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Igl Farms
W9689 Cherry Road
Antigo, WI 54409
Herman Igl bought this north-central Wisconsin farm in the 1930s and became
one of the first commercial potato growers in the area. His son, Tom Igl,
has been farming this land his entire life. He and his wife Nancy raised
a family of seven children and are now joined by their sons Brian, who
lives and works full-time on the farm, and Brad, who assists during harvest.
The Igls were a dairy and potato farm until the early 1990s when they sold
the dairy herd. In 1997 they began the transition to organic with about
20 acres. Today the entire 185 tillable acres is certified organic. The
Igls specialize in potatoes but also rotate crops such as oats and clover/grass
or alfalfa/grass for hay or green manure to improve the soil. A new project
is field peas for certified organic seed. They have pasture used for horses
and to rotationally graze their small herd of beef cattle, which they direct
market.
1. We strive to grow a healthful, high-quality food—not just a commodity—by
applying the principles of biological farming in an organic farm
management system. These include balancing soil nutrients, crop rotations,
and using cover crops and green manures to feed soil life and increase
biological activity to improve soil tilth and structure.
2. We try to work with natural systems as much as possible to establish
the healthy soil › healthy plants › healthy animals and people
chain, rather than using chemicals, harsh fertilizers, and unsustainable,
soil-damaging practices to try to push for top yields by trying to control
and manipulate nature to our exclusive benefit.
3. Our philosophy is that healthful, nutritious food can only be grown
on healthy, balanced soils that are biologically alive and have good structure.
The best way to achieve this is under a well-managed organic farming system.
This must work with natural systems, must be kept sustainable through conscientious
production management and a strong sense of land stewardship, and it must
be profitable for the farmer in order for him or her to continue to produce
the kind of food people want. We do not use or promote the use of genetically
modified organisms (GMOs), synthetic agricultural chemicals, harsh commercial
fertilizers, synthetic growth hormones, or subtherapeutic antibiotics.
4. Our wish is to establish the most direct marketing relationship
with people as possible. We want people to know and trust us and
how we are producing their food, and we want to supply food to people
who actually appreciate our hard work—which makes it feel worthwhile
to us.
In a farmer’s scarce moments of free time, Tom enjoys horseback riding,
oil painting, flower gardening, and reading. Nancy sneaks in some crafts,
quilting, stamping and reading. And Brian enjoys cross-country skiing,
reading, hunting and wildlife and habitat conservation.
It is both a values-based and economic decision. It is values-based
because I don’t believe in conventional agriculture and don’t like the
direction it is going; it is economic because we farm full-time and can’t
make a living from our small farm with conventional crop prices.
The satisfaction of a good crop that we grew using biological/organic
farming principles and not synthetic fertilizers and chemicals or GMOs.
Also, the good feeling when someone buys our products and genuinely appreciates
what we have done. We are not a large or fancy operation, but we do our
best to grow and sell the best quality food products we can. We face constant
challenges from weather, pests, equipment problems and industrial agriculture.
People should buy local/regional, family farm-grown, organic products
to support a healthy local farm economy and farm families (who are hopefully
receiving a fair price for their product). They should avoid buying “organic” products
from mega-scale, industrial model, corporate-owned businesses.
We are a true family farm, fairly small, raising an organic crop
that, in the rest of the industry, is increasingly being raised with more
intensive levels of fertilizer and chemical inputs and on an ever-increasing
scale. We also like to know as much as possible who our customers are,
which is extremely rare in the conventional system or even the industrial-scale
corporate organic system.
Although we have learned a lot since we began farming organically, we still
have a long way to go in our journey of trying to understand how this whole
system works. We hope you are satisfied with the fruits of our labors,
and we greatly appreciate the support you give us by purchasing our products.
We sell our products directly at our farm, and they are at times
available from CSAs. Most sales are wholesale or retail can be found at Willy
Street Co-op in Madison and some Twin Cities’ co-ops (supplied by Roots & Fruits).
For more information on Igl Farms, call (715) 627-7888 or e-mail at iglfarms@verizon.net. |
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