Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Farm superintendent, organic farmer share Spencer Award: Bernie Havlovic and Michael Natvig

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Bernie Havlovic

What do you do with four semi-truckloads of biochar? It’s all in a day’s work for Bernard “Bernie” Havlovic.

Havlovic manages the Iowa State University Armstrong Research and Demonstration Farm in Pottawattamie County and the ISU Neely-Kinyon Research and Demonstration Farm in Adair County and will receive the 2011 Spencer Award for Sustainable Agriculture. Having spent 32 years working with countless research projects on four ISU farms, Havlovic knows how science works – in a practical sense – in Iowa agriculture.

As far as the 70 tons of fine black ash from Kansas, Havlovic was fortunate that it arrived in southwest Iowa on a calm November day so that he could immediately spread it over five acres of test plots, all Class 3 (steeply sloped, erodible) land. The application was part of a multi-state research project on amendments to improve marginal soil. Biochar, a byproduct of renewable energy production, has a very long life in the soil, possibly more than 100 years.

“It’s an interesting study and I’ll be anxious to see what is learned,” he said. “This approach has been quite effective on some of the world’s really poor soils, but we don’t know how it will work here on what we call marginal land.”

Havlovic will add observations about this project to many, many others he’s helped conduct since joining the ISU Department of Agronomy as field technician in 1975, and the ISU Research Farms network in 1979. As superintendent on one of ISU’s 15 farms, he oversees 50 to 75 research experiments or demonstrations every year. Like other superintendents, he also organizes and writes annual progress reports, and meets with farmers in the region to determine what research questions they want ISU to answer.

“Bernie is an ‘out of the box’ thinker and constantly strives to inform the farmers of southwest Iowa about the many options available to them beyond the corn and soybean rotation,” said Hancock farmer Russ Brandes in a letter of support for the award.

Havlovic worked with the Soil and Water Conservation District, where Brandes was a commissioner, to install buffer strips, terraces, waterways, rotational grazing and wetlands on the Armstrong farm. They recently added a biodigester to trap and remove nitrates from groundwater as well as a soil pit for use at field events.

“Bernie’s influence as the farm manager extends beyond the property lines, past county lines, and throughout the state,” Brandes wrote.

ISU horticulture professor Paul Domoto said he appreciated Havlovic’s extra effort with grape trials and a season extension project growing raspberries and blackberries in high tunnels, funded by the Leopold Center. “On three occasions, high winds tore off the high tunnel covering at the Armstrong Farm, but Bernie was able to take these tragedies and turn them into learning experiences,” Domoto said in a letter of support.

Havlovic has been superintendent and lived on the Armstrong farm since he helped it open in 1993. The first ISU farm he managed was the Northern Research Farm at Kanawha. Then in 1987 he moved to Washington County where he helped open and manage the ISU Southeast Research Farm. He also opened the Neely-Kinyon Farm near Greenfield in 1994. A native of central Nebraska, he has a farm operations degree from Iowa State.

Building trust – with extension staff, project leaders, members of the local community – has been one of Havlovic’s strong points, according to many who have worked with him. He was part of the first high tunnel built at an ISU farm (used for fruit and vegetable crops, even tulips) and has been active in the farm’s home demonstration gardens, a popular program that can draw 350 people to a summer field day.

“At heart I’ve always been a researcher,” Havlovic said. “It’s been the best of both worlds. In many ways, I get to be much like a farmer, living with the same weather and cropping problems. But I also get to do experiments and really see the other aspect of agriculture, why things happen the way they do.”

And that’s where sustainability enters the picture.

“Farmers are basically the same no matter where you go in Iowa,” he said. “They realize that they don’t own the land. Their legacy is operating the farm and passing it on to another generation.”

Michael Natvig

Michael Natvig’s 420-acre organic farm exemplifies the meaning of diverse. He grows an organic corn, soybean and a small grain mixture called succotash. He maintains hayfields and pastures alongside of native prairie, oak savanna and woodland. He raises beef cattle and hogs. He even conducts research on his land, committed to learning and sharing all he can about sustainable agriculture.

Natvig will receive the Spencer Award for Sustainable Agriculture at a ceremony on March 1. The award was established by the Spencer family in 2002 to honor farmers, educators or researchers who have made a significant contribution toward the stability of family farms in Iowa.

“There are no trade secrets in Michael’s mind,” wrote Luke Gran of Practical Farmers of Iowa when he nominated Natvig for the award. “He is open to sharing what is working and what is not and is eager to know why.”

Natvig farms in Howard County, on the same land where he grew up. He credits his father for inspiring him to practice good stewardship. “He always had a really strong conservation ethic,” Natvig said. “I remember when I was a young kid he built terraces on some of our farmland and put in waterways and had a good crop rotation on our farm, which all contributes to soil health.”

Natvig continues that tradition as a fifth-generation farmer. In the late 1980s he began transitioning to organic when he realized that farm chemicals, as well as becoming increasingly expensive, were making him sick.

 “I thought there had to be a better way to spend my life than trying to use toxic chemicals,” he said.

He certified the farm as organic in 1998 and began restoring native prairies and wetlands on the property. He also took advantage of an opportunity to graze cattle on a streamside pasture on the Norman Borlaug Heritage Farm, the birthplace of the man credited with starting the “Green Revolution.” No cattle had grazed there for the previous decade, so Natvig carefully monitored the water quality and vegetation along the stream. He discovered that as long as he rotated cattle through the pasture every few days, the stream habitat remained healthy. 

Natvig is a longtime member of Practical Farmers of Iowa, a partnership that helps him conduct on-farm research into non-GMO corn varieties, organic methods of parasite control in livestock, and other studies that will help him run a better farm.

In 2002, he was one of 12 Iowa farmer-cooperators who conducted on-farm research trials to compare soil organic matter and nutrient use on organic and conventional farms. The work was part of a more comprehensive project that included farms in Illinois and Wisconsin and involved several agencies, foundations and the Michael Fields Institute, which recommended Natvig for the Spencer Award.

“He really does good farming and thinks deeply about how to make it better,” wrote the institute’s research director, Walter Goldstein. He added that his work with the Borlaug Farm has been an important part of the sustainable farming movement. “Mike has had to show what sustainable, organic farming can do in the face of a different mindset,” Goldstein wrote.

Natvig said that it takes a whole new set of management skills to make organic farming work. “You’ve got to have the belief that it’s the right thing for you to do, the right thing for your farm and the land,” he said. “For the long-term health of the soil and the land, and the farm in general, it worked out well for our family.” 

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