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Farm Beginnings® Profile: Joe & Michelle Gransee-Bowman
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Joe & Michelle Gransee-Bowman |
In 2003, Roger Devine died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 72. Eleven months later, a stroke took his wife Marilyn, who was 71. These sudden deaths not only saddened their two adult daughters, Kim and Tammy, but left them wondering about the future of their family's 240-acre farm, which their grandfather moved to in 1905. Besides producing crops and livestock over the years, the farm is also a natural gem, home to one of only two remnant prairies in the area. Oak savannah habitat dots the farm and a creek snakes through a surprisingly dramatic valley on its way to the Minnesota River a mile away. But it also lies on the edge of Belle Plaine, a fast growing community just south of the Twin Cities. Belle Plaine is the kind of town that still has a Cenex Farm Co-op to serve area crop and livestock farmers, as well as a cute "farm store" for newer residents looking for horse and pet supplies.
Development was encroaching, and encroaching fast. So even prior to their parents' death, the daughters had been working towards developing a retreat center. Yet, Kim says, there were always so many fires to put out. In fact, within a few days of Roger's death, the family received an ominous telephone message: a major connecting road was being proposed that would cut through their pasture.
The family always felt the land should still be a working farm, but also knew that the traditional model of producing crops and livestock probably wouldn't work. They needed to make the land a valuable part of the neighborhood—too valuable to be paved over and subdivided.
Today, two graduates of the Land Stewardship Project's Farm Beginnings® program are helping the sisters put that strategy in place. Joe and Michelle Gransee-Bowman are caretakers of the Devine Farm, but they are doing more than mowing the weeds and doing farmstead maintenance. They are combining sustainable planning, environmental education and community outreach to show that a working farm belongs on the edge of a fast-growing community. At the same time, they're learning the basics of producing food.
Michelle, 34, has a master's degree in natural resources education, with an emphasis in environmental education. Joe, also 34, will complete his master's degree in sustainable design in architecture this winter. He has an undergraduate degree in public and environmental affairs, with a political science minor.
Joe and Michelle have always worked in careers where they could work to improve the environment. Michelle is a Belle Plaine native, and both of her parents grew up on farms.
"I actually had that real common view of agriculture and the environment being separate," she says. "When we started talking about going into agriculture, Joe was much more in favor of it than I was."
During the 2004-2005 class session of Farm Beginnings, they learned that not only can farming be environmentally sound, but also can be done in a way that's profitable and retains a good quality of life. Farm Beginnings, which begins its second decade in 2008, is a program where established farmers and other ag professionals provide insights into low-cost, sustainable methods of farming. The course provides workshops on goal-setting, financial planning, business plan creation, alternative marketing and innovative production techniques. In addition, class participants have an opportunity to network with established farmers and utilize them as mentors.
"I think Farm Beginnings is critically placed, because there is a deep understanding of farming and working with the land that's within individuals that are either retiring or dying out," says Michelle. "This is a critical knowledge base that our society needs to have."
Farm Beginnings presenters include Dave and Florence Minar, who produce milk on Cedar Summit Farm just down the road from Belle Plaine. The Minars have become a model of environmentally sustainable farming in the midst of sprawling development. They are now helping mentor the Gransee-Bowmans on pasture-based livestock production systems and business management techniques as part of Farm Beginnings' interest-free Livestock Loan Program.
The Gransee-Bowmans learned through Farm Beginnings how to develop a business and marketing plan. The business plan was particularly important for the couple-they had studied the pasture-based livestock production methods of Joel Salatin, and knew "just enough to be dangerous." Soon after moving into the Devine farmstead-a neat brick house built circa 1860-they began raising chickens on grass. It didn't take them long to learn what they didn't know.
"The first two summers were simply about learning how to raise poultry," recalls Joe. "Farm Beginnings took it a step further and taught us how to treat the farm as a business."
Recently Joe and Michelle have been using the networking skills they learned in Farm Beginnings to improve their marketing and production skills. For example, they are selling eggs and chickens direct to consumers through local outreach efforts, as well as through Cedar Summit's on-farm retail store. They have also begun marketing to restaurants.
And the Gransee-Bowmans have teamed up with a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operation being hosted on the Devine Farm. The CSA farm, Gullywash Gardens, is operated by Barbara and Roy Pumper, who live across the Minnesota River. They are renting two acres of land from the Devines and in 2007 launched a 12-member CSA on the farm. Under the CSA model, consumers sign up for a weekly delivery of organic vegetables during the growing season. In this case, the members come to the Devine Farm once a week to pick up their share. This gives people from the community a chance to feel connected to the farm. The Pumpers took the Farm Beginnings class with the Gransee-Bowmans and have raised vegetables using organic methods for several years.
Through the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota, the Gransee-Bowmans were able to make contact with Greg Harris of Harris Herefords, a local cattle producer who was looking for grazing land last summer. As a result, during the 2007 growing season the Devine Farm was home to a herd of 13 Hereford brood cows with calves.
Kim Devine-Johnson says cattle and conservation were always important elements on the farm. That's why she's thrilled Joe and Michelle were able to continue to support cattle on the farm where they are being raised using managed rotational grazing, an environmentally sound method.
"It does my heart good to pull up there and see the cattle grazing," she says.
The Gransee-Bowmans are also transitioning 40 acres of cropland into a pasture using the USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which provided 50 percent matching funds for seeding, fencing, watering and implementation of a rotational grazing plan.
And they are working with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' Landowner Incentive Program (LIP) to restore a prairie on the farm.
Both Kim Devine-Johnson and Tammy Devine have careers in health and wellness, and they see food-what's raised and how it's raised-fitting into their long-term goals for the farm. "We really looked at the global issue of the world today, and where our food comes from is a big part of it," says Devine-Johnson.
With the Gransee-Bowman's on the farm, the sisters now feel they can move ahead with their three-part goal: make the farm into a model for sustainable food production as well as a place of education, leadership and renewal.
Over the past 10 years, the Devines have created a nonprofit board of directors and an old granary has been renovated into a retreat center (it's located at a scenic spot overlooking the creek).
"Our plan is to be a model, living in a way locally that has a positive impact globally," says Devine-Johnson. "We don't want people to just come and go away. We hope to send people away with something they can use in their own community."
Devine-Johnson concedes it is easy to get sidetracked because of the distractions of approaching development. The road that was to cut through the pasture has been put aside for now, but the family had to sell 40 of the 240 acres to pay for estate taxes.
On an overcast day in early fall, Joe and Michelle gave a tour of the CSA operation, prairie restoration, pasture renovation, chicken production area and cattle grazing area. As they stand on a high point overlooking the creek, a pair of wild turkey scurry away-the whining sound of Minnesota Highway 169's traffic is in the distance. They walk up to the farmstead's front yard where there's another reminder that this farm is not far from the city: a mere 100 yards away homes are under construction. A new school is also being built less than half-a-mile away.
The Gransee-Bowmans and Devines are embracing the reality of farming on the town's edge. Joe is on the Belle Plaine planning and zoning commission, and is chair of the commercial design committee. Michelle is on the park board and is the president of the local parent-teachers organization. They often go to the local primary school to talk about farming, and host classes on the farm. The young couple knows how to make the farm family friendly-they have four children of their own, ages 3 to 10.
"This town I grew up in has doubled [to 6,000 people] since I left and is projected to quadruple in the next 15 years," says Michelle. "That kind of development is often detrimental to farms and the families they support. Yet, the excitement of being a farmer in an area like this is not just about developing a farm, but also developing a community asset that produces not just food but clean water, a natural environment, a sense of community and a strong economy."
— Originally published in the Autumn 2007 Land Stewardship Letter
See www.farmbeginnings.org for more on Farm Beginnings. You can also call 507-523-3366 in southeast Minnesota or 320-269-2105 in western Minnesota for more information.
To listen to an audio podcast featuring Joe and Michelle Gransee-Bowman, see Ear to the Ground episode 44 at www.digitalpodcast.com/detail-LSP_s_Ear_to_the_Ground-8811.html.
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