Gardens of Eagan Celebrates 30 Years of Organic Farming

On a sunny day in April, we took the short drive from our home in Minneapolis to Gardens of Eagan, an organic farm in Dakota County owned by Martin and Atina Diffley. This year is the 30th anniversary of Gardens of Eagan, and we were headed out to interview the Diffleys about the history of their farm. We were very curious about what it was like to run an organic operation. Above all, we wanted some reassurance that organic farmers were not an endangered species.

Atina, wearing a broad straw hat, had her hands in the soil of a raised lettuce garden in front of the house when we arrived. Martin, also covered with a wide straw hat, was just coming in from the field. He told us his four-row mechanical corn planter had just had a minor failure - one column had become plugged with corn seed and so one in four rows didn't get seeded - but because he planted a small field he was able to seed the unseeded rows with a hand planter. For Martin, this was a small lesson in why farmers should avoid gigantism. "Never get so big that you can't fall back to the simple ways," he said.

On the deck of their house, Martin and Atina told us a story that could have come right out of a novel. It's a story with a happy ending; Martin and Atina are in love with farming, they have no plans to leave it, and thanks in part to their loyal co-op customers, they are financially solvent. But this satisfying outcome was by no means foreordained. They had to survive frost, drought, devastating hail, debt, dislocation due to urban sprawl, and exhaustion.

To begin with, 1973, the year Martin rented five acres of sandy loam on his family's fifth generation farm, turned out to be the worst possible year to get into farming. That year, the growing season was the shortest on record; it was bracketed by frosts in June and September. This was followed by four years of drought. Martin survived this drought by specializing in melons (on the advice of uncles who had farmed successfully throughout the Dirty 30's) and selling to the co-ops that were just then emerging in the Twin Cities. When the drought broke and normal weather returned, Martin took on debt to expand to 50 acres, but the crop that secured his mortgage was destroyed that summer by hail. He kept the farm going for the next two years by barbering on the side and playing guitar in dance bands on the weekends. Then he plunged back into farming full time.

Atina joined Martin as his wife and farming partner in 1985, just in time to witness the sale of their farm by Martin's aunts. The land sale was forced by a public school eminent domain condemnation. During the next five years as the Diffleys looked for another farm, they farmed as many as 18 different rented properties all over Dakota County, some as far away as thirty miles. To tend to their plots on a regular basis, they had to plan each day as if they were going on an expedition. "It made us incredibly good managers," Atina remarked. "In those days, we had a caravan of trucks carrying tractors, water tanks, tools, plants, bicycles for the kids, snacks, everything we would need. While extremely challenging, it honed our managerial and organizational skills. Moreover, we learned that having fields ten miles apart is crop rotation times ten. Pretty impossible for the insects to travel that far! We rarely had insect or disease problems."

In 1991 the Diffleys bought their current farm. Compared to their sandy Eagan land, the black loam on their current farm produces greater yields because the soil has higher organic matter with superior water-holding capacity. Settling into farming on their new farm allowed them to grow with the organic market boom of the 90's. But the Diffleys had perhaps their most challenging battle still in front of them. By the latter half of the 1990's, they were exhausted. In 2000 they decided to reduce temporarily the amount of produce they would raise in order to give themselves time and energy to create a more enjoyable and sustainable work plan.

Their exhaustion was due more to their success than anything else. Minnesotans loved their produce.

"We couldn't grow it fast enough," said Martin, "the work is physically demanding - it's stoop labor, and we never said no." "By that time, I didn't know who I was," said Atina. The unpredictability of farming was another factor.

But the Diffley's "mini-sabbatical," as Atina called it, paid off. First, they used their time off to make changes, which reduced their workload by increasing efficiency. Second, and most importantly, Martin and Atina discovered what they'd always known - they love farming and are committed to organic production. Last year they jumped back into full-time farming.

The Diffleys said several times how much they appreciated the support of co-op members. In 1973 when Martin started his farming adventure the co-ops were a fledgling movement. Without the co-op consumer education, support, and commitment, he said, they could not have succeeded. We would like to return the appreciation. On behalf of co-op shoppers, we thank them for their passion and their intelligence, and for adhering to their values in the face of adversity. Without them, and organic farmers like them, we would not have the option of eating organic.