Board of Directors

PFI’s Board of Directors

Practical Farmers of Iowa’s board is composed primarily of farmers – a key requirement that helps the organization stay focused on its farmer members’ priorities.

Practical Farmers of Iowa is governed by a 12-person board of directors. To ensure that we stay focused on our members’ priorities, 10 of the 12 board members must be farmers. One farmer director is elected from each of our five Iowa districts. Additionally, five farmers and two non-farmers are elected from the membership at-large. Board members serve in many capacities, from ensuring we maintain fiscally sound and effective programs to providing leadership, advice and direction to staff and volunteers.

Board Duties

The Practical Farmers of Iowa board:

  1. Determines the Practical Farmers mission and purpose
  2. Provides guidance on our programs and services
  3. Ensures that Practical Farmers has adequate resources for its programming
  4. Serves as the “public face” for the organization
  5. Provides proper financial oversight
  6. Selects the Executive Director
  7. Supports the Executive Director and reviews his or her performance
  8. Guides the development of a Strategic Plan
  9. Ensures legal and ethical integrity, and maintains accountability; and
  10. Recruits and orients new board members and assesses its own performance.

Practical Farmers Board of Directors

CarmenBlackCarmen Black (at-large)
President

Farmer | Solon, IA

Carmen Black​ and her sister, Maja, own and operate Sundog Farm and Local Harvest CSA near Solon, Iowa. On their diversified operation, they raise vegetables, lambs, goats and eggs that they direct market through their Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) business.

Tim Youngquist (at-large)
Vice President
Farmer | Zearing, IA

20240207 TimYoungquistTim Youngquist farms corn and soybeans on his family’s heritage farm near Kiron, Iowa, along with his wife, Mandy, and his parents, Dennis and Ann Youngquist. He has overseen the creation of buffer strips using native prairie in fields and riparian zones on his family land. Tim also grows and harvests prairie for native plant propagation. Tim serves as the farmer liaison for Iowa State University’s STRIPS program, where he helps farmers and landowners implement prairie strips on their farmland.

20240207 JonBakehouseJon Bakehouse (Southwest)
Treasurer
Farmer | Hastings, IA

Jon Bakehouse farms with his wife Tina, son Anderson and parents near Hastings, Iowa. The Bakehouses raise corn and soybeans and have a cow-calf herd. As the fifth generation farming his family’s land, Jon has conducted PFI on-farm research for over seven years and unofficial field trials his entire farming career.

20250924 AlecAmundsonAlec Amundson (at large)
Secretary
Farmer | Osage, IA

Alec Amundson and his wife, Rachel Amundson, run Green Country Farms in Osage, Iowa. They raise 2,300 acres of corn, soybeans, oats and rye, and manage CRP and buffer strips.

Erica LydolphErica Lydolph (Southeast)
Farmer | Winfield, IA

Erica Lydolph​ and her husband, Andrew, own Cedar Creek Grain & Livestock Co. in Stockport, Iowa, where they raise corn, soybeans and confinement pigs. Erica also works as an agricultural loan officer at Washington State Bank, bringing more than 15 years of experience in agricultural finance and farm business management.

Kristine Lang (at-large)Kristine Lang
Non-farmer | Brookings, SD

Kristine Lang manages a local food and cut flower research and extension program through South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota, where she is an assistant professor and extension consumer horticulture specialist.

MattLiebmanMatt Liebman (at-large)
Non-farmer | Ames, IA

Matt Liebman of Ames, Iowa, is a retired faculty member from the Department of Agronomy at Iowa State University. Matt’s research, teaching and outreach work focused on ways to use ecological processes to create farming systems that are productive, profitable, resilient and environmentally sound.

ShafferRidgewayShaffer Ridgeway (Northeast)
Farmer | Waterloo, IA

Shaffer Ridgeway and his wife, Madelyn, operate Southern Goods, a farm growing Southern vegetables for Midwesterners, in Waterloo, Iowa. He is also a district conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Margaret Smith (at-large)
Farmer | Hampton, IA

Margaret SmithMargaret Smith and her husband, Doug Alert, operate Ash Grove Farm, a diversified, certified organic crop and livestock operation near Hampton, Iowa. Margaret is a forage agronomist for Albert Lea Seed with previous experience working for ISU Extension and Outreach and the ISU Department of Agronomy. Margaret and Doug are also PFI on-farm research cooperators and lifetime PFI members. In 2019, they received PFI’s Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award. 

Natasha Wilson (at large)
Farmer | West Chester, IA

Natasha Wilson (second from left) and Family PFINatasha Wilson (second from the left in the photo) farms with her parents and sister at West Fork Farmstead near West Chester, Iowa. Since Natasha returned to the farm five years ago, the family has been transforming a conventional farm operation into a pasture-based, regenerative farm to produce delicious, high-quality food for their community. West Fork Farmstead produces grass-fed beef, pastured chicken, pork raised outdoors, pastured chicken and duck eggs and raw honey.

Larry Kallem, Ex officioRon Rosmann and Larry Kallem
Former Exec. Director, IA Assn of Co-ops | Ames, IA

Larry Kallem of Ames, Iowa, is a founding member of PFI. In the midst of the farm crisis, Larry, along with Dick and Sharon Thompson, worked to organize PFI, a group of farmers eager to work together testing novel solutions to the pressing economic, social and ecological farming challenges of the time.