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Jun 10, 2023

Mitchell's Steve Strasheim: changing the world one tomato at a time

Steve and Marcy Strasheim’s farm is modest. On their acreage in Mitchell, they

Steve and Marcy Strasheim's farm is modest. On their acreage in Mitchell, they grow cut flowers and produce in their garden and greenhouses. Despite their farm's size, the Strasheims have a lot to show off – Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) is holding a field day at their acreage. PFI hosts field days across Iowa.

Steve Strasheim in one of his Mitchell greenhouses.

"Farmer Steve Strasheim has truly made the most of the opportunities and available spaces to operate Twisted River Farm in his small northern Iowa town," said PFI media relations coordinator Elizabeth Wilhelm.

While space is limited on Strasheim's acreage, he gets a little help from his neighbors, who allow him to plant on their land in exchange for some of the produce.

Strasheim grows around 40 different vegetable crops.

"Our field day is to basically show people what we’ve done on a very small scale in a very rural little town in Iowa," Strasheim said. "What makes our farm unique, as opposed to typical farms – we’ve adopted an urban farm model where you can take our farm and drop it into the big city someplace, where people are taking underutilized, marginal land and putting high-value crops on it to serve underserved areas."

The field day will be held at Strasheim's acreage at 195 South Madison Street in Mitchell from 1-3 p.m. on Sunday, June 18. Strasheim hopes to have 100 people visit his farm, which would almost double the size of Mitchell.

It was a diet in 2012 that led Strasheim to local foods. At that time, he had minimal knowledge of farmer's markets, local produce and vegetables. Through research for the diet, it led him to eating fresh.

"Don't shop the middle of the grocery store, shop the perimeter," Strasheim said. "That was the genesis of the whole thing. But local foods weren't always available, so I said what the heck, I’ll do it myself. It was a hobby that turned into more. Now this is my sixth season fulltime."

As someone who wanted to become a farmer, Strasheim was facing a difficult situation – a challenge for most young families not fortunate enough to inherit land. Strasheim had to adopt an innovative model.

Twisted River Farm began in Nora Springs, near a bend in the Cedar River, hence its name.

Five years ago, Strasheim moved to Mitchell. When he bought his house and the land it sits on, it was all lawn, but he had a vision. He turned his backyard into a production vegetable farm.

"One of the biggest if not the biggest challenge in farming is how do young farmers get into farming?" Strasheim said. "Unless you have land in the family or wealth beyond most of our means, good luck. What we’ve been able to do is develop relationships with neighbors to use their yards."

North of his farm is a large garden growing on a neighbor's lawn. It is his winter squash and melon production area.

"A handshake deal," Strasheim said. "We’ve been able to leverage our relationships with people in town here. I only own a fraction of what we farm."

Immediately to the east is a small garden, his first experiment in using a neighbor's land. Beyond that, across a stand of trees, are two acres of land that is in its third season of production. That makes around four acres of farmable land in addition to Strasheim's one acre.

Some of his neighbors even do deliveries for Strasheim. He does not need to pay rent, because they get produce in return, and Strasheim helps in their gardens.

Seven miles south on local farmer Eric Jellum's land there is a greenhouse similar in size to what sits on Strasheim's acreage. Jellum has a geothermal corn drying system that Strasheim describes as perhaps the only one of its kind in the world.

When Strasheim first met Jellum, Jellum suggested modifying his system to heat a tunnel greenhouse. That will also be on the PFI tour.

Like Jellum's corn drying system, the liquid geothermal greenhouse is unique. The heat of the earth is transferred to piped liquid, before being run back to heat exchangers. A fan is then blown through the heat exchangers to warm the greenhouse. This allows leafy green production in the wintertime.

Heating the greenhouse with propane would cost $2,000 per month. With his system, Strasheim pays $30 per month.

"Our business has grown exponentially because of that land access," Strasheim said. "That's the basis of our field day, to show people what is possible when conventional farming is not in the cards. There's a way in."

Steve Strasheim working his cut flowers.

Strasheim is a transplant. He is originally from the badlands of eastern Montana, where he grew up on a sugar beet farm.

"I always joke, if my grandpa were still alive and saw what I’m doing now, he’d probably laugh me off a cliff," Strasheim said. "He’d say, ‘This isn't farming.’"

After high school, Strasheim travelled to Fargo for college. He attended a small business school before studying business management at North Dakota State University. This led him to, of all things, professional sports.

"I admired people that knew they wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, a fireman," Strasheim said. "I never knew what I wanted to be, ever."

Strasheim became a general manager for a minor league hockey team. He also spent a few years in sales and marketing. "Put that in a big pot, and it spits you out as a lettuce farmer," Strasheim said.

Eventually, hockey took him to Minnesota and then northern Iowa, where he was general manager of Mason City's North Iowa Outlaws.

When the Outlaws moved to Wisconsin, Strasheim had already decided he needed something different. He had met his wife, and that kept him in northern Iowa. They moved to Nora Springs, where a fresh produce hobby eventually outgrew their land. They needed someplace where it would become more than just a hobby.

Finally, Strasheim knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. He just never imagined it would happen in a small town like Mitchell. Originally, he searched for tracks of land in the country, but the listing in Mitchell called to him. Strasheim saw the potential.

What better place for an urban farming model than within city limits?

"Now, present day, you couldn't pay me to leave," Strasheim said. "We love it here. The neighbors are great. They’re very supportive of Twisted River and what we’re doing here. The town is wonderful."

Strasheim is even on the Mitchell City Council.

This year, Strasheim introduced cut flowers to his operation. The garden that was once his entire operation for vegetables is now seeded in flowers.

Strasheim ships his flowers to Clear Lake and Mason City farmer's markets. Customers can come directly to the acreage and cut flowers. There will also be home deliveries and a subscription service. They will be in stock at grocery stores in Mason City and Osage.

Strasheim is board president of the Mason City Farmer's Market.

Produce is sold in similar fashion in five grocery stores in Mason City, Osage and Clear Lake. During COVID-19, they offered a home delivery service, and that has turned into a boon. Three years ago, it was 0% of his business. Last year, it was 55% of his business. Twisted River Farm once served 13 local restaurants, but Strasheim has moved more toward direct sale.

The school systems in Clear Lake and Osage also purchase his product. According to Strasheim, the next frontier in local food is farm-to-school.

Vegetable farms in northern Iowa are few and far between, Strasheim said, and his farm might be the biggest in a four-county area to sell directly, with the exception of the Mennonite community. Twisted River Farm does not have much competition.

Part of Strasheim's job is education. There are some Asian greens for which the local population is unfamiliar. There are also odd ducks like bok choy and fennel.

But most of the food is familiar. In his main greenhouse, unripe tomatoes are getting ready to turn red.

A few of Steve Strasheim's starter plants.

While Strasheim is not certified organic, he grows organically. There is not much pest pressure, so spraying is unnecessary. His vegetables would not accept an herbicide. Cultivation is mechanical.

"We’re not dousing our stuff with chemicals, and our customers appreciate that," Strasheim said.

In agriculture, Strasheim believes chemicals are overused. But he understands his operation is different. His family sprayed their sugar beet farm excessively. Large outfits do what they think is necessary, and some of those operations are also his customers.

As Strasheim says, don't hate the player, hate the game.

"Conventional farmers are doing the best they can," Strasheim said. "They’re forced into those practices by the nature of the business. If you don't do it, you’d better have a big pocketbook to make it through those transition periods to different methods, or accept a smaller share of the market."

For Strasheim, the market is key. Consumers are making a choice in the marketplace, and that determines what kind of farming practices win out.

Strasheim tries not to point fingers.

"It's unfortunate we’re at where we’re at, but what we don't hear in that conversation – what I think is the most important part – is you and I, the consumer," Strasheim said. "We don't take any share of that responsibility in those practices, but we’re demanding those practices by voting with our dollars. People hate CAFOs, but pork and chicken sales continue to rise. There are no alternatives for them, so they keep buying it, thus supporting a system they don't like."

Farmers are reacting to market pressures, according to Strasheim. "You can talk to the guy who sprays the most stuff on everything, and he’ll probably tell you he doesn't like to spray. It's expensive."

Cover crops are one solution, and farmers must be encouraged to adopt new practices, because big operations are not going anywhere. There must be solutions within the system. And young farmers are some of the most influential in making those changes.

According to one report, Iowa has the second worst water quality in the country.

According to the University of Iowa, Iowa is the only state with a significant increase in cancer from 2015 to 2019, and it has the second-highest overall cancer incidence in the United States.

"Obviously we’re doing something wrong," Strasheim said. "My anecdotal opinion is that it's probably caused by agricultural chemicals. That doesn't take a stretch of the imagination. We have some big problems, but they’re not going to get solved tomorrow. It takes consumers to play a part in that, too."

To a point, Strasheim is non-GMO. One problem he has with that practice involves organisms genetically modified to be resistant to chemicals such as Monsanto's Roundup, but Strasheim is not a Luddite when it comes to humans modifying crops.

A father of a friend of Strasheim's was a lawn seed rep. He would take a drink of Roundup to show how safe it was. He died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Strasheim does not trust any study done on the safety of agricultural chemicals, because many of those studies are funded by the same companies that manufacture those chemicals. It frustrates Strasheim.

"It was sold to farmers as a one-pass application," Strasheim said of crops designed to be herbicide resistant. "Once and that's all. But we didn't factor in resistance. Now we’re up to three or four times you have to spray. Now, things like Roundup aren't strong enough anymore. They’ve got to use way more potent stuff to kill things like water hemp.

"My criticism of it isn't necessarily the technology of GMOs. I think it's just led us down a path to overspraying. Farmers have been put on a treadmill they can't get off."

Change will be incremental.

"Small growers think they’re going to change the world," Strasheim said. "We’re not. But I can change our community."

Jason W. Selby is the community editor for the Mitchell Country Press News. He can be reached at 515-971-6217, or by email at [email protected].

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