Circle 7 by Fuller Farms

Circle 7 by Fuller Farms

by | Dec 15, 2021

Circle 7 by Fuller Farms

Lynette Miller and Gail Fuller, Circle 7 by Fuller Farms. Credit: Farmer’s Footprint

“

We’re still seeing the extremes. We’ve not experienced a huge drought since 2013. Actually, we’ve kind of seen the opposite. As of this June, we’ve gone 21 consecutive months with average or above average rainfall. And some months it wasn’t just above, it was much above. In May 2019, 35 inches of rain fell on our farm — that’s just one inch below the annual average, in one month.

Gail Fuller & Lynette Miller

Circle 7 by Fuller Farms

Website: https://www.fullerfieldschool.com

Southern Great Plains Region | Severy, KS

Main Product: Grain and livestock

Scale: 3200 acres under management

Featured Resilience Behaviors:

Holistic management of conventional corn and soy on 3200 acres, shift to diversified rotations and cover crop cocktails w/livestock integration on 2000 acres, shift to direct markets, downsize to 700 acres, retreat from floodplain and downsize to 160 acres at new location w/agrotourism facilities.

Other Resilience Stories About This Farm

Meet a Farmer: Gail Fuller

Farmside Chat w/Gail Fuller 

Gail Fuller is the third and last generation to own and operate Fuller Farms, located in east central Kansas near Emporia. In his 20-year effort to carry on his family’s farming tradition, Gail has transformed his family’s 3,200 acre conventional corn and soybean operation into a 160-acre diversified pasture-based livestock farm producing nutrient-dense whole foods for direct markets. Gail’s journey from Fuller Farm to Circle 7 is both a personal and a universal story of the barriers and opportunities that many American farmers are likely to encounter on the path to a resilient food future.

Gail first learned about farming from his grandfathers, who were both farmers, and then by working side by side with his father on their 700-acre family farm. In the late 1980s, Gail took over the grain production side of Fuller Farms. Like many producers in those times, he adopted no-till to try and reduce serious soil erosion problems and improve profitability. By the mid-1990s, he had dropped livestock from his operation and expanded corn and soybean production to more than 3,200 acres by leasing neighboring land.

Thinking back on the transition to no-till, Gail recalls following best management practices of the time which involved simplifying the farming system quite a bit. “During the ’80s, we had a four-way rotation — corn, soybeans, wheat and milo —and we raised cattle. Everything except the corn and soybeans got kicked out with the big rush to no-till in the ’90s. When no-till first really got popular, cows and no-till weren’t allowed. It was thought at the time that cattle were too destructive to soils and the damage they caused by trampling farm ground couldn’t be fixed without tillage, so the cows got kicked off.” 

Want to read more? You can find the full version of this story in the Second Edition of Resilient Agriculture, available for purchase here.

Straus Family Creamery

Straus Family Creamery

by | Dec 15, 2021

Straus Family Creamery

Albert Straus, Straus Family Creamery. Credit: Straus Family Creamery

“

In 2020 and 2021, we have not had any significant rain at all. It’s been the driest year on record. It’s never happened before that we haven’t had any rain, and it looks like we’re going to continue to have extreme shortages into the future.

Albert Straus

Straus Family Creamery

Website: https://www.strausfamilycreamery.com

Southwest Region | Petaluma, CA

Main Product: Livestock

Scale: 500 acres under management

Featured Resilience Behaviors:

Shift to intensive grazing, add processing/retail marketing, growers’ network, carbon farming.

Other Resilience Stories About This Farm

Q&A: Climate-friendly agriculture at Straus Family Creamery, with Albert Straus and Joseph Button

First Full-Scale Electric Truck—Powered By Cow Manure

First U.S. Commercial Trial Using a Specific Red Seaweed on the Straus Dairy Farm 

Albert Straus returned to his family’s dairy farm in the late 1970s during a time of dramatic change in the dairy industry. Small family dairies were under increasing pressure to either get big or get out of the business. Returning home after earning a Bachelor’s degree in Dairy Science, Albert thought he could see a third option, one that put new best agricultural practices to work saving the family farm. In the early 1980s Albert and his father, Bill, implemented no-till seeding of crops to prevent soil erosion and reduce fuel consumption. They were already farming without herbicides or chemical fertilizers.

Despite these innovations, falling milk prices continued to threaten the economic viability of their dairy business and Albert wondered if the growing consumer interest in organic food offered a solution. He began to imagine a new kind of market for his milk, one that reflected the true costs of production, promoted responsible land stewardship and offered a viable, principled and sustainable business model for small dairy farms. Albert realized that going organic would allow him to fully embrace his deeply held belief in land stewardship, while also addressing the challenging economic realities of family farms in an era of intense industrialization.

Inspired by these ethical and economic considerations, Albert transitioned his farm to organic production in 1993 and founded the Straus Family Creamery in 1994. “How do you create a viable farming system?” Albert asks. “That’s the challenge we’ve tried to address with certified organic production and collaboration with the 12 family farms supplying our creamery. What I’ve tried to do is create a sustainable organic farming model that is good for the Earth, the soil, the animals and the people working on these farms, plus helps revitalize rural communities.”

Want to read more? You can find the full version of this story in the Second Edition of Resilient Agriculture, available for purchase here.

Settlage & Settlage Farm

Settlage & Settlage Farm

by | Dec 15, 2021

Settlage & Settlage Farms

Jordan Settlage, Settlage and Settlage Farm. Credit: Settlage and Settlage Farm

“

Holy moly! In 2012, we had major drought which led us to buying irrigation equipment, because we had two million gallons of water stored in our lagoon that we could just stare at while our crops shriveled up and dried. And then 2015, same thing, super dry. Then we get a year like 2018/19, where we got rain from August of 2018 all the way until June of 2019. That’s like ten months of just endless rain. And it was a disaster.

Jordan Settlage

Settlage & Settlage Farms

Midwest Region | St. Mary’s, OH

Main Product: Livestock

Scale: 500 acres under management

Featured Resilience Behaviors:

Shift to intensive grazing grass-based dairy production.

Other Resilience Stories About This Farm

Jordan Settlage

Organic Dairy Farm Tour | Jordan Settlage

Benefits of Rotational Grazing | Jordan Settlage 

Jordan Settlage has wanted to milk cows for as long as he can remember. Although dairying is part of his family’s legacy, Jordan’s grandfather got out of the dairy business in the early 1990s, one of many thousands of dairy farms forced out of business as the U.S. dairy sector industrialized.4 Jordan’s dad was happy to leave the demands of dairying behind to raise hogs and beef cattle instead. “I would tell my dad, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a dairy farmer,’” Jordan recalls, “and he’s like, ‘That’s hilarious. I grew up on a dairy farm, we’re not milking cows.’” In the fifth grade, I wrote the report about how when I grow up, I will be a grass-based dairy farmer. I still have that report.”

With his father’s blessing, Jordan worked at a neighboring dairy farm throughout his teen years. After graduating from high school, Jordan served for almost four years in the Army. He returned home in 2009 a combat veteran, ready to continue his education. “I graduated college in 2014,” Jordan recalls, “and I was like, ‘Hey dad, I still want to be a dairy farmer. I’ve been doing this for most of my life already. I want to milk cows.’ And so in the fall of ’14, we started buying some equipment for cows and we started milking again.” February 2021 marked Jordan’s six-year anniversary milking cows.

Want to read more? You can find the full version of this story in the Second Edition of Resilient Agriculture, available for purchase here.

Hickory Nut Gap Meats

Hickory Nut Gap Meats

by | Dec 15, 2021

Hickory Nut Gap Meats

Jamie Ager, Hickory Nut Gap Meats. Credit: Bren Photography

“

There are so many variabilities in farming that you can get all stressed out. Part of being a successful farmer is probably just your head space as it relates to these things. But the fact that we’re having more unpredictable weather creates a low level of constant worry that can be taxing on the spirit.  —  Jamie Ager

Jamie & Amy Ager

Hickory Nut Gap Meats

Website: https://www.hickorynutgap.com

Southeast Region | Fairview, North Carolina

Main Product: Livestock

Scale: 400 acres under management

Featured Resilience Behaviors:

Shift to regenerative grazing multispecies pastured production, direct markets, growers’ network.

Other Resilience Stories About This Farm

Regeneratively Raised Meat and Building a Brand with Jamie Ager, Founder, Farmer, and CEO at Hickory Nut Gap

Regenerative Grazing Hickory Nut Gap Farms

JAMIE AGER ON REGENERATIVE FARMING & DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER SALES AT HICKORY NUT GAP FARM & MEATS

Hickory Nut Gap Annual Farmer Meeting Accelerates Drive Toward Regenerative Agriculture

Amy and Jamie Ager and their three children, Cyrus, Nolin and Levi, are the fourth and fifth generations to grow food at Hickory Nut Gap, a 600-acre farm located on an old droving road in the Southern Appalachian Mountains just southeast of Asheville, North Carolina. Like many mountain farms in the region, Hickory Nut Gap has been home to a diversity of enterprises over more than a century of operation. Growing up on the farm, Jamie helped his family milk cows and raise beef cattle, hogs, poultry and apples.

Despite his parents’ efforts to steer him away from a life of farming, Jamie had his eye on the family’s old dairy barns as he thought about his future. “The farm was needing a new thing,” says Jamie. “I saw an opportunity to differentiate ourselves and be able to make a living here.” Just over 20 years ago and fresh out of college, Jamie and his wife Amy transitioned the farm to a rotational grazing operation and founded Hickory Nut Gap Meats.

In those early years, Jamie focused on farm management while Amy worked to develop regional wholesale and retail markets for their pastured meat products. When they could no longer meet the growing demand for meats produced on their own farm, Jamie reached out to other livestock farmers in the region to help. Today, Hickory Nut Gap Meats supplies a diverse line of pasture-raised products to local and regional, direct and wholesale markets centered in the Southern Appalachians and supports a network of more than 30 family farms growing 100 percent grass-finished beef and pasture-raised pork in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Want to read more? You can find the full version of this story in the Second Edition of Resilient Agriculture, available for purchase here.