#Fridaysonthefarm: WI Family Passes Down Conservation Ethic and Sustainable Farm
Story by Tivoli Gough, NRCS Wisconsin; photos by Amanda Ludois, NRCS Wisconsin
Each Friday, meet farmers, producers and landowners through our #Fridaysonthefarm stories. Visit local farms, ranches, forests and resource areas where NRCS and partners help people help the land. CLICK HERE to view all #Fridaysonthefarmstories.
This Friday, we travel to Tigerton, Wisconsin, where Brian and Hannah Harper are teaching their two young daughters how conservation positively impacts their dairy and the neighboring community, passing down lessons they learned from generations past.
A Family Tradition
For thirty years, Neil Papendorf managed the 160-acre family dairy farm in Tigerton, Wisconsin, located in the Pigeon River Watershed.
This farm family has a long history of working with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). To benefit his local community and watershed, Neil worked with NRCS in 2001 to complete a nutrient management plan and install a barnyard system on the farm, including a sediment basin, filter strips, underground outlet and roof runoff management. And his daughter Hannah, who worked the farm throughout her childhood, learned first-hand the value of conservation from her father.
“My father did projects with NRCS because the farm is so close to the river, and he knew we could make a difference," says Hannah.
Hannah and Brian Harper are passing down the farming tradition and conservation ethic to daughters Cheyanna (age 8) and Adaya (age 5).
When Hannah and her husband Brian purchased the farm in 2008, it was no surprise that she followed in her father's footsteps - getting conservation on the ground with NRCS and passing down that conservation ethic to her own children.
In 2010, the Harpers enrolled in the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to develop and carry out a new comprehensive nutrient management plan to best handle manure on the dairy. On dairies, how the manure is managed can have impacts downstream, and through EQIP, the Harpers installed a system to store manure.
“A spring runs right beside the dairy barn and is the headwaters to the north branch of the Pigeon River Watershed...Hannah and Brian are in a vulnerable area and knew they had an opportunity to protect it and improve water quality downstream,” explains Waupaca County District Conservationist Lisa Neuenfeldt.
A New Business and Conservation Approach
Around that time, milk prices fluctuated, and the Harpers faced new challenges to keep their small dairy productive and profitable. “We realized really quickly that we had to diversify our farm to keep it going and maintain success,” says Hannah.
With a good foundation and nutrient management plan set for the farm, Brian and Hannah Harper established a new custom meat processing business, Harper's Countryside Cuts, and implemented grazing management practices.
The Harpers currently care for 40 milk cows, 40 sheep, 25 young stock/Holstein calves and 35 beef cattle. Their goal is to raise, market and sell grass-fed Angus and Piedmontese.
To support their growing herd, the Harpers modified their conventionally cropped corn‒hay rotation. In 2014, they enrolled in EQIP and implemented cover crops on almost 30 acres of the farm. Cover crops, known for their ability to boost soil health and prevent weeds, are an un-harvested drop grown as part of a planned rotation to provide conservation benefits to the soil.
Then in 2015 and 2016, the Harpers used EQIP to improve the grazing side of their operation. They adopted a prescribed grazing system and installed livestock pipeline, heavy use protection areas and watering facilities to rotate livestock among pastures and reduce erosion.
The grazing system included a forage planting of the “Grassworks blend” as a part of the agency’s EQIP Honey Bee Initiative, which helps farmers who want to establish habitat for honey bees and other pollinators on their land. The blend "came in really well as we worked to increase our herd,” says Brian. “We did a forage analysis last year between two fields, a second year established alfalfa stand compared to a first year grass interseeding with the Grassworks blend. We have the same feed quality and higher digestibility with the Grassworks seeding. That convinced me we can keep interseeding the Grassworks blend.”
The Harpers also installed woven wire fencing for the sheep flock and a headlock system for the heifers, and they are working on adding water lines in some of the new paddocks. Plus now that the whole farm is set up as pasture in rotational grazing, cover crops are no longer needed.
“The practices NRCS has helped us install give us a plan for our overall farm, and give us a hope to stay here for the future and continue to be productive,” says Hannah.
Sustainable Future
The family's conservation practices hit home for Hannah recently when Cheyanna brought home a school book about the dust bowl.
"The history of what happened then, the effect it had, and how far we’ve come as a nation is monumental," explains Hannah. “Our kids need to know and understand how to conserve -- it’s about land stewardship and the animals, too."
“I didn’t think about the importance of dirt before – now I love the soil. I get excited when I see new species on the property, the little things I didn’t notice before building up the land. And I am working towards that every day.”
Visit the NRCS website to learn more about voluntary conservation near you.
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