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Farm Beginnings™ Profile: Joseph Guiney
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Joseph Guiney (left) |
On a muggy June morning in southern Minnesota, Joseph Guiney leads a group of 14 people past his oat and soybean fields to two acres of neatly tended 12 X 150 foot square plots. He explains how he is using the plots to test six varieties of hard red spring wheat. Later in the summer, he will harvest the plots and take samples of the grain to a laboratory, which will test the wheat for milling and baking qualities. The research project is sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and the USDA’s Risk Management Agency Community Outreach and Assistance Partnership Program.
Small grains have all but disappeared in southern Minnesota, Guiney explains to the group, but he finds they are integral to his organic cropping operation. Having small grains like wheat and oats in the rotation with soybeans helps him naturally break up pest cycles and build up soil without the use of chemicals. The trouble is, there isn’t much of a local market for small grains. The farmer needs to figure out how to add value to these grains and is hoping to do that by raising varieties that produce high quality baking products.
It’s obvious from his presentation that Guiney, who has been farming since the early 1990s, knows what he’s doing when it comes to crop production. Of the 240 acres, 145 are certified organic. The farm has been in his family since 1907 and Joseph’s father was born on this place in 1917; Joseph’s great grandfather homesteaded the next section over in 1856.
Guiney, 40, took the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings™ course in 2002-2003. He concedes that he pretty much has the production end of organic crop farming down. So why, after over a decade of farming, would someone take a beginning farmer course? The soft-spoken Guiney explains that he is at a juncture in his farming career. He feels that at some point in the near future he needs to make a decision on whether to farm fulltime, or not farm at all.
“I thought it would provide some tools for making that decision,” he says, citing the example of an intense University of Nebraska seminar on the viability of processing commodities on the farm. On average 80 percent of the participants in that seminar decide not to undertake such an enterprise, says Guiney.
“Sometimes you need the tools to decide not to do something.”
Organic crop production is challenging enough. But on top of that Guiney is a fulltime social worker in the Twin Cities. There have been weeks when he has had to make the hour-and-a-half drive to the farm just outside of Austin half-a-dozen times.
Timing is everything when you’re trying to control weeds in an organic crop field. Chemicals can make weed control easier and aren’t as dependent on weather conditions. But herbicides and other chemicals aren’t an option in organics. For Guiney, the 2004 growing season was particularly difficult—unusually wet weather plagued southern Minnesota, spawning perfect conditions for weed infestations.
“You cultivate on a Saturday thinking you’ll have Sunday too and then it rains,” says Joseph with a hint of frustration.
Being a commuter farmer also means he can’t have livestock on the farm, something Guiney is convinced is needed if there is to be a long-term nutrient cycle that’s good for the soil. But he is also reluctant to jettison all of the invaluable agronomic knowledge he has gained over the years. Much of that came in the form of some tough on-the-job training.
In the early 1980s, Guiney got turned off to farming. He had worked for a large farmer and had raised a few hogs on his own, but hadn’t made much money. So he went to St. John’s University and got a degree in government. He did some missionary work and eventually became a social worker. But then he read a special National Science Foundation report on sustainable agriculture and began gleaning alternative production information from New Farm magazine.
“That opened up my eyes to a world of possibilities,” he says.
Guiney became convinced that if he were going to farm, it was going to be organically. He feels it’s better for the soil life and produces a healthier product. He began converting the home farm to organic in the early 1990s.
“I made a lot of mistakes,” he says. “A mistake on a conventional farm can be amplified on an organic farm.”
And it wasn’t just production missteps that dogged Guiney. In 1995, he raised his first certified organic soybeans.
“And I didn’t even know where I was going to sell them,” he says with a smile. “I was pretty green.”
But the farmer also recalls fondly his “breakthrough year”—in 1998 he reined in the weeds, got good yields and sold a crop of organic food grade soybeans that was of exceptional quality.
Guiney says he found it valuable when taking Farm Beginnings™ to have existing farmers come in and talk about what they were doing. He also learned how to do market research on products—one presentation was put on by a well-known organic marketing expert. Guiney has been putting such information into practice with his on-farm research.
So what’s the road-weary farmer decided? Nothing definite yet. But his research into producing small grains that he could add value to is bringing him a little closer to dealing with this impasse.
“Farming’s a discipline—you’re always going to be learning.”
—Originally published in the Oct/Nov/Dec 2004 Land Stewardship Letter
Click here for more on Farm Beginnings™. You can also call 507-523-3366 in southeast Minnesota or 320-269-2105 in western Minnesota.
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