Linn County’s Dows Farm ‘agri-community’ developer looks to re-imagine farm elements after Feed Iowa First leaves site

CEDAR RAPIDS — Feed Iowa First will no longer farm on a portion of the Linn County Dows Farm “agri-community” site after a faulty well pushed the nonprofit off the land earlier than planned, prompting the developer to re-imagine the farm elements of the project.

The Linn County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a date change ending a farm management agreement with the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust, which leases land to Feed Iowa First, on June 1 instead of Oct. 31.

That leaves the site without a farm manager for the time being once the agreement ends. It’s uncertain how the county will proceed, but county officials and developer Chad Pelley are exploring different possibilities.

Planning and Development Director Charlie Nichols said the Linn County attorney’s office, Feed Iowa First and SILT are amenable to the modified agreement. The date change does not signify failure by any party, Nichols said.

“There is a well that is failing on site plus they have some other land they are ramping up operations on so they do not want to continue until Oct. 31,” Nichols said. “ … Feed Iowa First has gone above and beyond their role here.”

Supervisors unanimously approved the change to the agreement Tuesday. The item was on the consent agenda, where routine items are considered without discussion.

Future of farming on Dows site

Nichols told The Gazette there are no immediate plans for another farm manager for the Dows site. But he said developer Chad Pelley is interested in taking charge of finding the farmer and purchasing the entirety of the site.

The county had originally considered selling that land to the developer to find the farmer, so Nichols said that is a valid model for how to proceed. But Pelley would need to pitch that plan to the supervisors and get their feedback and approval to move forward.

If this land were sold, Nichols said the land would still be used for farming. It’s already zoned to allow for only farming, but it would also be sold with a deed that further restricts its use to farming — keeping the possibility of development off the table.

“They are very interested in finding the right farmer for that site that fits with the development,” Nichols said.

Until that conversation occurs with the three-member board, though, there’s no guarantee that this is how the plan will advance.

Pelley said the end of the agreement with SILT gave the development team time to rethink how the housing and farm aspects of the development interact.

He said the first phase of construction will involve work on housing units, eventually including six homes supported with federal Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funding.

Conversations have taken place with various groups to re-imagine what could take shape for the farm portion of the site, Pelley said.

There needs to still be a working farm on the site, he said, but he hopes to see multiple partners involved — potentially adding elements such as a winery and vineyard on open green space and a honey producer. Pelley said the door isn’t necessarily closed to having groups similar to Feed Iowa First involved.

“We don’t want to limit (farm uses) through that farm area,” Pelley said. “We want to incorporate it throughout the development.”

Feed Iowa First focused on new location

Emmaly Renshaw, executive director of Feed Iowa First, sounded the alarm to the supervisors in February about the well’s risk of imminent failure. In the summer of 2022, Renshaw said well pressure began to drop below eight gallons per minute, which isn’t enough to irrigate, putting farmers at risk of midseason loss.

Renshaw told the supervisors the well casing had collapsed, the pump is no longer submerged in the water and thus is not cooled. She warned this will cause a failure resulting in no water on site.

County officials said the well’s condition is unfortunate, but the Board of Supervisors didn’t want to fund a new well until long-term plans were firmed up for the approximately 170-acre development that calls for a working farm, housing and conservation elements.

They didn’t want the well to be in the wrong spot as the project comes to life on county-owned land bordered by Mount Vernon Road on the south, Dows Road on the west and the Squaw Creek Ridge residential development on the northeast.

Feed Iowa First subleases a roughly three-acre portion of the overall approximately 40 acres reserved to be used as farmland.

The nonprofit has been there since the spring of 2021, when it began work to transition the land from growing conventional crops to table food. The tract of land Feed Iowa First rents is home to its Equitable Land Access program, which allows land access to underserved farmers. In 2022, the organization had four emerging farmers who are Black, Indigenous, people of color farming on the Dows site.

Renshaw said work to decommission farm operations there and transition the land back to being used for corn production has already begun. Over the next month, she said time will be taken to pull equipment and fully close the site.

Farmers hadn’t yet planted on the site for this season as Feed Iowa First anticipated this move and didn’t want them to have to pull their fields, Renshaw said. The nonprofit worked to ensure the farmers had a new place to go.

Four farmers will be on the organization’s Wanatee Farm project with Linn County Conservation on 17 acres of land at Wanatee Creek Road and Cottage Grove Parkway SE. There’s a 20-year lease on that site.

Feed Iowa First is looking to bring in 50 tons of compost to get the land at that site in working order for this spring. An agricultural well will provide water access on the site, Renshaw said, and the length of the lease will allow those on the site to farm in a more sustainable way.

“We were very fortunate to have a place to fall back on,” Renshaw said.

It takes about three to five years to improve the soil quality to the point that it produces decent crop yields, Renshaw said. The Dows Farm site was at that point where soil integrity was on the rise, so she said that’s one of the losses of pulling out of that site.

The Dows site also had easy water access for irrigation and access for trucks, she said — big pluses when there’s already limited land access in Linn County and in Iowa. For vegetable production, she said a lack of water infrastructure on available land only adds another hurdle for emerging farmers.

“It’s kind of sad how it ended, but I think we are just looking forward to … pushing this new Wanatee Farm forward,” Renshaw said.

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