Soil Health champion: Ryan speer

The National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) created the Soil Health Champions Network to bring together farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners. Soil Health Champions work with local NRCS and Conservation district staff to educate others about soil health and conservation practices. Specifically, Soil Health Champs have two key responsibilities:

• conduct soil health outreach in their communities such as: holding farm tours, hosting field demonstrations, speaking at conferences and meetings, giving media interviews, presenting at seminars or workshops, and assisting with educational booths at community events
• report on their outreach activities to NACD. NACD collects and utilizes Soil Health Champion research, stories and testimonials on their website and in national publications. By engaging in this network, NACD is able to amplify the voices of conservation-minded producers on a national platform.

We are proud to announce that Ryan Speer was recently selected as a Soil Health Champion for the Sedgwick County Conservation District. Ryan has been with Jacob Farms in Sedgwick for 18 years, first as a farm manager and later as an operator/co-owner.  Prior to this venture, he was a Certified Crop Adviser (CCA) agronomist for the Scott Cooperative in Scott City.  Ryan and his wife, Jennifer, have two sons.  The farm has been under no-till for about 18 years and has been using intensive planting rotations, variable rate applications, and cover crops for 11 years.

"Our goal is to have a living root in the soil as many days of the year as possible on every acre.  Some fields it is 365 days a year or very close.  This includes cash crops and cover crops that are planted in between all cash crops.  We also do custom grazing on some of these covers in the winter with cow calf operations in the area.  We use multispecies winter cover crops but rely heavily on cereal rye for its many good qualities. 
Our goal is to provide a fair return to our landowners and improve soil conditions to a state better than we started farming it.  This in turn will provide the farm a stable income stream for future generations."