Women in Agriculture: A family affair in taking on a niche crop

Growing up in the heartland of farming, Minnwest’s very own Robin Bakken knows firsthand what it’s like to farm the land as a member of a family-run operation. Robin and her husband both grew up on small family farms 3 miles apart from each other, growing corn, soybeans and raising hogs.

But this quintessential Minnesota farming operation would take a turn in 2019, and it would be a year like no other for Bakken family. Robin, her husband Ron, daughter Jessica and her husband Kyle decided to venture into farming the niche crop of hemp. When her daughter Jessica proposed growing hemp on their farm this year, Robin and her husband were faced with some hard decisions and unchartered territory. With hemp production, being a relatively new crop for a lot of farms, and with the 2018 Farm Bill, being very much in its infancy, there was still a lot of unknowns around on how they were going to execute on their vision and also how to even have a successful crop.

Bakken decided to take her research further and leaned on the farm community for expertise and insight. After meeting in Colorado with other farmers who had already successfully farmed and harvested hemp as well as touring their farms, the family decided to give it a go. The first year’s harvest was not without its curveballs, and would prove to be a test in adaptability for this seasoned farming family. Robin shared her experience and what she has learned in her first year of hemp crop production, as she managed the entire operation from planting to harvest. 

• Do your research - Some things we thought would work, didn’t work in the Minnesota climate. For example, we were going to hang our plants to dry, and we learned that Minnesota has too high of humidity to hang your plants to dry, so things that worked in other states didn’t work here. We had to be adaptable. We ended up converting two of our grain bins into drying units using infrared heat to solve for this issue.  
• Use your support network of farmers and community resources for help – We sent pictures of our crops to other farmers, and they helped weigh in on what we could try or what might work. “We could not have done it without our community of farmers,” says Robin.
• Think outside the box - this is a new industry, and nothing is set in stone yet, we’re at the frontier of it, so if you try something that doesn’t work, try something else!
• Don’t get discouraged - there were days we looked at each other and thought, “what are we doing?” But ultimately we stuck with it and finished out the year’s harvest together as a family.
• Hemp is not an easy crop to harvest due to its’ fibrous texture - we ended up hand harvesting the hemp with a Stiehl hand cutter and hand loaded it as well. My husband had built a rotary cutter on our tractor to speed this process up, but due to some unforeseen issues we mostly harvested by hand.

Bakken Family’s biggest success this year:

Bakken described working with her friends and family as the most rewarding part of this year. Every member of the family helped out, friends of their daughters they hadn’t seen in years pitched in. “My daughter and son-in-law uprooted their lives in California for this. I think putting the first bag of biomass up and seeing we actually harvested something together was the best moment.” Robin’s parents grew up on a farm, and in that moment the whole family truly experienced what their grandparents did day in and out. 

“Farmers really put their heart into it, they do it because they love what they do and they love the land. It’s not an easy occupation.”

Bakken recalls growing up and seeing how supportive the farm community is,

“I grew up in the community, and if someone needs help, you help them. Whether it’s simply supporting them over a cup of coffee, helping them harvest their crop, or feeding their livestock when someone’s sick, farmers have each other’s backs.”

Plans for next year:

We have already registered to be a part of the program next year, and are planning to buy seeds and start our own plants in our greenhouse facility. The family has agreed to cut back a few acres of production next season as well. We plan to take a few more trips to conferences in various states this winter to learn more about the industry, but for now my husband and I plan to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary with a trip to Las Vegas!

If you missed our previous #WomenInAg series posts, please see our related blog posts:

Attorney makes case for creating a fulfilling career in an ag community

Why Brooke Hoffbeck is saying yes to a career in agriculture

Jacqui Cottrell "Queen of Quinoa"

Ag lenders find meaning in role as farmers' trusted advisor