Show Notes
Matt Hatala of Prairie Rose Farms shares his unlikely path from adoption and military service to raising pasture pork in Iowa. He discusses regenerative hog production, farm marketing, local food systems, water quality, animal welfare, and why rebuilding agriculture requires courage, transparency, and healthier relationships with land, community, and risk.
hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your CRP, Pasture Mixes, Habitat Mixes, Native Seed, and more)
Iowa Cover Crop (for all your cover crop mixes, forage mixes, small grain mixes)
More from The Prairie Farm Podcast
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.