This quarter of the Future of Agriculture podcast is made possible by Case IH: https://www.caseih.com/en-us/unitedstates

Twisted River Farm: https://www.twistedriverfarm.com/

Follow Steve on X: https://x.com/TRFyeomanfarmer

Steve Strasheim of Twisted River Farm. I’ve followed Steve on X for a long time now, and I’ve been really looking forward to getting him on the show for a few reasons.

He focuses on a totally different model for farming that is radically different from the commodity mindset. Instead of economies of scale being the priority, his top priority is connection to his customers. Because of that he’s able to build his business without the two biggest barriers for most farmers: access to a lot of land and a lot of capital. It’s more the bootstrapped version of getting started in farming. And I’ve seen this market garden model work. There are well-known YouTubers like Curtis Stone in Canada that have inspired countless others to pursue this version of farming on small sections of other people’s land and building a business on customer relationships rather than economies of scale. I can remember being inspired by finding Curtis Stone’s content maybe a decade ago, but I thought it was a model that could only work in urban areas with very affluent consumers that only want to buy local. In Steve’s case, he’s in rural Iowa. Mitchell, Iowa, to be exact. About 12 miles south of the Minnesota border.

Steve first became interested in local food in 2013, so in 2014 he began raising chickens. He did that as a side business and then in 2017 he ditched the chicken project for vegetables, which he said proved to be a much better fit for him from the very beginning. Since that time he has grown his operation to a few different locations that total around three acres of borrowed land. He mostly pays in produce. Although when we spoke he was in the process of buying a five acre property to centralize his operation.

Steve is a great example of what it takes to build a direct to consumer business from scratch. His model includes growing produce most of the year, he has some hoop houses that help him extend his season. He sells at a couple of farmers markets and thorough a CSA - which stands for community supported agriculture. These are subscriptions that his customers pay for to get a box of fresh produce either weekly or every other week. He also sells to some grocery stores and restaurants but since COVID his focus has been mostly on the direct sales to the end customer. And all of this is a very rural area, which kind of blows my mind.

Brought to you by Case IH:

Case IH designs, engineers and produces cutting-edge farm equipment based on a comprehensive understanding of farmers’ needs, wants and challenges, integrating these insights into their development and manufacturing.

For example, take their Model Year 25 Magnum tractor. The new Magnum is purposefully designed to answer farmers’ needs in every design and engineering choice. Improved horsepower for pulling heavier loads, faster.

Bundled, integrated and ready-to-go precision tech for greater accuracy in the field. And a transmission farmers can tweak for improved control and performance in different tasks.

That kind of design thinking is exactly where the future of ag is headed, and that’s why you’ll be hearing me talk to the folks at Case IH at different points throughout this quarter about what they do and how they’re working to push the ag forward.