Ask Minnesota pork producer Dave Mensink what shapes his conservation practices take at the farm gate and he’s got a quick answer.
Circle.
Mensink Farms in Preston, Minn., is one big circle of production, with pork square in the center.
On their crop land, he and wife, Tracie, grow corn and mill it on site to feed the pigs that go out the door each year. Then they use the manure to fertilize the corn.
It’s pretty simple, really.
“Corn feeds the pigs, pigs make manure and manure grows the corn,” Mensink says. “We feed as much corn as we can because the more we raise, the less we have to buy.”
Circularity like this is not an uncommon practice in the area because it provides a number of benefits for growers such as Mensink, namely capturing opportunity for efficiency and profitability by reducing commercial inputs.
“The ability to leverage circularity helps farmers, especially those in the upper-Midwest, remain competitive from an environmental and economical perspective,” says Lauren Servick, director, public policy strategy and sustainability, Minnesota Pork Producers Association. “This helps capture the value at each part of the farming enterprise, and for farmers like Dave, using manure to grow the corn that then goes back into the pig as feed gives them a competitive advantage.
“From an ecosystem perspective, pig farming where the feed is grown helps keep the nutrient input cycle local.”
Protecting What’s Below from Above
But, because Mensink Farms abuts the Forestville State Park and sits atop a unique ecological bedrock known as karst, every bend and turn of his farm’s circle is knitted with conservation.
“In this region we’ve got to do what we do in an environmentally-responsible manner,” he says.
On Mensink Farms, that looks like making accommodations for a soil type that is both highly filterable and highly erodible at the same time. These accommodations form another circle for Mensink – one that means he is protecting what is underneath the ground through conservation practices above ground.
Because of that unique soil type, Mensink must use caution when applying manure to the land surface because excess nitrogen can leach into both surface and ground water.
Working with local University of Minnesota officials has yielded Mensink a manure management plan that is keeping his water wells at acceptable nitrogen levels.
“We test all our manure before we apply it so we have an idea of how much we should put on,” he says. “And then we implement our soil tests and report our yields back. We follow our manure management plan.”
For growers like Mensink, there are many resources to help get started and even hone an existing manure management plan. Local and regional USDA-NRCS experts provide technical and sometimes even financial support in manure management. According to USDA-NRCS team lead conservationist Jessica Bronson, NRCS can walk beside growers in ways that support stewardship through manure management.
“Producers can obtain assistance from NRCS to plan manure applications and as a part of a complete soil and manure testing to better understand their nutrient production,” Bronson says.
This allows farmers to determine where and when nutrients should be applied for maximum benefit to crops, he adds.
“Storage can be a key component of manure/nutrient management, so NRCS assists producers in understanding their storage needs, obtaining additional storage, upgrading old or failing storages and supporting practices that address odor, transfer or treatment,” Bronson says. “At application, NRCS guides producers in understanding setbacks and regulations and adopting new practices such as incorporation or implementing transfer infrastructure.”
That stringent manure management on Mensink Farms means that he and his wife can feel good about what is underground as well, for one specific reason.
“We have six wells we’ve tested of our own, and they’re all below nitrate risk levels,” he says. “We want to keep it that way because we have grandkids who drink that water.”
Mensink is also protecting his soils by managing what is planted on top of them, namely by installing buffer zones around karst-driven sinkholes that also create habitat for pollinators.
Assistance through USDA-NRCS, in part, made those projects possible.
“We have 4.5 acres of pollinators that we did through the Conservation Stewardship Program,” he says. “We still have them in there even though we’re not getting paid because they are much less we have to mow and it looks good along the site.”
This year, Mensink is experimenting with cover crops by aerial-applying winter rye, tillage radish and camelina to keep his more highly-erodible land in place.
Full Circle
For the past several years, Mensink has been working with Minnesota Pork Producers Association and National Pork Board to record and report the impact that conservation has on his farm. This record-keeping serves dual purposes: not only is Mensink able to use that data to make better operational decisions that serve both the environment and the bottom-line, but industry officials say it adds up to building trust within the value chain.
“On-farm assessments look at the practices the Mensink family is using on their farm and quantify that data to help them understand the environmental impact in the areas of carbon sequestration, water use, greenhouse gas emissions and soil erosion reductions,” Servick says. “By using primary data and participating over four years, Dave and his family are able to evaluate the changes they’ve been making on their farm over time which is aggregated into a state and national report that can be used extensively with the supply chain partners and the public.”
This work serves as the foundation of the National Pork Board’s Pork Cares Farm Impact Reports, which the organization uses to advocate for the future of the industry.
“National and state organizations can use the easy-to-understand, blinded and aggregated Pork Cares Farm Impact Reports to talk with decision-makers and value chain partners about farmers’ commitment to pigs, people and the planet,” says Eugenia Hartsook, National Pork Board director, grant administration. “These conversations, backed by the on-farm data and ethical principles, are the building blocks to help protect farmers’ freedom to operate.”
While Mensink values his work with the pork industry, for him, the impact that his conservation practices have on the future of his farm is more immediate. Even though he and his wife are the first-generation of Mensinks to farm this land, he’s hoping they are far from the last.
“We are in the process of farm transition to our son Alex and his wife Katie,” he says. “Every year, he takes on a little more and I take on a little less.”
America’s Conservation Ag Movement is a public/private collaborative that meets growers across the country where they are on their conservation journey and empowers their next step with technical assistance from USDA-NRCS and innovation solutions and resources from agriculture’s leading providers. Learn more at www.americasconservationagmovement.com.
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