Stories of Success

Beyond the stand of trees hedging Jane Green’s childhood home lay an irrigation runoff pond. Growing up, when she needed space to think, she wandered out to sit on its grassy banks and ponder life.

As kids, she and her siblings played in the pond and even attempted to ice skate on it. As she grew older, she found another place to retreat. Out in the cornfield, she would climb onto the center pivot, find a comfortable perch, and look out across the land. On humid summer evenings, the cold irrigation pipe felt wonderful against her hot skin.

Leland Poppe grew up on a farm near Grant, Nebraska. He still remembers the farmer who first introduced him to no-till. “Our farming practices were tilling the ground, making sure it looked perfect, and not a weed on the place,” Leland remembered. “If one popped up, you would go till it again.”

No-till looked different from the farming Leland knew, but the farmer told him, “Five years and you could finally see the impact.” Leland gave it time. Eventually, he was asking his dad and customers, “Hey, have you thought about no-till?”

Julie Stahly grabbed a bag of home-ground wheat flour. It couldn’t get much fresher than this: wheat grains straight from her farm to the mill in her kitchen.

The bag bore a new name: Homestead Grains. This was it. The first store. Julie strode toward the doors of Hills Family Foods in Imperial, Nebraska. Soon she would have the answer to her question: Would there be space on the store's shelves, and would customers make room in their carts for her locally grown flour?

As rising input costs and falling commodity prices challenge producers across southwest Nebraska, Julie Stahly keeps searching for better answers, convinced the next experiment may uncover something that could also help other producers.

As a kid growing up near Hooper, NE, Tom Hoegemeyer amassed a collection of tree leaves, each from a different species he found around his family’s small farm. “I was just fascinated by all the different kinds of plants. I actually preferred crops to livestock. I didn’t ever get stepped on or pooped on by a plant.”

Jordan knelt beside his homemade interseeder, a planter that threads between young corn rows to sow cover crops. He built the machine himself by modifying an old grain drill. “Nobody’s driving around a 50-year-old car. Why am I farming with a 50-year-old tractor?” Jordan asked.

At the local diner in Denton, Nebraska, Brian Brhel shares a booth with his new landlord. They dig into their burgers and break the ice on their new working relationship.

Brian is a Nebraska Soil Health Coalition producer lead. His operation spans 720 acres, including 300 acres of rangeland and 420 acres of row crops.

We all want to be part of the future of farming. For many of us, that future includes healthier soil, stronger communities, and operations that can endure across generations. Stories from those who have gone before help producers navigate that path.