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Sometimes farming is just in a family’s blood.
But the preservation of valuable natural resources is a choice, and that choice recently earned Jim Veldkamp and his late wife, JoAnn, recognition as the 2018 Rock County Conservationist of the Year.
The recognition was through the Minnesota Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts.
Rock County Land Management Office made the nomination.
“He has a passion on how he farms,” said LMO Director Eric Hartman.
Veldkamp’s passion partly comes from growing up on the family farm in Rose Dell Township.
“I always enjoyed farming,” he said. “I was more interested in farming than school.”
After high school, however, Veldkamp studied carpentry in Pipestone. He was building homes in the Valley Springs and Brandon areas before his new bride, JoAnn, suggested they share a profession.
“We preferred working together,” Jim said.
The two created Veldkamp Farms Inc. after purchasing their first quarter section in 1973. The farm is located five miles north from Jim’s family farm.
The Veldkamp farm now encompasses 1,650 acres.
Shortly after the farm purchase, they raised pigs and cattle in addition to expanding their corn and soybean production acres.
For their 10 years together, the couple continued conventional farming practices, working the fields with multiple passes.
Jim’s father, Elmer, introduced them to a more conservative farming practice of ridge till.
“We switched to ridge till in 1983,” the younger Veldkamp said. “It wasn’t a widely accepted practice.”
The couple joined the Tri-State Ridge Till Association, attending various conferences and sharing ideas.
The 1980s Farm Crisis forced many farmers to find ways to cut costs, but Veldkamp said he adopted the less tillage practice to preserve soil moisture for the crop’s raised seedbeds.
“It’s holding the drop of rain where it lands,” Veldkamp said.
The jumpstart to the germination process results in better yield performance. Veldkamp Farms earned three top corn yield awards in the national ridge-till category.
Experience and a don’t-give-up attitude allowed the ridge till practices the Veldkamps adopted to evolve into tillage practices that mirror those of no-till conservation practices. The crop residue holds the moisture between the 30-inch rows.
The less till practice not only conserves water, it also lessened the effects of soil erosion.
“It is sad to see erosion in fields, so we do what we can to avoid it,” he said.
The Veldkamps changed their livestock production to focus to raising hogs in the late ’80s.
The couple joined Pipestone System, who assumed the labor-intensive farrowing and sow replacement process for its member producers.
They raised 28,000 to 30,000 hogs annually.
Manure from hog facilities plays a natural role in replenishing vital soil nutrients used by the plant during the growing season.
The Veldcamps custom-built a liquid manure tank that directs the manure within the ridges where it can be easily accessed by the crop’s developing root system.
The manure application during the growing season eliminates early spring and/or late fall manure applications, which have a potential for manure run-off.
Assisting the Veldkamps with their operation are long-term employees Joe Buysse and Randy Baden.
An on-farm feed mill mixes the farm-grown grain into feed for the hogs.
The Veldkamps’ conservation efforts earned them the environmental steward award through the Minnesota Pork Board in 2008.
Over the years, they have shared their stewardship practices as the featured stop for various agricultural groups. So far, Veldkamp Farms has hosted groups from eight foreign countries.
JoAnn’s cancer diagnosis in 2015 prompted the couple to make plans to pass the farm they built together to the next generation of young farmers.
The Veldkamps’ only child, daughter Jennifer Lerwick, lives in Lyman, Nebraska, where she operates the Lerwick family farm with her husband and three children.
In 2016 Ethan Kracht, a distant cousin to Jim, was preparing to join his family’s cattle and crop operation near Edgerton.
The Veldkamps thought if Ethan had an interest, they would make him a partner in Veldkamp Farms.
“I didn’t expect he had an interest in hogs,” Jim said.
Kracht admitted his initial interest was crop production but found a niche in programming computer systems used in the Veldkamps’ ridge till and feed mill operations.
After JoAnn’s death in 2017, Kracht became a full-time partner, assuming more of the hog chores as a result.
“Now I almost like the pigs better than the crops,” he said.
Kracht and his wife, Chyana, were married late last year. The two are looking forward to operating Veldkamp Farms together in the future.
“Our farm has a future,” Veldkamp said. “It’s not going to go away.”