MBS Family Farms hosts afternoon on the farm for public

Family anniversary brings new opportunity for local business

By Kate Hayden | khayden@charlescitypress.com

Forty years after Stan and Karmen Mehmen began farming together, MBS Family Farms is inviting the public over to look behind the scenes of a family operation –– to hear their story, straight from the source.

MBS Farms and Butler County Farm Bureau are hosting an afternoon of vendors, meet-and-greets and a meal to encourage community members to learn more about the future of modern agriculture.

“As farmers, we are traditionally really poor at telling our story, but it’s getting told one way or another. We needed to be more proactive,” Kyle Mehmen of MBS Farms said. “We were frustrated enough to say, ‘if not us, then who?'”

The family invited a whole host of vendors — such as groups like GMO Answers, the Iowa Corn Growers Association, Iowa Food and Family Project and the Butler County Dairy Promoters — to cover topics from agriculture in the classroom and robotic innovations on dairy farms to animal welfare, industry consolidation and family farm legacies.

“We just went through and thought about topics that would be of interest to the general public,” Mehmen said. “There’s just several issues — the Des Moines Waterworks suing the counties, legislation on GMO labeling issues — that there’s a lot of misinformation out there.”

Eight vendors will be present from 4-8 p.m. on Sept. 7, along with two scheduled drone presentations, a get-to-know-the-family session, an employee round table and a landowner recognition session. The day will also include door prize drawings at 7:30 p.m.

The event has been in the works for some time, starting with a conversation among employees at a retreat five years ago when a new employee Mehmen had grown up knowing told Mehmen what starting at MBS Family Farms was like.

“He said, ‘I didn’t have a good understanding of some of the things you do before I started here,” Mehmen recalled. “I said, ‘if you don’t, how many other people do?'”

After a few years of brainstorming and circumstances that didn’t fit, MBS Farms got in touch with Farm Bureau in 2015 to apply for a grant and begin planning the event for the farm’s 40th anniversary. The event is open to the public, with RSVPs accepted to help with final headcount — Mehmen anticipates anywhere from 400 to 700 visitors to stop by during the Sept. 7 celebration. The farm is encouraging RSVPs to be submitted by Aug. 26.

“Without help from a lot of sponsors, it’d be too much to handle on our own,” Mehmen said. “We would just like to be an informational source for people in our community. We’re far from doing everything perfectly, but we do the very best we can.”

RSVPs to the event can be submitted on Facebook, by phone, 319-276-4830, or by email at kerri.mehmen@mbsfamilyfarms.com.

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