Advertise on podcast: The Prairie Farm Podcast

Election day at the shop, and the crew is drowning in political mailers. Nicolas, Kent, and Riley dig into the billions of pieces mailed this election season, how many trees that takes, and a contest to turn 2028’s mailers into art. Plus sports betting, fear, and Nicolas’s latest virtue signal.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more)   MckayInsAgency.com (for all your financial planning and insurance needs)   BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting supplies and dog hunting supplies)

Hannah Inman, CEO of the Great Outdoors Foundation, joins Nicolas and Judd to talk about how a small Iowa nonprofit moves tens of millions of dollars into wetlands and water quality. They dig into why conservation has to pay, who funds it, data centers and water, and prairie in HOAs.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more)   BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting supplies and dog hunting supplies)

When does a hobby cross the line into selfishness? The Coffee Time crew digs into hunting, family, and sacrifice, then takes on EcoGPT, data centers, and whether we’d undo AI, social media, or smartphones. Plus Judd’s two missed bucks and a classic debate: solid colors versus camo in the deer woods.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more) iowacovercrop.com (for all your cover crop mixes, waterway mixes, forage mixes, small grains, and more) MckayInsAgency.com (for all your financial planning and insurance needs)

Pierce Nelles, Hoksey Native Seeds’ new marketing manager and a Driftless fly fishing guide, joins the crew to talk trout. Why cold water matters, how a prairie stretch ran three degrees cooler than pasture, Iowa stocking, spawning seasons, and what hunters and anglers really think about conservation right now.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more)   MckayInsAgency.com (for all your financial planning and insurance needs)   BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting supplies and dog hunting supplies)

Kent tells the story of the cleanest kill of his life, a muzzleloader buck stalked through standing corn on the wind. Then Nicolas runs through 17 little-known programs that help beginning and small farmers get started, from savings matches and apprenticeships to cost shares, and why marketing matters for farmers.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more) iowacovercrop.com (for all your cover crop mixes, waterway mixes, forage mixes, small grains, and more) 1. PFI Savings Incentive Program: https://practicalfarmers.org/programs/savings-incentive-program/ 2. PFI Labor4Learning: https://practicalfarmers.org/programs/labor4learning/ 3. PFI Cost-Shares:    Grazing Infrastructure: https://practicalfarmers.org/programs/grazing-infrastructure-cost-share/    Extended Rotations: https://practicalfarmers.org/programs/cost-share-for-extended-rotations/    Produce Safety: https://practicalfarmers.org/programs/produce-safety-cost-share/ 4. Land Stewardship Project Farm Beginnings: https://landstewardshipproject.org/farmbeginnings/ 5. Minnesota Down Payment Assistance Grant: https://www.mda.state.mn.us/downpayment 6. Nebraska NextGen Beginning Farmer Tax Credit: https://nextgen.nebraska.gov 7. Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship: https://www.dga-national.org/programs/dairy-grazing-apprenticeship 8. North Central SARE Farmer Rancher Grant: https://northcentral.sare.org/grants/apply-for-a-grant/farmer-rancher-grant/ 9. Farmer Veteran Fellowship Fund: https://farmvetco.org/fvfellowship/ 10. American Farmland Trust Brighter Future Fund: https://farmland.org/brighterfuture     Farm to Stay (with Airbnb): https://farmland.org/farm-to-stay 11. Organic Farming Research Foundation Farmer-Led Trials: https://ofrf.org/research/farmer-led-research-trials/ 12. Oregon Farm Corps: https://www.oregonfarmcorps.org/apprenticeship 13. California Healthy Soils Program: https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/oars/healthysoils/ 14. Washington Sustainable Farms and Fields: https://www.scc.wa.gov/sff 15. Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program (TAEP): https://www.tn.gov/taep.html 16. Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund: https://www.kyagr.com/agpolicy 17. NC AgVentures Farm Grant: https://agventures.ces.ncsu.edu/application-for-ag-ventures-grant

Tommy Hexter bought a tiny local food market at 20 and grew it to nearly seventy Iowa producers. We talk food hubs, pay-what-you-can groceries, why Walmart can’t tell you where your eggs came from, running for the statehouse at 24, and why Iowa’s soil should make it America’s food capital.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more)   iowacovercrop.com (for all your cover crop mixes, waterway mixes, forage mixes, small grains, and more)   MckayInsAgency.com (for all your financial planning and insurance needs)

Harvest has the Hoksey crew running on fumes and fighting old combines, so naturally we’re talking tractors. Nicolas, Kent, and Judd dig into how John Deere, Case IH, Allis-Chalmers, Oliver, and Ford got where they are, why farmers stay loyal to one color, and what right to repair means today.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more)   BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting supplies and dog hunting supplies)

Iowa DNR state deer biologist Jace Elliott sits down with Nicolas and Kent to talk about the new trail camera ban on public land, drones for deer recovery, nonresident tags, crossbows, and chronic wasting disease, including surprising new data on genetic resistance that has even the experts rethinking a few things.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more) iowacovercrop.com (for all your cover crop mixes, waterway mixes, forage mixes, small grains, and more)

Harvest is here and the crew is running on fumes. Nicolas, Kent, Riley, and Judd talk through a stacked week of native seed harvest, then dig into the science of sound: how traffic noise steals sleep and health, and why birdsong, running water, and prairie soundscapes actually lower your stress.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more)   MckayInsAgency.com (for all your financial planning and insurance needs)   BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting supplies and dog hunting supplies)

Realtor and CRP planter Steve Hansen joins Nicolas and Kent to test a new Friday format: a rolodex of topics. They cover Iowa's public land trail camera ban, drones in hunting, the 2016 pollinator CRP boom, 44% of Iowa CRP expiring in 2027, farmland values, and whether elk could return.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more)   BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting supplies and dog hunting supplies)

Coffee Time Wednesday with Kent and Riley. We dig into the National Cover Crop Survey: who's planting covers, what it costs, why so many farmers quit after one year, and whether Iowa can pay its way to cleaner water. Plus a combine door that tried to end harvest.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more) iowacovercrop.com (for all your cover crop mixes, waterway mixes, forage mixes, small grains, and more) MckayInsAgency.com (for all your financial planning and insurance needs)

Kent Boucher turns the mic on Nicolas Lirio for a look back at Hoksey Native Seeds' first year after Carroll. They cover an auction gone sideways, a lost recording, stubborn spiderwort, and big wins like Judd and backyard prairies, plus native pasture, faith, and why the Prairie Farm Forum matters.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more)   MckayInsAgency.com (for all your financial planning and insurance needs)   BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting supplies and dog hunting supplies)

Fire may be the cheapest pest control tool on the prairie. Nicolas, Kent, and Riley break down research showing burned pastures cut horn flies on cattle by 41% and slash tick counts. Then they honor conservation legend Wendell Berry and ask what it takes to keep young people on the land.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more) iowacovercrop.com (for all your cover crop mixes, waterway mixes, forage mixes, small grains, and more) Alex's Youtube Channel (Churched Up Garage)

Barons author Austin Frerick joins Nicolas and Kent to unpack why American butter turned white, how JBS and Cargill captured the food system, what a chicken contract actually costs the farmer who signs it, and how ethanol quietly erased the pastures Iowa used to graze. Plus Costco, Sysco, and GLP-1s.   hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more) iowacovercrop.com (for all your cover crop mixes, waterway mixes, forage mixes, small grains, and more) MckayInsAgency.com (for all your financial planning and insurance needs)

Riley takes the host chair for a Prairie Farm Podcast trivia showdown. Nicolas and Kent face 20 questions pulled from past guest episodes, covering prairie food plants, planting dates, grazing, Iowa water quality, and the Black Hawk War.  Can you beat Nicolas and Kent's score? hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, backyard prairie, hunting mixes, CRP mixes, native pasture mixes, and more)   BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting supplies and dog hunting supplies)