Jim and LeeAnn VanDerPol shared how their farm has changed over the course of fifteen years throughout the state at a series of Livestock Grazing Conferences that took place February 5th-8th. Shaped by both environmental and economic concerns, they shared with audiences around the state how they have incorporated pasture and direct marketing into integral components of their farm.

The changes in the way the VanDerPol's farm were started in 1988 during a severe drought. Jim and LeeAnn took over the farm from Jim's parents in 1975 and farmed fairly conventionally with row crops and a confinement hog operation. Although the land in their area is classified as non-highly erodable because it is quite flat, a severe drought resulted in significant wind erosion of the topsoil. They decided that they needed to change the way they were farming and began using ridge tillage as a conservation practice.

In addition to conservation practices, the VanDerPols also experimented through the years with different methods of hog production. One of the first changes they made was to farrow the sows in huts on pastures. The huts are approximately 6 feet long, 5 feet wide and 4.5 feet tall and provide shelter for the sow and her piglets as well as providing a home base separate from the other sows.

The VanDerPols have found farrowing on pasture to work well. They have found that they typically raise an extra live pig per litter when the sows are farrowed outside as opposed to inside. The sows benefit from access to pasture and the ability to be separated from other sows, which reduces stress, while the piglets benefit from a healthier environment.

After the pigs are weaned, they are finished in a hoop building on straw. The hoop building is 72 feet long and 30 feet wide and there is a concrete area at one end that is a feeding area and has a frost free waterer. The rest of the house is beaded heavily with straw that forms a bedded pack. Because of the straw bedding and the relatively open building, there is relatively little odor from this building.

In addition to farrowing, the VanDerPol's also found benefit to grazing gestating sows. Including forage in gestating sow diets has been known to increase their performance since it increases their digestive capacity. This increased capacity leads to greater intake of grain during lactation and, therefore, more milk and better breeding performance. However, forage affects manure consistency and is not compatible with most confinement operations. The VanDerPols have found that gestating sows on pasture require only about a third as much grain as those in confinement. The sows are prevented from rooting by nose rings and have preferences in pasture similar to sheep.

This kind of hog production requires different breeding than is commonly found in confinement hogs. Currently, the VanDerPol's are using a cross from the Berkshire and Duroc with some Chester White. This cross has the hardiness they need for their management as well as having excellent taste. It is getting harder to find breeding material, though, and they are considering linebreeding as a way to maintain control over their genetics.

In addition to different breeds, this type of hog production also requires a different kind of attention to the animals. Jim describes their goal as, "trying to work with the animals and weather to avoid capital investment." Since they do not use many of the tools developed for confinement operations, they need to be in tune with animal behavior and try to design their systems to work with the behavior and not against it.

A second major factor that caused a change in their farming practices was the major fall in hog prices in 1998. Jim and LeeAnn's son Josh and his family had come back to the farm in 1997 and they had increased their production significantly to obtain enough income for the two families. The crash in price came at an especially hard time for them and made them rethink their farming operation. They decided that they needed to take control of their own marketing in order to continue.

In order to market their pork, they formed a separate subchapter S corporation called Pastures a Plenty Meats. This company is owned by the two families and has the farm as it's sole supplier of pork. Initially, they sold mainly frozen pork directly to consumers. Jim and LeeAnn had contacts in Minneapolis and St. Paul and they began making deliveries on a regular basis to customers in the twin cities.

Through time, their market has doubled every year and now includes sales to several natural foods stores and at farmer's markets. The opening into natural foods stores was creating when their meat processor was approached by one of the stores. Through time, they have expanded to sell meat products from nearly the entire hog through the stores including sausages and a non-nitrate bacon that Josh developed the recipe for.

The change in markets has caused the VanDerPols to change how they raise their animals. In the past, they had one group of sows that farrowed on pasture in the early spring and late fall. Because their markets require a year-round supply of pork, they now have two groups of sows each of which farrows once a year in a hoop house and once a year on pasture. This has meant having four farrowing times a year and now they are using their buildings nearly the entire year with farrowing and finishing.

To date, they have only been able to market around half of their yearly production themselves. The balance of their production has been marketed to Niman Ranch, which sells a natural pork and gives a sizeable premium to its farmers. However, the VanDerPols hope to soon be able to market all of their production. A recent article in a Minneapolis newspaper highlighted the VanDerPol's pork and they have been contacted by two different new markets that both sought nearly double their current annual output.

In addition to the hog business, the VanDerPols have also diversified through the years to better utilize their land. For a while, they raised sheep but found that it the exposed prairie was not well suited, especially during lambing. The past few years, they have raised dairy heifers for a farm. This allows them to utilize their pastures more fully since they rotate the areas the sows farrow in to a new pasture every year.

In addition to better utilizing their pasture, the dairy heifers have also allowed Jim and his son to each manage a part of the farm. Jim is primarily responsible for the dairy heifers while Josh is responsible for the hogs. They have found that this has made for a more successful partnership than each of them trying to manage the entire farm. However, they both continue to work in all aspects of the farm.

In Jim's view, one of the successes of their operation is that it is child friendly. Because there is relatively little mechanical work, Josh's children are able to help out in all facets of the farm. According to Jim, "Our most important job is to raise kids. If we can't raise kids on the farm, we're a failure." The system that they have developed has allowed Jim to work side-by-side with their gradchildren which has been very gratifying for Jim and LeeAnn.

The VanDerPols have been through a lot of changes in the past 15 years to make their farm both environmentally and economically sustainable. Although, they are not quite where they want to be now, they are headed in the right direction and have made significant progress toward their goals in the past few years. The next set of changes that they look forward to will be to tailor the farm so that the labor demands are reduced and there is more time to analyze the business and plan for the future.