Charles City farmer featured in Virtual Field Day: Growing food for people through diversified agriculture systems

To The Press

Iowa Learning Farms, in partnership with the Iowa Nutrient Research Center and Conservation Learning Group, is hosting a free virtual field day on Friday, Dec. 15, at 1 p.m. Join for a live discussion with Wendy Johnson, Floyd County Learning Farms farmer partner and co-owner of Jóia Food & Fiber Farm.

“The future of agriculture is this! It’s diverse, it’s fun and it’s joyful. You see life – growing life and supporting wildlife,” explains Johnson on the growing interest in this form of diversified agricultural system.

The virtual field day will explore how host Johnson and her husband, Johnny Rankin, started and continue to manage Jóia Food & Fiber Farm with a mission to farm holistically and grow food for people through the use of a diversified agricultural system and direct marketing of meat, grain, wool and other products they are producing.

The field day will be recorded and archived on the ILF website so that it can be watched at any time.

“Following significant flooding, specifically in 2016 and 2018, my husband and I made the decision to pasture more and crop less,” noted Johnson. “We have also integrated custom grazing of cow/calf pairs as added income and have added Kerzna, a perennial no-till small grain.

“On these 130 acres, we are now 100% perennial. Now, in a drought, we have not had to use hay during the last three growing seasons due to our use of adaptive grazing system, increasing our resiliency to changing weather,” she said.

Not only is their landscape diverse, but Johnson also cares for certified Animal Welfare Approved sheep and lambs, as well as raising pigs, broiler chickens, layer chickens, turkeys, a few cows of their own, and custom grazing a cow/calf herd.

With growing interest in agroforestry, they are using silvopasture through the integration of trees and shrubs, including fruit and nut types, in their pastures.

Additionally, Johnson co-owns Counting Sheep Sleep Co., a wool fiber business using Jóia’s wool, and co-manages the family farm, Center View Farms Co., with her father.

Johnson has helped to expand conservation practices on her family’s traditional row-crop farm to become more sustainable and regenerative by implementing 100% no-till, adding cover crops and reducing costly inputs.

Virtual field day access instructions

To participate in the live virtual field day at 1 p.m. central time on Dec. 15:

• Click this link: https://iastate.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUpduihpj8iE9ZHcjpsenc2DWQILG41wg0D
• Visit https://www.iowalearningfarms.org/events-1.
• Or, join from a dial-in phone line; dial +1 646 876 9923 or +1 301 715 8592; meeting ID 945 3331 7620.

Participants may be eligible for a Certified Crop Adviser board-approved continuing education unit. Information about how to apply to receive the CEU (if approved) will be provided at the end of the event.

Iowa Learning Farms is building a culture of conservation by encouraging adoption of conservation practices. Partners of Iowa Learning Farms include the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Iowa Department of Natural Resources and GROWMARK Inc.