Maggie McQuown (She/Her) | Red Oak, Iowa
Resilient Farms | Restoring Soil Health…Growing Fresh Food
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What do you grow?
Production row crops (corn and soybeans), market produce (a wide range of vegetables, fruits, and herbs), native trees, shrubs, and prairie.
Tell us a little about the land you farm. What does the landscape look like? How did you end up there?
My farm is a Century Farm purchased by my great-grandparents in 1899. I am the fourth generation to grow up on and farm the land. After my mother passed in 2008, and since my husband (Steve Turman) and I wanted to live on the farm for our retirement, I inherited our family’s Century Farm, which features a large Victorian farmhouse, other farm buildings, and a diverse landscape with many conservation opportunities. My brother and sister inherited other farmland that has been in our family since the 1960s; those farms aligned well with their farming goals. Resilient Farms sits at the west edge of the East Nishnabotna River valley. The east half of the farm is flat with the west half gradually rising to a highly contoured top ridge overlooking the river valley.
Share about a time when you felt blessed to be farming.
Whenever I’m tending to my native prairie and riparian buffer, I marvel each time I discover a new species of native forb or grass in my prairie; I photograph each newly identified species and add it to a photo log. I love to see the number and variety of native wildlife increasing and thriving on my farm – bees, butterflies, dragonflies, red-winged blackbirds, barn swallows, and more. Having lived in urban areas for years, I hadn’t realized how much I missed Iowa’s beautiful landscape and open spaces away from man-made sounds!
How does your faith call you to farming? Where do you see a higher power in your work as a farmer?
I have grown to realize that while I technically “own” my farm, none of us truly “own” the land. We are merely caretakers of the land for the short span of our lives. My faith makes me appreciate how vast, diverse, complex, and miraculous life on Earth is. I must honor it, protect it, keep it healthy, and prepare to pass it on to the next generation of caretakers. I want my soils to continue to support life on Earth for generations – from the vast microscopic living soil web under my feet, to all forms of wildlife and humans.
How does farming call you to climate action? What future would you like to see for Iowa and agriculture?
Having been away from my family farm for nearly forty years, I discovered how much the landscape and cropping systems have changed as a result of extractive production agricultural practices. While Iowa has some of the richest, most valuable soils in the world, we have been exploiting and depleting them with mono-cropping, chemicals, and viewing the soil as a commodity to produce higher and higher yields. Climate disruptions are clearly challenging the current paradigms of production farming. We need to shift our focus in several ways:
1. Become carbon farmers focused on growing the microscopic livestock under our feet, versus being laser-focused on commodity prices and yields.
2. Preserve our valuable farmland from low-density residential/commercial and industrial development.
3. Re-balance our overall farm/food systems to include and respect small, diverse farms that produce real table food locally.
4. Create a more resilient food system based on a regional/local model that makes nutrient-dense food available to people while putting more money spent on food directly into farmers’ pockets and fewer dollars into middle men (shipping, processors, etc).
Admittedly, there will always be a place for larger, commodity-based farming in Iowa. However, if we are to feed the world in a post-fossil fuel world, the “real” food needs to come from smaller, diverse, local farms.
Anything else you would like to share?
Everyone – rural and urban dwellers – has a role to play in curbing climate disruption. If not, we will be living in a world with less rain and less well-distributed rainfall, higher temperatures, growing desertification, and disruptive population migration. ALL PEOPLE need to get educated, be willing to make changes in their daily lifestyles, and proactively contribute to the solution. If not, we will just be passing the problem to the next generation, and life for them will be beyond challenging!
Where can we follow you online?
Facebook: @ResilientFarmsROIA
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