Randy Willrett likes “watching the sky… seeing the sun rise, seeing the sun set. It’s a beautiful place to live.” He loves the land, and being able to enjoy it every day is his favorite part of farming. Randy grows organic corn, soybeans, oats and wheat on his farm near Malta. He also raises beef cattle in partnership with his cousin and nearby farmer, Jamie Willrett.
Randy is modest, so he won’t say what soon becomes obvious: It took courage for him to switch to organic farming. Very few farmers in his area grow crops this way, with no processed fertilizers or pesticides. Those who do have formed a strong working community from which Randy can learn.
Being an organic farmer means giving up many usual way of doing things and trying new methods instead. Fertilizers are still needed to help crops grow, but they must be unprocessed and from natural sources (like potassium sulfate from dried lakebeds in Utah). Weeds must still be controlled, but rather than using herbicides, Randy uses people and machines to remove them from the fields. Sometimes the new methods don’t work and Randy has to try something else. In the twelve years since he started farming organically, he has slowly discovered what works best for him.
Rany Willrett is a 5th generation farmer. He and his wife Louise have six adult children and one grandchild. The farm West of Malta. He and his wife restarted the Malta Plowboys 4-H Club and renamed it ‘Malta Mustangs’. Randy’s dream is ‘that farming organically will become the norm rather than the exception’.
Learn more about local farmers at the DeKalb County Farm Bureau here
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