When Harold Wilken was about two years old, his father put him in a wooden box he’d made to fit next to him so he could take his son on the tractor as he cultivated his fields. For this and many other reasons, farming was Harold’s destiny – although it wasn’t until many years later that Harold, together with his wife Sandy and son Ross, became the proprietors of Janie’s Farm Organics.

From the first 33-acre field that Harold farmed organically, Janie’s Farm Organics has grown to include over 2,400 acres of USDA Certified Organic grains.

“One of the things I’m proud of on my farm is that we’re feeding people,” says Harold. “My goal is that everything we raise feeds people.”

At last count, Janie’s Farm Organics was growing wheat, oats, rye, emmer, einkorn, buckwheat, corn, soybeans (for soy milk and tofu), black turtle beans, alfalfa, popcorn, and seed corn. Harold is also growing Kernza, a perennial grain developed by The Land Institute.