COMMON GROUND: MEET FARMER, SHARON KRAUSE
According to the Iowa Farmland Ownership and Tenure Survey conducted in 2023, and required every 5 years by Iowa Code, 46% of Iowa farmland is owned by women.
Meet one of them, Sharon Krause, who now owns a 223-acre farm just outside of Earlham. I visited In Harmony Farm a year ago after hearing her speak at a stakeholder gathering convened by USDA at Landes in Des Moines to talk about a USDA Climate Smart Commodities grant. She received resources to provide opportunities to small and mid-sized farmers to increase their earnings by engaging in climate smart agricultural practices that add value to their crops.
I returned last week with Tom to interview Sharon and to meet some of the farmers and their families. My fellow Iowa Writer’s Collaborative colleague Jason Walsmith, who does social media work for In Harmony Farm, agreed to help me tell Sharon’s story and the story of the Harmony farmers. We’ll be co-publishing two stories. Enjoy his photographs.
Sharon started farming in Dallas County just up the road from us in 2008 when she started the only organically certified sheep ranch in Iowa on 120 acres. She managed the farm herself, with help from summer student labor. She sold the ewes from her herd of 300 as breeding stock, popular because they didn’t need to be sheered. The males went to slaughter and were valued for their tender meat.
She has her degree in Engineering from Iowa State and an Executive MBA from the University of Iowa. She did environmental work for Firestone, then worked for Des Moines Metro Waste for years launching their Curb It! and Compost It! recycling programs. She also worked on contaminated soil remediation for businesses at the landfill. After she met her husband Kyle, she “got the itch” for healthy eating and for regenerative agriculture. She raised sheep until family responsibilities became more demanding of her time. Her parents in Davenport were aging. Their children needed her attention, so she sold her farm. Now her children have their own families, so when a 223-acre parcel became available outside Earlham seven years ago, she bought it.
ACCESS TO LAND, A BARRIER FOR NEW FARMERS
She collaborated with her friend Gina Ross to identify barriers for beginning farmers by engaging over 60 stakeholders in the Des Moines area. Access to land was the number one barrier. “They can’t buy three to five acres, and it’s tough to rent,” said Sharon. Stakeholders in the farmers market and food bank network explained that beginning farmers also need capacity-building.
This is where the power of a woman farmer comes into play. Sharon could have done anything with her 223 acres of Iowa soil. She chose to start In Harmony Farm, to invest in regenerative soil practices and create a three-to-five-year opportunity for new farmers to access tillable land and learn how to grow and market produce.
She found her first cohort through Lutheran Services Global Greens They knew the farmers and helped Sharon identify how she could help. Today there are nine farm families raising crops at In Harmony Farm. One is from Cameroon. The others are from Burundi, a small war-torn country in eastern Africa.
“We want to figure out how to get a more diverse population out here,” says Sharon. As these famers graduate to land they lease or own, she wants to recruit veterans who are looking to farm, women, low-income Iowans, and LGTBQ aspiring farmers.
As important as offering land, Sharon offers education in how to make the land productive, how to use best agricultural practices and how to market the produce. She gets help with this from Operations Manager April Heki and Field Manager Emile Cambry.
NEW FARMERS NEED CAPACITY-BUILDING, STRONG PARTNERS
In Harmony Farm has become a five-year incubator space for small-holder farmers. The African farmers were all farmers before they came to the US, but they couldn’t access small plots of land here, they didn’t know best farming practices, and they didn’t have the resources to purchase the tools they needed. “Water is the biggest issue for farmers,” says April. We provide water hydrants, coolers for storing the produce, and sometimes fencing.”
The five-year relationship gives the farmers the opportunity to save to purchase a tiller which might cost $4-5,000. The coolers, which the farm provides, are shipping trailers that Sharon can purchase for $7,000 and fully outfit for $20,000. Each farm family has access to a smaller cooler on campus.
“Small farmers can pay the same rent as anyone else, but lowa landowners don’t usually think about renting or selling just 5 acres. “Landowners don’t take a haircut!” Sharon insists. She feels fortunate to have a partnership with Iowa National Heritage Foundation. They recently made 12 acres available to In Harmony Farm for 20 years so that farmers can lease land, near Cambridge. She is very proud that one of their farmers is now able to lease land there and has become self-sufficient. She is sure a few others aren’t far from that goal as well.
The farmers at In Harmony Farm learn the value of regenerative farming. “They all understand that there is no result for the first three years, because it usually takes 5 years to regenerate the soil. In addition, the farmers are introduced to an insurance agent. This often requires interpreters who can speak Kurundi or Swahili. Insurance is necessary when they scale up to selling to a food bank or a grocery store. Sharon and her team help them get a Tax ID number. Iowa State Extension helps with the Good Ag Practices (GAP) program, which teaches about cleaning produce, washing hands, changing shoes outside the fields. They also learn record keeping.
For instance, the Burundi farmers are used to selling by the bucket not by the pound. When they started selling to the Food Bank hey learned the monetary value of having a truck come every week to pick up the produce, so they don’t have to stand at a market for hours. The Food Bank pays 40 cents-a-pound more than if they sold their produce themselves, and they don’t have to deal with food waste.
Emille explains how the farmers learn about crop rotation and weed management. “They need to know who they are producing for, how much they can produce and how they can sell it ahead of time.” Sharon thinks that these farmers can triple their earnings because of what they’ve learned.
When USDA paused her funding in January, Sharon realized she’d have to spend more time fundraising and less time at the farm. For this first cohort she has had generous partners in The Principal Foundation, John Deere and CO-Bank in Colorado. When USDA funding resumed this spring, it came without resources for the education component, so Sharon didn’t reapply.
SHARON FINDS A COMMUNITY
Even before I met her, I’d heard that Sharon was a committed Earlham community member. Connie Terry, who helped form a group called Chicks with Checks asked Sharon to join. When water damaged a downtown building, Sharon pulled together a board to gather information about how the building could be repurposed. “Bricker-Price block was born after years of her impressing work in grant-writing, fundraising and partnership building. She built a vision, then grew that vision with passion, persistence and leadership,” says Connie. Bricker-Price now consists of a coffee shop and restaurant, a plant shop that serves local craft beer and wine owned by residents. Upstairs is an event space and out back is a teen center, supported with donations from Chicks with Checks.
Recently she’s been talking to the mayor about how the farm can be a more integral part of the community. Earlham has just started a farmer’s market and one of Harmony’s farmers is selling his produce to the Hometown Market, Earlham’s grocery store. In Harmony Farm has also invited the Earlham community to its open houses once a month. In fact, we’re all invited! This is the link to the newsletter.
And on September 28, we’re all welcome to come to the Linga, Linga dinner. What is Lenga Lenga and how do you make it? In my next Common Ground and in Jason’s The Racontourist, we’ll introduce you to the farmers and their families, give you a few tips for cooking with African eggplants plus the red potatoes, cabbages, onions and peppers flourishing in the In Harmony Farm fields.
LAND OWNERSHIP EMPOWERS WOMEN FARMERS
Sharon is looking for farmers in the halo of Des Moines who would be willing to lease 3-5 acres to beginning farmers who have graduated from her program as she continues to develop and expand In Harmony Farm in the years to come.
Which brings me back to all those women who own farmland in Iowa and who might be open to trying something different that would help small farmers with a chance at farming to while still realizing rent payments.
In 2012 while running for Congress in western Iowa, I talked with a middle-aged farmer at a county fair I was attending about his farming operation. He quickly interrupted my questions and said, “You should be asking her. She owns the farm,” and he pointed to his mother standing beside him. I was 62 at the time. She was older.
That started my search to find out how many women my age and older own farmland in Iowa. It occurred to me, and was confirmed by ag experts I’ve talked with, that older Iowa women who own farmland have the power to help small and non-traditional farmers if they choose to think creatively. Sharon’s beginning farmers will need long term leases of three to five acres to get the experience necessary to access bank loans and eventually buy farmland.
The farmers at In Harmony Farm are raising crops. Sharon is raising farmers. Hers is a legacy worth celebrating.
This is a wonderful story, Christie. What Sharon is doing is groundbreaking; figuratively and literally. Her work and the work of the people who join her to make this model a reality is impressive on so many levels. Thank you.
Thank you for including me in this story. It is fun to work with you and hope this leads to more collaboration.