From the Executive Director: Embracing Difference
Mark Quee raises fruits and vegetables near West Branch, Iowa, for students and staff to eat at Scattergood Friends Farm. He is known to create outdoor classrooms with the likes of hay bales and sunflower walls, and has a keen fondness for restoring prairie and habitat on the farm.
Mark (left) presenting Joel with the award at the 2024 Annual Conference.
Mark also is the person who nominated Joel Gruver for PFI’s 2024 Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award, which we presented at our annual conference last year. Practical Farmers gives this award annually to honor someone who has been most influential in creating vibrant communities, healthful food and diverse farms. Joel is such a person.
Since 2007, Joel has worked as a professor of soil science and sustainable agriculture at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. His work focuses on row crop production, while Mark’s focus is on fruits and vegetables. Yet Mark was inspired to nominate Joel because, Mark says, “Joel is committed to education and innovation.”
At our 2025 Annual Conference, we honored Barney Bahrenfuse and Suzanne Castello with the
Gary Guthrie (center) chatting with other attendees at the 2023 Annual Conference.
Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award. Barney and Suzanne are long-time PFI members who do a fantastic job of living our value of welcoming everyone. For instance, Barney was one of the first people to connect with Gary Guthrie, a farmer from Nevada, Iowa, when Gary joined PFI over 30 years ago. Here’s what Gary says of that experience:
“My first PFI meeting was in January 1994. My wife, Nancy, and I had just come back from working for the Mennonite Central Committee in El Salvador. I had been itching to get back into agriculture, and a family friend told me I should look into Practical Farmers of Iowa. Then someone else encouraged me to go to the PFI annual conference. I figured I’d heard about PFI twice by then, so I attended PFI’s conference in Ames.
“I felt so welcomed! At lunch, Barney Bahrenfuse, who farms near Grinnell, came up to me and sat down. I found out later he would pick people he didn’t know and sit down with them. That impressed me.”
Barney and Suzanne operate a diversified row crop and livestock farm. In 1994, when Gary first joined PFI, he raised vegetables. But the differences in their farming enterprises didn’t keep them from becoming fast friends. There are many similar stories of friendship and connection blooming across our membership. Despite differences in farm systems, production practices, markets, zip codes or political views, an open and sharing vibe is what PFI is all about.
In many parts of our lives, we spend time dissecting each other’s differences, which can lead to passing judgement and fixating on these points of contrast. But at PFI, we embrace difference and find that, no matter what we raise or how, we have a lot of common ground. In addition, when we broaden our perspectives, we realize we actually have a lot to learn from each other.
PFI’ers are good at heeding the advice of our late co-founder, Dick Thompson, who lived and preached the motto: “Get along, but don’t go along.”
This magazine is full of practical tips and perspectives from many farmers. From vegetable variety trials to farm-produced livestock feed, farms that are supporting migratory birds and farmers who are exploring new markets for small grains, there’s a lot to learn from every member featured.
The arrival of spring means that field days are around the corner. As you peruse the field day guide, consider attending something outside of your usual area of interest. I bet you’ll make new connections, learn new things and broaden your understanding of what’s happening in food and farming.
I hope to see you on-farm,
