Shaffer Ridgeway (He/Him) | Waterloo, Iowa
Southern Goods and Grazin’ Cattle | We Grow Food that’s Good for our Community and the Environment
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What do you grow?
We have two farm enterprises; Southern Produce and Grazin’ Cattle. Through Southern Produce, we grow a variety of vegetables and produce, specializing in southern produce; things like purple-hulled peas, sweet potatoes, and okra. At Grazin’ Cattle, we raise direct-market beef.
Tell us a little about the land you farm. What does the landscape look like? How did you end up there?
My wife, Madelyn, and I started the business five years ago because I wanted to learn more about soil health, so I went out and rented 2.5 acres of land, and decided I needed to grow something that could pay for my project. We started growing just about six crops the first year. Our mainstay was purple-hulled peas, plus a few other crops, including collard and turnip greens, watermelons, and pumpkins. Our goal was to pay for the plot and the research, and we did that! During that process, we realized that there was a huge demand for our nutrient-rich southern produce.
The land itself is pretty flat to generally sloping. There’s good soil, mostly Kenyon soil, that is fairly dry. Down at the bottom of the hill, the soil can get a little wet; I think it’s a different soil type. It had been an isolation area bordering a seed corn crop, so it had been in continuous soybeans. The farmer knew that wasn’t good for the soil, and I asked him if I could rent it. We’ve been there ever since.
Share about a time when you felt blessed to be farming.
When we lived on the farm, I would get to work at 5:30 am. That’s when I feel God speaks to me most, not necessarily as an audible voice. I hear God through the morning birdsong and watching the sun rise over the trees as I work. There’s something spiritual about putting your hands in the dirt, putting seeds in the ground, and caring for them so that they can reach their full potential. I know that’s what God wants for us – He wants us to reach our full potential.
at the Iowa Eats Festival
How does your faith call you to farming? Where do you see a higher power in your work as a farmer?
I feel blessed to do something that I am called to. When we started Southern Goods, we started out with an elderly African-American population as our market, and we knew that we wanted to grow nutrient-packed produce for them. We didn’t want to grow just any collard green – we are trying to change the community through that collard green. In order to do that, we knew we needed to take care of the land; to build the soil in order to build the plant, and then for those plants to build up the community.
As a farmer, I get to understand Jesus so much better because he used agricultural allegories all the time. I get to see scripture play out in the field all the time. Once I plant a seed, all these other factors that I can’t control determine whether or not it will germinate. It takes a lot of faith to be a farmer. I always tell people; if you get the seed in the right environment, it will know what to do. I think it’s the same thing with our youth; if you get them in the right environment, they will flourish.
getting ready for market
How does farming call you to climate action? What future would you like to see for Iowa and agriculture?
Iowa farmers are good at what they do; they grow a lot of corn and a lot of soybeans. However, I think that for Iowa agriculture to survive, we have to diversify our crops. Historically, we were a pretty diversified state. We used to grow wheat; we were one of the top apple-producing states in the nation at one time.
Moving forward, I think we also need to focus on return-on-investment more than we are focusing on yield. Can we justify taking a hit to our yields if our corn has better proteins and higher nutritional content? I hope Iowa’s agricultural future sees more diverse crop rotation and better markets so that our farmers will have somewhere to take those diverse crops, as well as a greater market demand so that consumers are willing to pay more for a better product. I’d also like to see land and equipment become more accessible to beginning farmers.
I am called to be a good steward of the land and water. As a regenerative farmer and a person of faith, I am able to farm with nature instead of against it. We are borrowing the land from the future generations, and we have an obligation to take good care of it.
Where can we follow you online?
Southern Goods Facebook page and Grazin’ Cattle Facebook page
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