As a beginning flower farmer, it helps to rent land with fields of wildflowers already established. Kira Santiago lucked out when this farming opportunity came into her life. Kira grows flowers for Kira's Flowers on Dave Bishop's farm near Peoria, Illinois.
Dave is a fifth generation farmer and his family's farm, PrairiErth, won the Organic Farmers of the Year award from MOSES in 2017.
Kira and Dave recorded a conversation with StoryCorps about the challenges and rewards of growing food and flowers within a "get big or get out" agricultural mindset. Their interview took place at the Midwest Organic Education Service ( MOSES) Farming conference last winter.
Pealer Bryniarski, a student in Allison Quantz's Radio Innovation course at Indiana University's Media school, produced this piece, included in the Earth Eats podcast.
The original interview was provided courtesy of StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and share humanity's stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world. www.storycorps.org
This recording is part of research led by the Indiana University Ostrom Workshop. They are studying farm transitions from one generation to the next.
The researchers are learning especially from programs that help people in agriculture who are not related to one another, but who work together to create a farming opportunity for a new farmer, and a meaningful legacy for an established farmer.
The research is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Service.
Special thanks to Julia DeBruicker Valliant of the Ostrom Workshop.