You want to be a farmer?

Hi - we’re Steve and Crystal Riggins and we live on a small farm in central Iowa where we sell grass-finished beef, vegetables, eggs, and cut flowers. We were both born and raised in Arizona, and spent much of our adult life in Denver Colorado. Neither of us were farmers. So how did we end up where we are today? 

In Denver, we were a somewhat normal couple, raising three spirited girls. Wanting to do the best for the girls we became interested in what was in our food and where it came from. This took us down a rabbit hole that ended with us buying locally sourced meat and converting our small Denver backyard into a really big garden - at least we thought it was big at the time. Our oldest of the three girls somehow convinced us to purchase a flock of backyard chickens before it was legal (we were total rebels). We discovered we loved the lifestyle of growing and raising things and wanted to do more and more. We wanted to purchase land in Colorado to grow our agricultural dream, but there was nothing affordable and the lack of water rights made it impossible. There was always Iowa.

Our family has owned a farm in Iowa since 1855, but none of our family had ever lived on the property, let alone work it. My great, great grandfather, a Methodist minister in Nevada Iowa was the one who originally purchased the land and the family has fortunately held onto it. I’ve always loved the farm and Crystal and I would joke about moving to Iowa but nothing ever came of it. One night we were talking and we realized our thinking about a change seemed less of a joke and something we were actually considering. We made a big choice, uprooting two of our kids, (our oldest stayed in CO while attending CSU) and our suburban life and made the move to Iowa.

Fast forward nine years and we’re still on the farm. Our youngest daughter lives in town, and our middle daughter has moved back to Denver for work. Our oldest daughter Paige graduated, got married and moved with her husband to live with us on the farm. Their little boy, Calvin loves everything animals, outdoors and tractors. 

Since the move, we’ve transformed a large portion of conventional crop ground into warm and cool season pastures growing diverse types of forage that we rotationally graze our grass-finished cattle on.  Paige and Crystal have started a CSA growing all kinds of vegetables and U-pick flowers. The remaining crop ground is in transition to be certified organic. Oh, we have also been planting many trees with many more to go. 

Why are we taking this path? We want to feed our community. We believe the addition of livestock managed correctly, living roots in the ground all year, forage and crop diversity, and the elimination of synthetic fertilizers and chemicals is key to improving our soil health and water quality. Growing healthy food starts with healthy ground. 

Everyday is a challenge and the learning curve has been steep but we love it and can’t imagine doing anything else. We hope you will follow us along on our journey!