From Soil to Seeding Local Foods, Part One

Presenting: From Soil to Seeding Local Foods 

Content: 

• Main Voice(s): Emerson Cram 
• Special Guests: 
  • Scott Koepke
  • Carly McAndrews 
  • Alfred Matiyabo 
  • Ilsa DeWald 
  • Rod Sullivan 
  • Jason Grimm 

Highlights
This chapter brings the story of the historic poor farm full circle, by documenting the work of GROW Johnson County. Co-founded in 2015 by John Boller, Scott Koepke, and Bob Andrik, GROW’s initial vision was to meet community needs around food access in Johnson County. Despite Iowa’s status as a predominantly agricultural state, food insecurity only continues to expand, with recent pressure points including the COVD-19 pandemic, policy changes in SNAP benefits, and the continuing escalation of the cost of living. Join Emerson as they dig into the efforts to establish GROW and Scott Koepke reflecting on its early days in addition to its legacy, how food policy shapes Iowa’s food system, why local food infrastructure matters, and why everything comes back to soil.  

Conclusion
What do we grow on intergenerational timelines? Who do we need to support our dreams to make good on a plan? We need each other when we are bold enough to build something in the times we are standing in the middle of a muddy field, and the rain is pouring, and we question our own capacity, our knowledge, and our energy to see it through.

Transcript
For a full transcript of this episode, visit: disabilityecologiespodcast.buzzsprout.com

Credits
Episode written and narrated by Emerson Cram, University of Iowa. Recorded with Riverside FM. Production and Sound Editing by Maura De Cicco. 

All media clips are used for educational purposes only. Sound effects licensed through Pixabay.  

KCRG.Com, "Johnson Co. food pantries address SNAP benefit concerns," October 31, 2026

Audio of Johnson County Supervisor Meeting, October 1, 2014.

Funding
Research, writing, and production have benefitted from generous support from multiple sources, including: the National Communication Association’s Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award; UI OVPR Arts and Humanities Initiative Standard Grant; UI Provost Investment in Strategic Priorities;  UI College of Liberal Arts DSHB Humanities Scholar; CLAS Summer Humanities Award.

Special Thanks
With thanks to Maura De Cicco; University of Iowa Departments of Communication Studies, Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies, and American Studies (Especially Angie Looney, Kembrew McLeod, Eric Vázquez, Naomi Greyser, and Hallie Abelman); The Johnson County Local Food & Farm Team (Julie Watkins & Ilsa DeWald), State Historical Society of Iowa (especially Hang Nguyen, Allison Johnson, and Anu Tiwari); Sarah Keen, University Archivist, University of Iowa; V Fixmer-Oraiz, Johnson County Board of Supervisors; Kim Painter, Johnson County Recorder; Rebecca Dewing, Johnson County Historical Society; GROW Johnson County (especially Jason Grimm, Emmaly Renshaw and Malik Salsberry); the 2024 Colby Summer Institute in Environmental Humanities Seminar Participants; Claire Fox; Teresa Mangum; Jennifer New; Phaedra C. Pezzullo; Constance Gordan; and Jesse Waggoner. 

Audience Participation

• Call to Action: Do you have a poor farm or county home story to tell? Reach out to our team to learn more about how to share! 
• Support the Show: Share this episode with friends and colleagues, & stay tuned for future episodes. 
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Transcript

Transcript for Disability Ecologies Podcast Chapter Five, Part One: From Soil to Seeding Local Foods

Emerson Narrates, 0:00: Chapter Five, From Soil to Seeding Local Foods, part one. 

Emerson Narrates, 00:09:

As the rusted red remains of the late fall in Eastern Iowa swiftly transformed into naked tree branches, the steady drift of snowfall and arctic blasts, I find myself once again sitting with the lessons of tree time. Only a few months after that walk to the Bur Oak legacy tree, I gathered with Scott Koepke inside the “Cultivation Station,” an open classroom setting where people come together for meetings or meals. Scott was with GROW Johnson County in the very beginning, when the poor farm’s acreage was then privately leased. Since 2015, one of GROW’s missions is to meet critical needs in food access, specifically for local community food pantries. Listening to Scott tell these stories is nothing short of an inspiration—now in his 60s, he is an energetic storyteller with wry wit and an incredibly deep capacity for empathy. Meeting him for the first time in 2025, when the world felt like it was unraveling for those engaged in non-profits, social services or food systems work, I found Scott’s passion and enthusiasm deeply infectious, even personally healing in its own way. 

Scott Koepke, 01:37:

I had mentioned to you prior to this meeting that this is a really unique piece of land. First of all, the history of it is just stunning going back to the 1800s when this was called the Poor Farm, still is. And a lot of people don't like to call it that. I remember there was some debate probably still going on, about why are you calling it that? Well, we're just honoring the history of what it was called. That's what they called it. This was a farm where disabled people—mentally and physically—were cruelly put into little prison cells literally that are still on site that we kept the asylum open, thank goodness. But this is a historic site that we have to honor. And then when we teach kids about, look at what we've done and where we are now, we're hopefully learning from our mistakes. And it's just important to honor... When you come to this place, you're literally walking on land that is sacred for me. I don't use that word lightly. It's a sacred space for me, not just because of the history, but what the future's going to hold with the infrastructure that's been built since I was here 10 years ago. 

[audio of guitar strumming and flute playing that threads under Emerson’s narrative] 

Emerson Narrates, 02:52:

As of late 2025, much of the site’s infrastructure building was reaching a conclusion—the most recent the construction of the shared commercial kitchen, built so that food and farm businesses can create value-added products. Taking it all in here now, this place feels far away from the image of an unwelcoming atmosphere. You’ll remember that depiction based on the experiences of Seen and Heard’s encounter with the asylum, now over ten years ago. Without the depth of patiently watching imagined projects take root on site, it can be easy to take for granted just how much this place has transformed. 

Johnson County Supervisors Meeting, 03:39:
Move to Item 7, RFP for use of county poor farm property for local foods.

Janelle Rettig: Can we start from the point that I just think this is really cool. I’m excited about this proposal… 

Unidentified Voice: It’s the Grow Johnson County proposal?  

Janelle Rettig: I just…you know, when we started this conversation with Goodwill, you know, however, almost two years ago…I had always hoped that some of this food could go to people in need. And so…I have not talked to any of these people, so this proposal came as a surprise to me.  

Rod Sullivan: Scott Koepke had asked me questions, I thought he would do something the first time we did it, but he didn’t. 

Janelle Rettig: So, I was really jazzed to see this. I did just briefly exchange emails…you know, the demand for food is just skyrocketing in our county, with 18,000 people food insecure. But we can feed them, but the food is boring. And so, to be able to feed people more local foods and vegetables and fruits and nuts and whatever else and herbs that may be part of this…I was just really excited to see this proposal.”     

Emerson Narrates, 05:13:
That was Supervisor Janelle Rettig speaking at a county work session in 2014. On the agenda that day was the proposal for what would become GROW Johnson County. Just over ten years later, the need for organizations like GROW have only intensified, as community members weather a deepening affordability crisis that impacts and compounds the costs of housing, food, health care and transportation—all basic needs for survival.  

According to Feeding America’s “Map the Meal Gap,” in 2023, 17,890 residents in Johnson County (or 11.5%) faced food insecurity. In the state more broadly, 12% of residents, or 385,130 adults and children faced food insecurity, which means their need to eat could not be met with available household income.[1] This picture becomes even more complex given some residents qualify as food insecure, yet cannot qualify for assistance through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP. The reason? Qualification is based on a state-by-state percentage relative to the federal poverty line, anywhere from 130-200%. As of 2023, in Johnson County, 39% of those who need food assistance are above SNAP’s income eligibility threshold, and for that same year in Iowa, that number was a whopping 51%. What this means is that household incomes cannot stay apace of the cost of living. But even as organizations must fill that need, they, too, are struggling. In 2025, many non-profits in the U.S. navigated ongoing federal cuts in existential ways. One local non-profit leader described the impact as “a non-profit hunger games.”   

More commonly known as “food stamps,” SNAP is a Federal Program that formally started in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. But its roots go back even further, to early versions of food distribution and federal intervention in the agricultural crises of the Great Depression. Both of these were partially spearheaded by Henry A. Wallace, who came of age on his family farm in Adair County, and whose political career made him the Secretary of Agriculture for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In comparison to the poor farm era’s scrutiny of poverty assistance, today, SNAP is one of the many domains where accusations of so-called “negative dependency” are supercharged by the program’s critics.  

Amidst a political showdown in Washington, D.C. over the expiration of health care subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, federal funding to SNAP was set to expire as of November, 2025. This sent county food pantries into high alert, preparing for certain disaster in an already challenging atmosphere of increased need and fewer external resources: 

KCRG Narrator, 08:55: 
Food pantries are coming together to make sure that 10,000 people at risk of losing SNAP benefits in the county will still have access to food. KCRG’s Lacey Reeves was at a news conference this morning, where non-profit leaders addressed those concerns.  

Reeves: If SNAP funds for the month of November run out, Johnson County SNAP recipients will lose close to $2 million in benefits. And the county’s food pantries are working together to do what they can to provide food for them.  

Dianne Plate: When that support disappears, families have nowhere to turn but food pantries and meal sites, many of which are already stretched to the breaking point.  

Reeves: Many families have been preparing to lose their benefits and have already started seeking help from Johnson County’s pantries. 

Ryan Markle: On an average day at Community Crisis Services Food Bank, we serve an average of 180 families. This past Thursday, we served 285, which is a 60% increase in overall visits…” 

Emerson Narrates, 09:50:
While at heart, GROW is committed to directly meeting needs for hunger relief, it is also a model for what the food system might become. Their motto: “working toward a just food system;” their mission: “to improve healthy food access through sustainable food production and hands-on education.”[2] Individual charitable giving through forms like financial assistance or food donations to pantries, churches, or other organizations certainly have an impact. Charitable organizations have a long history, too, and intersect with the poor farm period. Some of this is documented in collections held by the State Historical Society in Iowa City.

However, those closest to food systems work also emphasize charity’s limits, for a few reasons. The goal is to not simply provide individual support but to address underlying conditions that create unmet needs. GROW emphasizes the production of local and culturally relevant foods, combined with programs to facilitate farmer education and land access. Combined, they are building a small-scale intervention in an agricultural landscape shaped by complicated external variables—from federal policies to an economic climate pushing individual farmers into cycles of debt, foreclosure, and farm loss.  

In earlier chapters, I wrestled with questions about what we lose when we lend too much focus on stories of poverty as an individual failing—that charge of “negative” dependency. The poor farm’s intersection with the insecurity created by our current food system brings another layer to this conversation, too. While headlines about SNAP capture the immense devastation of food insecurity to individual households, those who do food advocacy also ask us to consider a hard-hitting question: in the wealthiest country in the world, with access to such land and agricultural abundance, how on earth do people—especially children—go hungry? 

When I hear this question, and listen more closely to people in GROW, or folks doing food policy work in Johnson County, I shift perspective from the individual decisions made over what we want or need to put on the table, to contemplate the whole system that organizes that more commonly known phrase: “from field to fork.” As someone who grew up amidst 1990s diet fads, I am no stranger to the phrase “healthy choices” at the grocery store. Certainly, listeners might feel the same overwhelm that I do when they look at a cooler full of 50 different kinds of yogurt, all of which are linked to the same corporation.  

What does “choice” mean in a system of fewer and fewer options? I remember, too, what Jason said, that the food system is a kind of design, shaped over time and reinforced by policy. What does this means? Food is deeply political. Land use and the land tenure system too, are deeply political. These days, Iowans are asking, “what does that mean for our health? For hungry bellies?” So, what about our political choices? What would it entail to design a “just food system,” and one where land access and soil health is at the center?   

According to the US Department of Agriculture’s 2022 Census, in Iowa, only .040% of harvested cropland--not even close to a full half of 1%--is used for vegetable farms.[3] The vast amount of agricultural land in Iowa instead supports systems that rely on intense forms of industrial production of hogs, cattle, and poultry, in addition to commodity crops such as grains, soy, and corn. This is an energy intensive system that also requires demanding chemical inputs for pest control and fertilizer, many of which are linked to Iowa’s cancer crisis. Even further, increasing land prices over time have created higher barriers for newer generations of farmers. Misconceptions abound about who farms in Iowa, and what farmers need. Here’s one farmer, Carly McAndrews, who has grown her business Trowel and Error Farm, because of the available Land Access Program through Iowa Valley Resource Conservation & Development: 

Carly McAndrews, 15:19: 
I think one common misconception that I had when I moved here is that everybody who farms lives where they farm and owns their farm, and actually over half of farms in Iowa are rented. So over half of farmland in Iowa is rented, and much of the land that's owned in Iowa is owned by people who don't even live in Iowa, so they're basically looking at land as an investment. Because they know that it's only going to gain value, but of course, there are so many problems with that, because we need people in the community to be farming and growing food for each other. I had to take such issue with that. It makes it really tough, because the cost of land just keeps going up.

Emerson Narrates, 16:10: 

Another Land Access farmer, Alfred Matiyabo, owner and operator of Africando Foods, emphasized what he hears from farmers at conferences across the state is that the idea of making a living solely from a farming operation is a relic of the past:  

Alfred Matiyabo, 16:31: 

Talking to farmers, majority of them say, "Ah, those days are gone." Farming, the consumption is farming doesn't longer provide what it used to provide in terms of income. To me, I'm thinking if Iowa is importing 90% of its food, there's plenty opportunity out there. Then talking to farmers, they're telling me the opposite. I'm like, well, probably if we produce food locally here, there's a market. Why is Iowa importing 90% of its own food? Probably everybody's doing commodity, soybeans, corn. And nobody's focusing in food production. But they all say, "Back in the days you used to 40-acre farm, you would feed your own family without any outside job." Today you need, at least, have one partner working, that way to keep the farm afloat and the insurance. Many factors. That's the misconception I hear. For me, I look at it as, well, there's plenty of opportunity.

Emerson Narrates, 17:47: 

Recalling my conversation with Jason Grimm, if planners understand the food system as a design, that means interventions are not only possible but being readily imagined as we speak. These interventions are the opportunities implied by Alfred, because many farmers know the current system is not working for them, either. By design, food advocates focus on the idea and organization of a “food system.” Beyond our individual plates, we are bound to land and others’ labor across a broad chain of connections, and those connections are often rendered invisible. Ilsa DeWald, Johnson County’s Local Food and Farm Manager, describes food systems this way:  

Ilsa DeWald, 18:41:

When I think of a food system, I usually think of a circle. Starting at any point in the circle but oftentimes starting with growers or farmers and producers and understanding that we have growers that are raising food from soil to then sale to either a distributor, either direct to consumer or with some kind of transportation element to then a processor or restaurant. Or a home cook, to then thinking about larger processing systems that are canning or doing freezing or whatever chop and serve step and connecting back into waste. So, thinking about as well our compost stream and how that compost connects back into the soil and back into the land. And so, we can think about that as a circular process. 

Emerson Narrates, 19:33: 

One of the lessons I’ve learned from folks like Ilsa is that local food means more than proximity. It might reference the value in knowing who grows your food. Local food work also focuses on overarching relationships of trust and power sharing that determine who has access to farming, what is grown and under what conditions. The capacity of fair and equitable relationships or decision-making processes is what’s known as the “food value chain.”[4] In our conversation, Ilsa provided a contrast between the dominant agricultural system and the kind of work shared by those in local food governance. 

Ilsa DeWald, 20:21: 

When I talk about Iowa, generally, I think the first thing that comes to mind is corn fields. So looking, you know, what do you look out when you see in the Iowa landscape and talking about how many acres of Iowa's land is farmed too, that it is a predominant land use and especially for growing corn and soy, as well as raising hogs, raising livestock. And so understanding that a lot of the acres of corn and soy that is grown are used for animal feed or ethanol production and are not going directly to our tables. Something I talk about sometimes with youth when doing a class or a clinic or something that there is this disconnect sometimes between seeing a cornfield and thinking of sweet corn, which some of that corn is sweet corn, but most of it's not. We grow really great sweet corn and at the same time a lot of it is not for human consumption. So we have a very strong big business, big ag system in our state and I think the work that I do centers in how to repair and recognize the function of local and more small-scale regional agriculture. How can we grow food here in our community that's also eaten here in our community?

Emerson Narrates, 21:44: 

In this chapter, I tell the story behind GROW, one of two food projects on site, highlighting how a vision in local foods infrastructure became the basis for building new relationships. Some listeners might ask—what on earth does farming have to do with disability? After years of research on this very question, I want to say in short, everything. If you’ve been listening since the beginning, you’ve heard about how Johnson County has tried to do justice to the memory of those who resided here. That care system was a kind of social design, too, one where those who lived here were socially stigmatized. The idea that to need is a public burden and to seek support beyond the primary unit of family embodies the position of negative dependency.   

As we live in a time when the promise of a social safety net is more of a historical relic than a reality, the memory of poor farms has a lot of value. They can help us identify evolutions in public care. Maybe too, the poor farm history can help us identify why a social safety net or the welfare state was necessary in the midst of the Great Depression’s dust bowls. So, too, I think the poor farm’s memory can facilitate questions about why poverty is a chronic condition of modern life. Here again is Supervisor Rod Sullivan: 

Rod Sullivan, 23:33:

And so it's really just, I think we have to remind ourselves, I don't feel like we as a country, as a world, as a country do enough to support those who have less in our current society. I don't think we're even anywhere close. I think it's embarrassing how we allow people to be so poor in this country. But it's not new. And this shows you that it's not new, that it was going on back then too. This was the more humane, an enlightened way. The other way was that basically people just died, you just starved to death. And my own family, the other side of the family that didn't own the farms had experiences of that, of people just simply dying because they didn't have enough food, just dying from being poor. To me it's just shameful that we have it today in this world, and it's shameful that we had it back then in this world. But it's just a reminder that it's not new, it's been here with us a long, long time.”

Emerson Narrates, 24:29: 

Throughout my time with this project, I’ve thought a lot about shame. How it gets in the way of historical storytelling, how it organizes our capacity to vocalize our needs, and the role it has in our political culture to direct people to varying actions or ends. When is shame about what or who we are as individuals—our shortcomings or failures—and when is shame about the conditions that we collectively accept as given, yet want to recreate? It seems like wrestling with shame might allow us to engage differently with the sting of dependency. When we value the lessons of this site of conscious, learn people’s names and their legacies, it all comes down to a simple fact: people have needs, and that cannot be denied.  

[transition into running Introduction, with guitar strumming and soft ooo vocals underneath Emerson’s spoken narrative]:  

Disability Ecologies is a podcast series dedicated to telling the story of the Johnson County Iowa Historic Poor Farm throughout its lifespan: from its origins to attempts at preservation to the still unfolding dynamics on site today. My name is Emerson Cram, I’m a place-based researcher and storyteller based in a small college town in the midwestern region of the United States. Since 2019, I’ve worked alongside community members and county administrators to tell the story of the historic poor farm’s history, its planned transition into a national historic site, and a vibrant place for building connections to land and people through local foods. As a note on content, throughout each chapter, you will encounter historical language that describes disabled and “mad” people (or those who might otherwise be called mentally ill). This language is outdated and pejorative by modern standards. These terms and the content overall may feel triggering to some listeners. I’ve chosen to include terms within the historical record of social services, psychiatry, and social sciences because they are windows of meaning into the period, and it’s also important I be honest about what the historical record shows us about our past. 

Emerson Narrates, 27:11:  

For Scott Koepke, the idea for a farm rooted in hunger relief coincided with a chapter of his life teaching public school students through New Pioneer Coop’s Soilmates. Ask Scott a question about soil, and you may learn far more than you bargained for…

Scott Koepke, 27:33:

Soil science is a beautiful science incorporating all of the sciences. And I don't mean to get off on a tangent too much on that, but it's just so fun.

Emerson Narrates, 27:45: 

Scott was one of many whose energy and persistence shaped the early redesign of the historic poor farm. Around 2012, the county supervisors worked with food system experts to initiate frameworks for improving farmer viability, supporting new farmers through improved land access, in addition to expanding the available resources of training and education. Jason Grimm, the Executive Director of Iowa Valley Resource Conservation & Development emphasized that the newer generation of today’s farmers come from non-farm backgrounds, or are one or more generation removed from working on a family farm. Even now, developing education access remains vital, with an aging farmer population reaching or well past the age of retirement, who struggle with succession planning alongside an ever-volatile climate of financial and environmental pressures. This means aging farmers must decide what happens to their farms, which may be bound up in their own sense of identity, family history, and more.  

With such a clear demand for education and access, the county’s timing for proposal requests provided something of a perfect alignment—matching need with available resource in addition to the political will to try something different. On the redesign and development master plan, Jason worked with V Fixmer-Oraiz. You’ll remember that prior to launching a successful county supervisor campaign, V worked as a community planner, and their efforts were crucial to bringing disability history closer to ground. And with another crew of imaginative regional food systems leaders, Jason also helped plant seeds for the organization that would become GROW Johnson County, with Scott, John Boller of the Coralville Community Food Pantry, and Bob Anderlick of Table to Table.  

Scott Koepke, 30:04: 

Cut to the chase, 2016 when my dear brother, John Boller, who is the director of the Coralville Community Food Pantry, I had been working with him for years on food rescue stuff and gardening. And he said, "Hey, I got an idea. The county is putting out another RFP to figure out what to do with the Poor Farm. And I'd like you to be my partner in, you're kind of the operational guy, and would you like to join me in this mission to go to the Poor Farm, produce food, annual vegetables starting to distribute to the food pantries?" And I didn't have to think too long to know that this was another path diverging in my life that I had to take.   

Emerson Narrates, 30:56: 

As Scott tells it, at the end of 2015, the initial goal was simply to grow soil, then figure out infrastructure for water, washing, and storage. Growing “soil” might sound a bit redundant for the non-grower, but we are talking about a living organism with its own ecosystem and metrics of “health.” I’ll tell you, as someone who is not a soil scientist, I am fascinated by soil, and the people who since the 1800s, developed soil science. Horticulturalists know plant science, and they channel metaphors of fertility, health, and capacity to reference how to tend to soil’s growing conditions. Metaphors matter because they give us a disposition for engaging with an entity on the basis of something completely different. I promise this is a rabbit hole worth digging. Check out this passage from a paper presented in 1901 by H.W. Wiley, of the Bureau for Chemistry for the U.S. Department of Agriculture: 

“In the opening paragraph of my work on soil analysis it is stated that soil ‘consists chiefly of mineral substances, together with some products of organic life and of certain living organisms.’ It is ten years since that sentence was written, and the more thought I give to the question, the more I am convinced it is true that soil is a living organism and that it deserves the same consideration at the hands of the farmer that any other living creature receives. That is, if the soil is to be considered not as a dead body, but as a living organism, it is entitled to kindness, fair treatment, and proper nutrition.”[5]  

Wiley was speaking to an audience at a meeting of agricultural experiment stations, the record of which was printed by the US Department of Agriculture. Even in the late 1800s, chemists were calling attention to the impact of agricultural practices on what they called “soil fertility.” Another metaphor. Charles E. Thorne, the first full time director of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, even went on as far to say: “the existence and increase of the human race depends upon the maintenance of increase of soil fertility,” and “this problem transcends in importance all other objects of scientific investigation.”[6] Maybe at this conference, they also talked more about what changes in the soil and beyond were prompting such radical concern over the future of humanity—but for now, I’m noting Thorne’s concern with bounded fates.

Even more curiously, fertility metaphors in horticulture originate in the 18th century and the work of Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish biologist who is most well-known for systems of classification otherwise known as “taxonomy.” His work, the “Sexual classification of plants” exported knowledge of human sexuality to vegetal life in order to provide an explanation of how plants reproduce. Call it the origins of “the birds and the bees.” So, after I take all of this into account, I find that soil is a funny word. It is a noun and a verb, both of which tend to have negative connotations. This is especially the case when soil is equated as “dirt;” and dirt soils. In cultures with firm separations between what is imagined as “clean” and what is not, dirt conjures all sorts of associations with literal waste and excrement.[7] In the context of the poor farm, phrases like “dirt cheap” or “dirt poor” also tell me how much we devalue what gets named “dirt.” In short, the distance between soil as dirty and humans as dirt is not too far apart, it seems. In these metaphors, I hear some foundational hierarchies that still resonate with our social order today.

So, there’s much to say about this connection—least of which is that how we talk about the more than human world matters, particularly when our wellbeing is at stake. Some forms of dependency get taken for granted, or at least, don’t trigger the same kind of intense scrutiny. What do I mean by that? Here, I’d include growers or farmers who depend on soil health for their livelihood; or broader ecosystems of watersheds, swamps, and streams who depend on healthy soil for flood mitigation. And, people depend on soil health for not only a dependable food supply, but vast ecosystem services—all of which you heard from Chant in the last chapter. 

This is why some call soil a “living infrastructure” of the planet, and others call it the skin of the earth.[8] Soil is always working, and like us, it can be exhausted when its needs are not met, yet the demand to work is relentless. Soil work is energy production that emanates from the sun. Solar power initiates cycles for microbial communities to incubate and proliferate, who then produce nutrients, water carries those nutrients into the roots, and the plant feeds and grows until harvest. But what happens when soil’s needs are not met? Potentially, linkages between webs fray, adaption may become less resilient. We often forget that the roots of the term resilience came first from ecological science, to describe how ecosystems “bounce back” after disruption. What happens if those disruptions are chronic, and worse yet, intensified through increasing demands for production? By current standards, the demand for production outpaces soil’s needs for rest and opportunities for regeneration.

So, I tell Scott how I am impressed by how attuned he is to soil’s needs. Soil enthusiasts must think about water, air, minerals, and organic matter—all which matter for life-making. Talk to Scott long enough, and you, too, will smile knowingly at the statement: “everything comes back to soil.”

Scott Koepke, 38:58: 

So, John and I got out here in 2015, the end of that season. And put in a cover crop that year because it was all about just preparing the soil for 2016. And if I recall at the time, it was Jim Sladek was one of the farmers who was leasing land out here. And I think, I'm pretty sure it was him because we didn't have any equipment he put in winter rye for us. 

Emerson Narrates, 39:24: 

Cover crops like winter rye or cow pea facilitate necessary rest and replenish nitrogen and phosphorus for later planting. In the 2025 season, this looked like cow pea quickly sprouting over what would be later used for garlic production. Listeners will also remember the banks of sorghum that run north to south, intermixed with various shades of sunflowers and native plants, providing nesting grounds for red wing black birds. But what is truly marvelous is that all of this is what is perceptible above ground. What happens below is another, soil dependent world of life. 

I want to return just briefly to my conversation with the arborist and restoration ecologist team of Geoff and Chant, whose work primarily focused on prairie restoration. Too often we hear laments that publicly funding prairie restoration takes away from funds that could go towards food production, or a belief that prairies are simply “weeds” that take up land and could be used for other purposes. I’m really struck by the underlying economic logic of this argument—that prioritizing one entity is an opportunity cost for something perceived as less valuable. 

What’s clear to me is that, at the very least, perceptions of value are fairly arbitrary, and even political choices themselves. How do we reconcile these economic logics with the reality that food production is fundamentally interdependent on robust prairies? Thick soil is flood mitigation, prairie roots are primordial water filters, prairie flowers in bloom bring pollinators seeking fuel stops or tasty snacks. And all of this pales in comparison to the energy production of life underground, an environment teeming with microbes and fungal webs. 

Geoff Mouming, 41:44:

So, there are kind of unique communities of microbes and fungi, all that stuff that's going on under the ground too. What does that contribute to the health and the resilience?  

Emerson Narrates, 41:54:

Geoff emphasized how the soil we need is a co-creation of conditions that, at this point, can’t be recreated. Its value is akin to what the Rocky Mountain range means to Colorado, and we need to determine collectively how to ensure its vitality far into the future: 

Geoff Mouming, 42:19:

Through a combination of glacial drift that kind of gave us the mineral part of the soil… Well, this is what gave us the organic matter in the soil. so for millennia of these plants growing, the root systems breaking down, the plant material breaking down, the animal life grazing on it, and then kind of then recycling it, walking through it, fire washing all of it, all of those things combined to make a really, really rich loamy soil with rich organic matter, such that we had what 12 to 24 feet of it. In areas at the poor farm, because a lot of that area where food growing is going on now. We did do a soil test there and it showed it was pretty rich in organic matter and that very top flat part really wasn't subject to erosion, so we had a little bit of a glimpse of what went into it, but a prairie ecosystem we still live in the tall grass prairie in reality. That is what our ecosystem is no different than the Rocky Mountains are in Colorado. And I think it's something that historically it evolved for a reason. It evolved in concert with other things going on at the same time to give us this incredibly valuable resource here. We grow all kinds of food and we're still doing it, you know, almost 200 years after European settlement and it's still providing bumper crops for us. So, there's still something to be said for that. That said, it's not a finite resource. So, if the soil washes away, blows away, is depleted of all that organic matter and it's soiled, then that is not going to come back, not in anybody's lifetime that I can conceive of. Right. So, and as Chant had mentioned, that would take millennia to reform that. So, I think it's important to understand what the tall grass prairie ecosystem contributed to that and to consider as part of a broad conversation, what do we need to do to make sure that that resource continues to exist for Iowans? Because we're not going to stop being an agricultural state.  

[audio of birds singing at the poor farm site, and fades into Emerson’s narrative]

Emerson Narrates, 44:17:

For Scott, building soil in that first year into the second at the scale he, Jason, and John had proposed, tested his confidence, the logistics of planning on a season’s critical timelines overwhelmed: 

Scott Koepke, 44:34:

But then sure enough, that first season, it was just a mess. It was just mud-soaked paths, and alleys, and rows that were just unmanageable in many situations where you just couldn't get in the field. And I don't care if you're doing row crops or specialty crops. If you can't get in your fields, literally, especially with heavier machinery to do your work, you miss a certain window of planting. That's a critical timing situation where if you're direct sowing or transplanting, the most labor-intensive part of this is April pretty much for the most part, I'm exaggerating, of course. But you're just trying to get stuff in, and you don't know. So, you literally look up at the sky every morning in early spring, you're like, "Okay, can we go, is it a go?" And then you go, and then you're into it a few hours and all of a sudden, an unexpected storm comes in, and wind, or whatever, and you got to get out of the field because it's lightning and you got metal in your hands.  

Emerson Narrates, 45:40:

Scott confided in a few of his friends, including John Boller, how the vision tested his confidence. It was a new scale—a daunting change from community and school gardens. Scott stressed, there’s a huge difference between a garden and a farm… 

Scott Koepke,46:02:

Scale was very daunting to me. I decided to really sit there before I committed. And when I committed to John's vision, it was, okay, let's go. But man, I didn't hold this in. I shared this with him. I said, "John, I don't know if I'm your guy." He says, "Well, yeah, I think you are." And I'm like, "Well, thank you for the vote of confidence, but…" I don't think enough people understand that when you go to, and I've done as much of seven acres of vegetables, which just literally breaks your back. It's a lot of work. A lot of work. It's a labor of love granted. But man, April through October, you are just busting your ass for very little return, except that in many cases, just the emotional investment that you're getting back with the connections you're making with people and you're feeding people.  

Emerson Narrates, 46:59: 

And so… Scott leaned on his friends, confiding in them of his doubts. Hearing Scott talk about these moments of uncertainty reminds me of the commitment, love and support that we need from others to take a gamble on a plan—to do things differently for everyone. We need each other when we are bold enough to build something in the times we are standing in the middle of a muddy field, and the rain is pouring, and we question our own capacity, our knowledge, and our energy to see it through. As Scott tells it, he needed to express his overwhelm, and in turn, his friends held his doubts, they listened and offered their confidence.  

Scott Koepke, 47:55: 

But I remember sharing, and this is a good lead into the insecurity I had. Because I remember talking about my plans with my buddy Andy, who Andy and Melissa Dunham, they ran the largest vegetable farm in Iowa up until a few years ago, 20 acres in Grinnell Heritage Farm. Andy and I had both been in the Peace Corps. I'm a little older than him, but when we first met, he was selling to the co-op. And I remember meeting him many, many years ago and being so drawn to him just like John, like a brother, like Jason Grimm, like a brother to this day, Bob Andrlik. If you're blessed in this life to intersect with people who are, I call comets of light. You grab a little bit of that light; it makes you more light. But anyway, so Andy came out to the farm one day because he was in town. He came out here to grow with me. Because he went, "I want to see your new operation." And I was just like, well, there wasn't much to show at that point because it was just, again, the cover crops and the plans, the vision of the dream. But I told Andy how nervous I was and scared frankly to do this. I just thought about how emotional I got, and still, obviously, get about that meeting, because I remember Andy took my hand, he, literally, took my hand, and he walked me out there and he says, "Scottie, you got this." Because I told him I wanted to do landscape fabric. He's like, "No. You're not going to do ... We're not going to do landscape fabric." Well, I did, but then I understood what he was saying, because at a certain point, you got to pivot away from that. You can't rely so much on that. But, anyway, I will never forget that moment where he, literally, took my hand and told me that I could do this. He believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. So, Andy was probably the most educated, greatest farmer besides Jason Grimm I've ever worked with. So, I got through that first year, and I still have the logbook of the volume we produced. It was close to 30,000 pounds of food…

Emerson Narrates, 50:18:

But Scott will also tell you that the pounds of food in those early years pale in comparison to what else was being grown on site…

Scott Koepke, 50:30:

But it doesn't really say much to me personally as a farmer what you're doing, because it's going way beyond growing food. You're growing people. Maybe that sounds crazy, but the relationships I was telling you about when I first met you, that you build out here are just as vital as any food you're growing. The interns we had, Emma Davis, Natalie Mabes, these people who started with us as students at the University of Iowa, and would come out here in the summer and we were able to give them a little bit of a stipend, the volunteers that started pouring in. Like, "How can we help?"

Emerson Narrates, 51:03:

And so, on that day at the end of the 2025 season, when Scott and I sat inside of the cultivation station as he shared memories, it felt serendipitous to watch him realize how what was built over those first ten years was a legacy. He was planting carrots and potatoes long before the commercial kitchen broke ground, or before the “pack shed” facilitated more efficient movement of each day’s harvest to a distribution network of community partners, or even before a commercial sized greenhouse replaced a smaller donated hoophouse. Those early years of GROW, to use one of Scott’s metaphors, were ripples in a pond that just kept getting bigger, and bigger with each passing year.  

Scott Koepke, 51:57:

But there were all kinds of ripples in the pond that I've seen slowly come to fruition.  

Emerson Narrates, 52:03: 

I shared with Scott how his ripples are where new generations build. Dreams are made on intergenerational timelines, and when we do something as audacious as building new systems, we share the perspective of tree time. People build from the remnants of what we have capacity to create. So, we have our smaller ripples that we might have capacity for, and then people can build up and up and up and up, and the dream gets bigger. And we collaborate with people we’ve never known but who made something possible, even when they didn’t believe they could.  

As a writer, I do love to dip into allusions—Scott’s ripples and meeting him at the crossroad of time when we did—well, it felt like its own kind of kismet. His reminder to take to the soil whatever troubles you is a balm in a time of collective struggle. I did not know at the time how much I needed to meet Scott, to feel like a future could still be planted, people grown, legacies maintained, honor and dignity rooted in this hallowed ground, where in between daily chores, former residents might have run their fingers in the soil before turning their gaze upwards to the sky, seeking birds in flight, soaring freely into the horizon.  

[audio of shoes walking in the grass and birds singing in the background, that underlay into Emerson’s narrative]

…You can continue listening to this story, with Chapter 5, part 2, next, on Disability Ecologies.

[1] Feeding America, “Food Insecurity among the Overall Population in Iowa,” 2023, Accessed 22 December 2025, https://map.feedingamerica.org/county/2023/overall/iowa
[2] Grow Johnson County Website, Accessed 21 December 2025, https://www.growjohnsoncounty.org/.
[3] USDA, Census of Agriculture, 2022, State Level Report, Accessed 22 December 2025, https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2022/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_2_US_State_Level/
[4] “How do we talk about the food system,” Iowa Food System Coalition, https://www.iowafoodsystemcoalition.org/how-do-we-talk-about-the-food-system
[5] H.W. Wiley, “Soil Fertility,” in Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations (Washington Printing Offices, 1901), 142-143.
[6] C. E. Thorne, “Methods of Conducting Investigations Relating to Maintenance or Increase of Soil Fertility,” in Proceedings, 133.
[7] Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Routledge), 1966.
[8] María Puiga la Bellacasa, “Encountering Bioinfrastructure: Ecological Struggles and the Sciences of Soil,” Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture, and Policy 28 (2014): 26-40; de la Bellacasa, “Re-animating Soils: Transforming human-soil affections through science, culture and community,” The Sociological Review Monographs 67, no. 2 (2019): 391-407; Anna Krzywoszynska and Greta Marchesi, “Toward a Relational Materiality of Soils,” Environmental Humanities 12:1 (2020): 190-204; William Bryant Logan, Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth (W.W. Norton & Company), 2007.