International Year of Family Farming

The Food and Agriculture Organization has declared 2014 the Year of Family Farming with the aim of highlighting the important role family and small farms play in feeding the world. To do our part, throughout 2014 we are featuring some of our favorite images and words from Iowa books on family farms. Here’s the latest!

“Married in 1941, Mabel Schweers and her husband, Art, farmed 400 acres in Adams County, Iowa. They promised each of their eleven children one year of paid tuition at the college of their choosing and expected their farm income would fulfill this promise. Schweers described their diversified farm as productive and stable. She earned cash income through the sale of eggs, provided much of the family’s food through gardening and canning, and sewed most of the family’s clothing…. She believed men and women worked equally hard, saying, ‘On the farm, the women  had just as big a part to play as the men. My daughters milked just like my sons did. They loaded bales. They could do anything. They could drive the tractor. They could do anything.’”

excerpt from On Behalf of the Family Farm: Iowa Farm Women's Activism since 1945, by Jenny Barker Devine

photographs from A Bountiful Harvest: The Midwestern Farm Photographs of Pete Wettach, 1925-1965, by Leslie A. Loveless

International Year of Family Farming

The Food and Agriculture Organization has declared 2014 the Year of Family Farming with the aim of highlighting the important role family and small farms play in feeding the world. To do our part, throughout 2014 we are featuring some of our favorite images and words from Iowa books on family farms. Here’s the latest!

“Mother and Father grew up in homes without electricity and on farms without tractors, and they began farming in the same way. He loved horses and used them for planting, cultivating, haying, threshing, and picking corn even after he and his brother jointly purchased their first tractor for plowing in 1945. He gave his team oats, hay, and plenty of water when working them hard. He kept them shod and trimmed their hooves periodically because they walked on a gravel road between fields. As Father acquired more efficient tractors, his team could no longer justify their keep…. He reluctantly sold [the team] to a horse trader…. Tears filled his eyes as he loaded his last team on the stock truck and drove away.”

excerpt from The Farm at Holstein Dip: An Iowa Boyhood, by Carroll Engelhardt

photograph from A Bountiful Harvest: The Midwestern Farm Photographs of Pete Wettach, 1925-1965, by Leslie Loveless

International Year of Family Farming

The Food and Agriculture Organization has declared 2014 the Year of Family Farming with the aim of highlighting the important role family and small farms play in feeding the world. To do our part, throughout 2014 we are featuring some of our favorite images and words from Iowa books on family farms. Here’s the latest!

“My father’s farm expresses well the essence of him. It’s some of the state’s best land, on a flat, narrow ridge that the topographer would represent with a southeast line between the parallel meanderings of the Des Moines and the Skunk rivers, safe from floods and perfectly sloped for draining rains…. He inherited its advantages, but has immaculately maintained them, taking no risks with the way he’s used his land.”

excerpt from Prairie City, Iowa: Three Seasons at Home, by Douglas Bauer

photograph from A Bountiful Harvest: The Midwestern Farm Photographs of Pete Wettach, 1925-1965, by Leslie Loveless