After over a year in the making, Stuart Swanson, who farms in the southeast part of Wright County, took home a notable award last month at the Iowa State Fair. Swanson was honored with the Environmental Leader Award. The award acknowledges farmers who take voluntary actions to improve and protect the environment and the state’s natural resources while serving as leaders in their farming communities. Swanson attributes his penchant for sound environmental practices to both family tradition and new technology and research.
Stuart Swanson is a third generation Wright County farmer. He explained that after harvest this year, he will have completed 29 years of farming. Stuart met his wife Lori at Iowa State and moved back to the area in 1992.
Agriculture runs deep in the Swanson family. Stuart and Lori have four daughters. The oldest three, Adelai, Celeste, and Lilian, are all ISU grads and now in the ag field. The youngest, Delia, is a senior at Clarion-Goldfield-Dows, but already is planning to attend ISU as well and study agriculture.
Swanson says he now farms about 2000 acres of both owned and rented land. His farm has a 50/50 crop rotation of corn and soybeans. The family also finishes feeder pigs and formerly ran a farrow-to-finish hog operation.
Swanson is very active in various areas of ag in addition to staying busy on his own farm. He currently serves as the Iowa Corn Growers Association Director, representing District 2. In past experiences, he has served on the Strategic Planning Taskforce and currently serves as the vice chair of the Animal Agriculture & Environment Committee. Swanson has served in leadership positions in the North Central Coop Board of Directors, County FSA Committee, and the Wright County Fair Swine committee.
When talking about his environmental and conservation practices, Swanson says, “For over 30 years, we’ve been trying to implement them on a yearly basis.” He is passionate about practices that protect water quality. He describes methods like using buffer strips and waterways to help improve soil health and water quality on his farm. He utilizes the farmable wetlands program as well.
Over the years, Swanson is also proud to have reduced tillage on his farm. “We’ve removed between three to five tillage passes in the growing season thanks to new technology and chemicals that allow us to control nutrients without turning the soil.”
He added that nutrient management is a big priority on his farm. The Swanson operation does a lot of soil sampling and meticulously decides how much nutrient to place on each acre so as not to over apply.
Swanson credits his predecessors for planting the seeds of good environmental farming practices in the family. “Things that my grandfather and dad did to protect the farm have allowed me the opportunity to continue what I’m doing and hopefully pass it on to my daughters,” he emphasized.
He also noted that tools, programs, and information provided by entities like the NRCS and ISU have been invaluable. Swanson added that his neighbors and peers in Wright County also “fuel a desire to be a better farmer and provide great advice.”
Because of his accomplishments in protecting soil and water resources in the county, the Wright County Soil and Water Conservation District nominated Swanson for the 2020 Iowa Farm Environmental Leader Award. The award is traditionally given at the State Fair. Because last year’s fair was largely canceled, Swanson received the award this year, along with 88 other family farms across the state.
Though he wasn’t able to attend the fair to receive the award himself, Swanson’s daughter Adelai accepted it on behalf of the whole family. Both the governor and State Ag Secretary Mike Naig were at the ceremony and presented the award.
Swanson said he was proud to receive the honor and as he looks forward, he plans to continue to hone and expand his environmentally savvy farming practices. He hopes to acquire a sprayer that will allow him to control his in-season application of nitrogen even more precisely.
What other practices he will eventually implement remains to be seen, but Swanson’s stewardship to soil and water quality won’t be eroding any time soon.
