods President Christian Evans led our tour of Grain Place Foods, focusing on the community of people who work at our organic food and feed processing plant; these are some of the people who make it possible to live out our motto: How your food is produced does matter.
Grain Place Foundation Board Member Dr. Charles Francis (University of Nebraska) gave a quick overview of some of the research we’ve been working on, including long-term comparisons of crop yields on conventional and organic farms.
We were inspired by the conversation we shared–we talked about the farm with current Grain Place farmers Raymond Hain and Jason Smith. We also reflected on David Montgomery’s presentation with a panel discussion that featured Grain Place Foundation board member Dr. Kathleen Delate (Iowa State), and Mad Agriculture’s Rebecca Baldwin-Kordick.
