This August, I traveled to rural Minnesota to visit one of our domestic farm partners. Lucky for me, there was a break from the previous week's high humidity and peak mosquito activity, which made for a comfortable visit this time around. I met with Jason, a second-generation farmer and now manager of the organic farm. I began my visit at what they refer to as the “home farm” where I got to see Jason’s childhood home and the land he grew up on. They still grow some crops on four acres of this land, but the bulk of their growing now takes place in other nearby plots.
After exploring “home farm,” we walked to the other adjoining parcels which consist of many land types and ecosystems. While the focus of the trip was on the farmable acres, we also explored the forested areas, wetlands, and prairie lands. As a procurer of organic botanicals, it’s important to zoom out and see the surroundings and explore other possibilities of crops we may be able to contract with the farmer. Over the years, this has opened up many doors for our partners and also helped them to diversify their crops, which is an important part of organic agriculture.
We currently source boneset, feverfew, figwort, lemon balm, oatstraw, tansy, self heal, lemongrass, skullcap, wormwood, and California poppy from this farm. While we primarily talked about the crops they were already growing for us, we also spent quite a bit of time talking about others that he may be interested in trying. We often work with farmers who are willing to try growing new things we need to source. For Jason, he says trying new things keeps his job interesting.
There are many goals we have when visiting our farm partners, but for me, the greatest is learning about the current happenings at the farm. With this information, we can explore new plants we may be able to contract based on their needs, growth, and environmental changes. We also discuss things that aren’t working as well and ways that we can support or pivot as needed. For example the unpredictability of the weather in the recent past has been a challenge for this, and many farm partners. In Minnesota specifically, they experienced drought conditions in 2023 and too much rain in 2024. Both situations create different difficulties which can cause crop failures and other complications with growing and harvesting. By experimenting with different plants, Jason is finding new paths to secure the future of his business as the landscape changes.
Jason is also working to scale his operations and recently purchased another neighboring 30-acre lot. He will need some time to get it certified as organic so he is now growing pumpkins and other cover crops to enrich the soil while he waits. It is for reasons like this that we appreciate working with domestic farmers who really care about soil health and practice holistic land management.
This one-on-one time is really important for us and for our farmers. It offers the opportunity to have in-depth conversations and foster decades-long relationships. Seeing the care that goes into growing medicinal herbs also deepens our appreciation and connection to the botanicals we carry. It is for this reason I love to share these stories with the Mountain Rose Herbs community. A lot goes into growing herbs and these behind-the-scenes photos and stories can really help to paint a larger picture of how we ensure we are providing high quality, pure, and potent botanicals while doing right by our farm partners that make it all possible.
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