MONROE - Lindsey Morris Carpenter is a first-generation farmer.
Unlike many of her neighbors in Green County, the 28-year-old isn't native to southern Wisconsin and she isn't farming the same land as ancestors who emigrated from Switzerland 150 years ago. She started her organic operation, Grassroots Farm, on 40 acres she bought in 2007, located off Dutch Hollow Road just north of Monroe.
She's an anomaly in an increasingly graying profession that's also predominantly male. By age, the fastest growing group of farmers in the U.S. is older than 65, according to the federal 2007 Census of Agriculture.
"There was nothing inherited here. My capital expenses have been intense," she said. "That's where Gail Carpenter comes in."
She's referring to her mother, who lives in a north Chicago suburb. Together the two women are equal partners in Grassroots Farm.
Lindsey is the farmer and planner, and the operation is her career and livelihood. She calls her mother the "weekend warrior" - Gail works in an office during the week and devotes her spare time to Grassroots Farm. Gail keeps the books and bees, tends the orchard and hauls produce back to Chicago to sell.
A self-described child of the '60s, Gail always admired the back-to-the-land movement of her Baby Boom generation, but she spent her working life in offices or retail. Now, as she nears retirement age, she's returning to those agricultural ideals - and even further back, to the traditions of her mother's family, who farmed in Missouri until the 1920s.
But Grassroots Farm and other small-scale operations like it aren't just a throwback. The demand for locally grown food may be small, but the Department of Agriculture says it's a fast-growing share of total production. Locally, the Green County Health Department is partnering with Grassroots Farm and others like it to get fresh produce to needy families.
As Gail puts it, "We're back to the future."
The road to Grassroots
Lindsey, who grew up in Minocqua, got her start in farming by accident. She studied art in college in Philadelphia but eventually dropped out and moved back to Wisconsin to find an apprenticeship in carpentry or furniture-making. Nothing turned up.
Then she stumbled on an ad for a summer internship on a farm near Stoughton. It paid $300 a month and offered no housing. Still, it intrigued her. She ended up loving it and falling in love with the rhythm of farm work.
After a few years of learning from other farmers, she was ready in 2009 to start growing her own vegetables.
Now Grassroots Farm offers a wide array of produce, from tomatoes to garlic, as well as cut flowers, eggs, chicken, pork, turkey, and starting this fall, beef. Products are available at the farm, via Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership and at a farmer's market in Long Grove, Ill.
Eventually, Lindsey wants the farm to operate as a closed circuit, so it sustains itself and produces no waste. She's got a good start on that with her hogs.
"All my squishy, rotten tomatoes go to my hogs," she said. "The hogs are a great resource. Nothing goes to waste."
With spring just weeks off now, Lindsey is busy with the mind-bending task of planning crops. It's helped her to work backwards through the season to figure out the timing of each crop.
"I have spreadsheets coming out of my ears," she said.
She's currently growing seedlings in the basement of an old farmhouse she recently bought about four miles north of her farm, near Monticello. She lives here with two dogs, six cats, 46 chickens and Ms. Piggy, a gorgeous hog with "mascara"-rimmed eyes and pink triangle-shaped ears.
Ms. Piggy is pregnant, thanks to an artificial insemination Lindsey did herself with a catheter and some bargain-bin hog semen she ordered online for $10. The task didn't take too much wrangling. "I can sit on her. We're buddies," she said of Ms. Piggy. By late spring, the hog will have six to 14 piglets.
Hog-inseminating isn't the only thing done by hand at Grassroots Farm. Everything is.
"We use knives and scissors and shovels to harvest," Gail said. The only machines are push mowers, a rototiller and a 23-horsepower tractor.
That makes pricing tough for Lindsey.
"I can't base my prices on what they charge in the store," she said. Especially since she's just starting out, her costs are higher. She's not raking in money, either. "The wage here is very modest. It's poverty level."
Still, she sees benefits in her products that typical grocery stores can't offer. Freshness, for one. Also, she encourages customers to visit the farm, bring the kids, eat lunch, "come lay in my hammock," whatever. She sends out a newsletter to her CSA members.
"You don't get a newsletter from your grocery store," she said.
Ultimately, Gail and Lindsey see education as part of their business model. Learning about farming didn't stop for Lindsey when she went pro. She's kept her student's mindset.
Her organic certification isn't just about a piece of paper. "Being certified is a great way to stay educated," she said. Her neighbors, some of whom have farmed for generations, are another resource. "I'm kind of always picking the brains of my neighbors."
One of her neighbors, Tom Nelson, while not a farmer, is a champion of local produce and getting young people involved in the future of farming, whether as consumers or as entrepreneurs like Lindsey.
Nelson is the liaison between farmers and families for a state-funded initiative in Green County to put fresh produce in the kitchens of 40 low-income families. The project, called "Bring Nutrition Education from Farm to Families," starts this summer. Grassroots Farms is one of the producers contracted to provide each family with a box of produce every other week.
"It really is a pilot project," said Roann Warden, head of the Green County Health Department. The goal is to introduce families to "new and different fresh produce."
Some of the families visited Grassroots Farm last September for a "Family Fun Day." Lindsey remembers the children especially enjoying it.
That, said Nelson, is the idea.
"We want to light the fuse of young people to really understand the importance of good nutrition and how we arrive at that with local production," he said. Lindsey is the right person for the job. "She's dynamic, good at talking to kids."
The modern grocery store model, which sells strawberries from Mexico in February, has caused a loss of knowledge over several generations about how to cook seasonally, Nelson said. He sees hope for the future in farmers like Lindsey.
"I trust the way she grows," he said. "She has a very big dream that she'd like to fulfill."
Unlike many of her neighbors in Green County, the 28-year-old isn't native to southern Wisconsin and she isn't farming the same land as ancestors who emigrated from Switzerland 150 years ago. She started her organic operation, Grassroots Farm, on 40 acres she bought in 2007, located off Dutch Hollow Road just north of Monroe.
She's an anomaly in an increasingly graying profession that's also predominantly male. By age, the fastest growing group of farmers in the U.S. is older than 65, according to the federal 2007 Census of Agriculture.
"There was nothing inherited here. My capital expenses have been intense," she said. "That's where Gail Carpenter comes in."
She's referring to her mother, who lives in a north Chicago suburb. Together the two women are equal partners in Grassroots Farm.
Lindsey is the farmer and planner, and the operation is her career and livelihood. She calls her mother the "weekend warrior" - Gail works in an office during the week and devotes her spare time to Grassroots Farm. Gail keeps the books and bees, tends the orchard and hauls produce back to Chicago to sell.
A self-described child of the '60s, Gail always admired the back-to-the-land movement of her Baby Boom generation, but she spent her working life in offices or retail. Now, as she nears retirement age, she's returning to those agricultural ideals - and even further back, to the traditions of her mother's family, who farmed in Missouri until the 1920s.
But Grassroots Farm and other small-scale operations like it aren't just a throwback. The demand for locally grown food may be small, but the Department of Agriculture says it's a fast-growing share of total production. Locally, the Green County Health Department is partnering with Grassroots Farm and others like it to get fresh produce to needy families.
As Gail puts it, "We're back to the future."
The road to Grassroots
Lindsey, who grew up in Minocqua, got her start in farming by accident. She studied art in college in Philadelphia but eventually dropped out and moved back to Wisconsin to find an apprenticeship in carpentry or furniture-making. Nothing turned up.
Then she stumbled on an ad for a summer internship on a farm near Stoughton. It paid $300 a month and offered no housing. Still, it intrigued her. She ended up loving it and falling in love with the rhythm of farm work.
After a few years of learning from other farmers, she was ready in 2009 to start growing her own vegetables.
Now Grassroots Farm offers a wide array of produce, from tomatoes to garlic, as well as cut flowers, eggs, chicken, pork, turkey, and starting this fall, beef. Products are available at the farm, via Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership and at a farmer's market in Long Grove, Ill.
Eventually, Lindsey wants the farm to operate as a closed circuit, so it sustains itself and produces no waste. She's got a good start on that with her hogs.
"All my squishy, rotten tomatoes go to my hogs," she said. "The hogs are a great resource. Nothing goes to waste."
With spring just weeks off now, Lindsey is busy with the mind-bending task of planning crops. It's helped her to work backwards through the season to figure out the timing of each crop.
"I have spreadsheets coming out of my ears," she said.
She's currently growing seedlings in the basement of an old farmhouse she recently bought about four miles north of her farm, near Monticello. She lives here with two dogs, six cats, 46 chickens and Ms. Piggy, a gorgeous hog with "mascara"-rimmed eyes and pink triangle-shaped ears.
Ms. Piggy is pregnant, thanks to an artificial insemination Lindsey did herself with a catheter and some bargain-bin hog semen she ordered online for $10. The task didn't take too much wrangling. "I can sit on her. We're buddies," she said of Ms. Piggy. By late spring, the hog will have six to 14 piglets.
Hog-inseminating isn't the only thing done by hand at Grassroots Farm. Everything is.
"We use knives and scissors and shovels to harvest," Gail said. The only machines are push mowers, a rototiller and a 23-horsepower tractor.
That makes pricing tough for Lindsey.
"I can't base my prices on what they charge in the store," she said. Especially since she's just starting out, her costs are higher. She's not raking in money, either. "The wage here is very modest. It's poverty level."
Still, she sees benefits in her products that typical grocery stores can't offer. Freshness, for one. Also, she encourages customers to visit the farm, bring the kids, eat lunch, "come lay in my hammock," whatever. She sends out a newsletter to her CSA members.
"You don't get a newsletter from your grocery store," she said.
Ultimately, Gail and Lindsey see education as part of their business model. Learning about farming didn't stop for Lindsey when she went pro. She's kept her student's mindset.
Her organic certification isn't just about a piece of paper. "Being certified is a great way to stay educated," she said. Her neighbors, some of whom have farmed for generations, are another resource. "I'm kind of always picking the brains of my neighbors."
One of her neighbors, Tom Nelson, while not a farmer, is a champion of local produce and getting young people involved in the future of farming, whether as consumers or as entrepreneurs like Lindsey.
Nelson is the liaison between farmers and families for a state-funded initiative in Green County to put fresh produce in the kitchens of 40 low-income families. The project, called "Bring Nutrition Education from Farm to Families," starts this summer. Grassroots Farms is one of the producers contracted to provide each family with a box of produce every other week.
"It really is a pilot project," said Roann Warden, head of the Green County Health Department. The goal is to introduce families to "new and different fresh produce."
Some of the families visited Grassroots Farm last September for a "Family Fun Day." Lindsey remembers the children especially enjoying it.
That, said Nelson, is the idea.
"We want to light the fuse of young people to really understand the importance of good nutrition and how we arrive at that with local production," he said. Lindsey is the right person for the job. "She's dynamic, good at talking to kids."
The modern grocery store model, which sells strawberries from Mexico in February, has caused a loss of knowledge over several generations about how to cook seasonally, Nelson said. He sees hope for the future in farmers like Lindsey.
"I trust the way she grows," he said. "She has a very big dream that she'd like to fulfill."