By Liz Stewart
Once Amy Gerdes had a taste of small-scale, sustainable agriculture, she fell in love with it. Whether educating future farmers or tending her own land, her passion shines through everything she does.
Amy developed an appreciation for environmental advocacy while she was attending Nebraska Wesleyan University. Her studies in biology opened her eyes to different ways of thinking about the land and people’s relationships with other organisms.
“My undergrad experience allowed me to explore my interests in ecology and conservation,” said Amy. “I think this has caused me to do my best to approach farming, gardening, and education through a framework of community care and relationship building instead of just an approach focused on what I can extract, what I can get without giving.”
In 2012, Amy was a member of AmeriCorps working with Community Crops in Lincoln, Nebraska. When she started, she worked with the incubator farm program, helped with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and taught and assisted with classes. Amy is now the operations supervisor at Community Crops.
She believes there is always something new to learn for both students and teachers. Some of her favorite classes have been those that have opportunities for students to get their hands dirty.
“I want to help people deepen their understanding of how to grow their own food sustainably so they can be empowered to not only continue to garden or farm, but also to share that knowledge with others,” Amy said.
She started seeking more focused and immersive learning opportunities about conservation, but felt like she wasn’t finding anything new. Then she discovered the Center for Rural Affairs Beginning Farmer Conservation Fellowship.
The project began in 2022 with eight individuals, plus mentors. The most recent cohort began in spring 2024 with eight beginning farmers, including Amy.
“I was hitting a wall at different conferences with the sessions or classes I was attending,” she said. “For me, it’s important to continue learning, and the format of the fellowship program with mentorship, classes, our project implementation, and additional educational events was exactly what I was looking for.”
Amy farms on a small urban lot in Lincoln called Lake Street Microfarm. The small-scale market garden sits on half an acre, and Amy grows diversified specialty vegetables for CSA and farmers markets.
“I was lucky to start farming on land that had been designed out and cared for by experienced farmers who prioritized soil health and other conservation efforts,” Amy said. “So, I inherited a lot of perennial plants my first year at Lake Street, but have since added additional small native perennial plantings.”
She uses drip irrigation for water conservation and focuses on compost additions and fall/winter cover crop rotations to help manage soil health. She has also been experimenting with different planting and mulching systems, including using living mulches and planting directly into cover crop residue to learn more about different no- or low-till practices and how to finetune them for her farm.
As part of the program, conservation fellows design and implement a project on their own farms or land they are farming. They present their findings at a farm tour to their mentors, project partners, and other beginning farmers.
The project Amy plans to implement involves healing lead-contaminated soils using phytoremediation with sunflowers, for future food production.
Phytoremediation is a technology that uses plants to treat environmental pollution problems. The plants either remove or stabilize (hold in place) pollution in the soil. Compared to other methods used to remove toxic substances from soils, phytoremediation is often less expensive, although it may take longer.
“Since I’m growing on a small urban lot, I have a minimal opportunity for expansion and scaling up,” she said. “I also have a subsection of land that has high lead content in the soil, enough that I cannot grow vegetables in it for human consumption. If I can address that using plants, I’m going to try. Phytoremediation is something I’ve been interested in for a long time, and it’s amazing to me that some plants have the ability to draw and hold contaminants like this, so why not work together to help improve the soil?”
Amy is in the beginning stages of this project, and most of the work will start in the spring. She’ll compare soil tests at the beginning and the end of the project and go from there.
“If the lead levels are reduced to safe levels, I plan to expand my culinary and medicinal herb plantings,” she said. “If they are improved, but not safe yet, I’ll go through another round of planting. If they are not improved at all, then I’ll have learned something from it, but will shift gears to providing more pollinator and other beneficial insect support to the farm with more perennials.”
So far, Amy has been pleased with what she’s learned through planning her project and from the fellowship overall.
“I’ve gotten to attend some great education events and field days about different mulching systems, cover cropping, perennials, and grazing systems,” she said. “The visits with my mentor have been very beneficial to me. Having the opportunity to see what people are doing in a one-on-one setting can bring up different questions and discussion than in a group tour or lecture and provide a different learning experience.”
Amy feels being a fellow has helped her become a better farmer and land steward, and it has given her a chance to learn new things and improve her skills. She has also enjoyed getting to know the other fellows and the opportunity to learn from each other.
The diversity of the cohort is a big part of what makes the fellowship so great, Amy said.
“I think that everyone’s knowledge, experience, and scale is important,” she said. “If we only take one perspective as truth, and aren’t considering others, then how can we know we are taking the best or right approach to conservation? Historically, conservation efforts in the U.S. have not included the voices and expertise of Black, Indigenous, and/or other minority groups, and it’s time we make an intentional effort to move past that flawed approach. We have a lot to learn from each other, and we simply can’t make large-scale changes as individuals alone.”
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