May 18, 2019

This morning, after enjoying a later wakeup call, we made our way to Mitch Meyer’s Ackley farm, and received a briefing on Federal Crop Insurance from Meyer and his partner, Ranae Zoske of the RZA agency. Federal Crop Insurance is a way for farmers to insure their crops from Mother Nature’s fury such as drought, excessive moisture, disease, and hail. We learned a lot of acronyms: AIPs, Approved Insurance Providers (AIPs), FCIC, The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, and USDA, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The wet spring Iowa is experiencing in 2019 highlights the value of investing in crop insurance.

After a relaxing lunch at Morris’ house we arrived at Nutty Farmer Chestnuts Farm in Radcliffe. A chestnut farm was not what I expected to find in the middle of corn and soybean country. The 25-acre farm is run by Heath Stolee who wanted to improve the habitat on the land. He wanted to diversify with a crop that didn’t need as much equipment costs to produce like corn or soybeans. In addition to being a chestnut tree farmer, Heath works at the National Animal Disease Centers in Ames; he is an Army vet who completed tours in Kuwait and Iraq. Unfortunately, rain kept us from planting chestnut trees; however, Heath talked us through the chestnut planting process. The trees were planted using a form of precision agriculture since Heath used GPS to line up every tree. Another interesting part of his presentation related to our crop insurance discussion earlier in the day. Heath discussed the crop insurance programs available for chestnut growers. First, there is tree crop insurance or TAP. Another program, Noninusured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP), which he mentioned that he could use in six to seven years when his trees mature and are producing crops. Since it takes 15 years for chestnut trees to finally generate income, crop insurance is important coverage for tree farmers like Heath.

To finish off the day, we went to the Fiscus farm and met Franklin and Mike Fiscus to learn about goat worming and actually practice our hand at it. We gave the goats antibiotics in the mouth and also shots in the side.  The goats had to be marked in order to keep track which ones had the shot. This was a fun way to end our fourth day in Iowa.