 Good morning, everyone. I am Krista Hartzuck. I am the Iowa SARE coordinator. I work at Iowa State University and today I am excited that we have one of our SARE grant recipients here. Zach Cassidy is here with SILT, which is the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust. Zach is responsible for finding prospective landowners in Polk County and surrounding area who wish to leave a legacy of sustainable table food farming to Iowa. Zach, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be talking to y'all today. Thank you for attending and to those that are in person. I congratulate you for being braver than I am. Well, as as Krista said, I am Zach Cassidy. I'm the central Iowa land scout for SILT. It is, I work throughout central Iowa to seek opportunities for for easements and other land protection to encourage more sustainable food farming here in Iowa, as well as to lower costs related to land access for newer and beginning farmers. Today, I'm going to be going through a little bit about our Iowa landowners guide to sustainable food crops. I suspect some of you all have a copy of that in your truck or maybe at home somewhere. We've passed a lot out of those at the events. I'll be referring it to as to it as the landowners guide since the whole title is a little bit of a mouthful, but I'll be going through a little bit about what SILT is and what we do as well as the history and a little bit about the guide as well and how we how we got there. So, just to start. So, what is SILT? SILT is the sustainable Iowa land trust. So we were formed in in 2017 by a group of Iowans who were concerned about the future and current state of our farms here in Iowa. And I wanted to see more table food production, more sustainable agriculture and who were also concerned about land access opportunities for for new and beginning farmers. So, yeah, we were formed to protect opportunities for sustainable agriculture and to to fight farm land loss that has been happening at an alarming rate here in the in the in the state of Iowa. So, to the right here, you can see this is Whitney and Jordan Klassen. They purchased land from SILT. About 4 years ago that came out as significant discount to their family. So they were able to buy about 25 acres from us that they otherwise might not have been able to afford. And this is some pictures of grade A gardens, which is the the name of their farm, but this was donated by T. C. Wenschel after buying 25 acres in Erlum. His late wife had asked that the land remain in agriculture. So he donated his land to SILT and this allowed the classings to purchase the land from SILT. Like I said, a significant reduction, which allowed them to fill their to meet their dream of becoming farmers. So, just briefly, I want to go through a little bit of history of the last 2 farm crises in this country and and why why SILT became important in in in light of those as well as the the the guide. Um, so during 1, 1, agricultural production slumped in Europe due to the fighting in there. This meant that the prices of American grain and other products rose dramatically as these prices rose farmers borrowed money to buy more acreage and an additional machinery with mortgages doubling between 1910 and 1920. But as the war ended and European markets recovered, these prices dropped and farmers who had taken on debt. Could not make payments and then in 1929, with this dark market market crash, banks suddenly wanted their money back, which forced many farms to foreclose. Um, in the Southwest, there was also the dust bowl, which was a result of over farming. As you can see here, you can to the right, there's a picture of a farm being impacted by the dust bowl. My grandmother was 1, her family had a farm in West Texas and they had to flee to California and they were called. Oh, I mentioned these events because this these were events were in the in the mind of the founders of SILT who are worried about another crisis due to the rising cost of farmland in Iowa. Then in the 1980s, policies from the Federal Reserve as well as record production of agriculture cause farmland value to drop about 60%. Um, this combined with an export decline caused farm debt to soar leading to more farm, farm foreclosures impacting millions of farmers in rural communities. Okay, so just a little bit more about the problem that that's SILT tries to solve the problem being 3 field fold. So prohibitive cost of farmland for new and beginning farmers with farmland rising significantly, as you can see at this chart below, starting around 2010, 2013, you see a dramatic rise in farmland values and that that that that that price is going up dramatically. Um, further more 90% of Iowa's table food that is food that is eaten by people and that that doesn't go into ethanol or cattle feed 90% of that is is imported and the farmers, the founders of SILT, we're very concerned about that given how much food is grown here. There's no reason we can't be growing more food for Iowans and then, of course, there's the pollution from conventional agriculture into our soil on our strings. That is part of the reason that cancer rates, for example, are higher and so the founders of SILT just needed, realized they needed a change and they were also remembering the crisis of the 80s and how that really negatively impacted so many farmers in Iowa as well as entire communities who depended on agriculture. So the solution so, as I said, SILT was formed out of concern for the sustainability of our food systems and the lack of access for new farmers and they are farmers wanted to encourage more sustainable farming, not just in terms of in the environment, but in terms of economic security for farmers and our communities. If farmers are less dependent on a single crop, they are more protected against lower rates for that crop. Our leases generally come about 40% less than they would otherwise, including no more money down and tenants can build equity in the farm, meaning if they put money into improvements, they will be paid back if and when they leave. We also do 20 year leases that can be renewed again and again. In fact, they can actually be inherited by children. And then we also work to diversify farming by encouraging table food farming and encouraging more diversified farming. Below you can see a picture of one of our farms. This is Red Firm Farm that is the beginnings of a chestnut and pop-up plantation. So, you can see this is our protected land that we have right now. We're looking at adding to that in the next. This year, so we're looking at adding more farms this year. That's my job and then so a little bit just about the grant. So, it was the SAIR grant as you all are familiar with the north central region sustainable research and education program. The funds are intended for professional development practices to professionals in agriculture and agricultural education for both non-profit and profit. Operations we requested just over $35,000, which we received most of with the purpose to create an easy to read guidebook for islander landowners who are seeking to increase crop diversity. So, just really as a starting off point to start to think about what else they could do with their land. So, the project objectives were to collect information from experienced growers and organizations in Iowa and surrounding states. Including capturing wisdom from many experienced growers. This includes Tom Wall and Kyethy Dice from Red Firm Farms. I showed you a picture of their farm a couple of slides ago. We also received input from women's food and agricultural network, practical farmers of Iowa, Iowa organic publications from the University of Illinois, Missouri Agra Forestry, Iowa State, and some others. So, we aggregated this information into an easy to read guidebook for Iowa landowners. We printed an initial 500 copies as well as a web based guide, which is available for free on our website, as is the guide. And it gets a lot of interest at our conventions and events for people to just use as a guideline and a jumping off point to think about what else they could do with their farmland. We promoted the guidebook through our social media, radio and conferences throughout the state. And then as part of the grant, we also hosted several food days where we distributed, sorry, demonstrated food farming systems. Through 3 or 4 field days to promote diversifying agriculture. So, just a little bit about our contributors. So, Joe Klingelhutts, who was the land scout at the time. He compiled all of the information from the various experts and landowners talked to farmers in Iowa as well as in Minnesota about the book. To pick their brains about types of crops that are grown, that are good to grow in Iowa and interviewed a lot of farmers, including many of the farmers who were early supporters of this book. So, he still, Joe still works for SILT on a contractual basis where he advises on potential SILT sites. So, then we also received, and I apologize, I wasn't able to find a picture, but Kim Alexander of Alexander Farms provided guidance on livestock. She has a family farm in Ottawa and then Denise O'Brien, who was also an early supporter of the book of rolling acres farms as well as she at the time she was associated with. Women, food and ag. She provided advice on livestock as well as niche crops. Her family farmers in Atlantic. Tom Wall and Kathy Dice of Red Firm Farms, whom I mentioned already, gave advice on nuts and fruits. The Tom Wall and Kathy Dice own a SILT protected farm in Wapello. They have 86 acres of perennial agriculture. They're very, very good fruit and nut farmers and they have been a great source of information for other farmers and for food networks generally in Iowa. So, I just want to give them a shout out. Some of our other contributors, Patrick O'Malley of Iowa State, provided some information on commercial fruits and vegetables. David Cavagnaro of the Pepperfield Project now re-rooted connections. I had a name change. He's a agricultural photographer and he provided the photos that went into the book. And then Katie Adams of the Savannah Institute provided information on perennial crops, including berries. So, just a little bit more, just a little bit about what the, what's in the book itself. The book is designed to present a lot of options for farmers to determine the best value added products for their land and whether it be fruits, nuts, vegetables. Livestock or niche crops, niche crops such as mushrooms or maple. It also includes common threats and tips for best management. So, as you can see, it has common threats, best management practices. It also includes common capital expenses and common labor expenses so people can make some informed decisions about what they can afford to grow and get started with. It also includes some stories from Iowa landowners. So, to the left are Mary and Vern Zarradnick. I apologize for butchering their last name. They purchased their farm in 1996 and they, they share their story in the book about using their hog farm to fund new crops like an orchard. Some vegetables and grapes that gave them more freedom as farmers at the feed prices for their hogs went up so they were able to pivot and do some, some more creative things. This is then this is to the right is Denise O'Brien who I mentioned earlier. She shared the story of how her husband Larry and her started farming 44 years ago on his family farm. She, she talks about how she was a town girl without an idea about what a farm would look like, but they were inspired by the Rodale cornucopia project towards local food production. And being inspired by that, they planted berries, asparagus and an orchard and they spoke of the struggle that they had in changing their operation from conventional row cropping, but they were able to make it successful. And then the book also provides some technical information. So, for example, here you can see chestnuts. It has a little bit about potential markets for chestnuts. So many of the, you know, for example, many of the immigrant communities value chestnuts. So that's a potential market for your chestnuts and or you can sell them wholesale as well. But, you know, it mentions that local markets are not, are not the best, but if so, broadly, broadly, they can compete with national and global markets. As you can see, it has some considerations. So, chestnuts, weevils, gal wasps, deer, deer when they are young and as well as mowing being something that you have to do when it's growing. And then it also ranks the initial cost as a 3. So that's in the middle labor capital being the biggest capital input. And then it also has some information on other resources. So, the center for aquifer forestry at Missouri would be a good resource for somebody who's interested in learning more about growing chestnuts. Well, thank you for listening to me today. I was very honored when I was asked to speak. If anybody would like to follow up with me and would like to talk to me about their land, if they're interested in a silt easement or any other information about silt that I can provide, here is my email at the bottom. You can also find the guidebook on our website if you just go to silt.org and thank you for listening to me. I think we have plenty of time for questions, if anybody has any. Thank you, Zach. Appreciate that. I am not seeing any questions at all in the room. So, you might have gotten off extra easy today. I guess so. I think, yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully if anybody who's listening to the recording has questions, please feel free to email me. I appreciate it. I can to answer your questions or direct them to somebody who knows better than I do. That would be great. Thank you, Zach. Appreciate you getting on and making the flexibility work.