Soil Professor Receives Sustainable Ag Award

OMAHA (DTN) -- Tucked into the opening evening of the Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) annual conference in January, board member Mark Quee of West Branch, Iowa, announced the recipient of the organization's 2024 Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award.

"One of my favorite parts of serving on the board has been selecting the Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award. We get to be inspired by your stories of inspiration and we really celebrate all those who were nominated for that," Quee told the crowd of hundreds attending the Jan. 19 event.

This year's recipient is Dr. Joel Gruver, a professor of soil science and sustainable agriculture at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. The award is given each year by Practical Farmers to an individual or couple who has shown exemplary commitment to sustainable agriculture, generously shared their knowledge with others and been influential in efforts to foster vibrant communities, diverse farms and healthy food.

"Joel truly embodies the PFI values of curiosity, creativity, collaboration, and community. Joel's experiences and vegetable production, agronomic crop production and organic farming speak loudly about his curiosity. This willingness to listen to farmers, to investigate their questions and share widely through lectures and workshops demonstrate his dedication to collaboration," Quee said, as he introduced Gruver.

Gruver joined Western Illinois University faculty in 2007, teaching undergraduate courses and introducing thousands of students to vital concepts related to soil health and conservation. He also managed the university's Allison Organic Research and Demonstration Farm, exploring a range of practical questions related to organic farming, weed control, soil health, cover crops, corn and soybean hybrids and varieties, and more.

During this time, he has expanded the farm's use of cover crops, explored many questions related to integrating cover crops into production systems and raised the visibility of the farm and its research. Since 2007, Gruver has been an active member of Practical Farmers, through which he has given lectures and introduced his students to valuable resources within the farming community.

As Gruver took the stage, he shared a few words about his experience.

"If you've been interviewed by one of my students, maybe you could stand up ... certainly a few people. I see there are many more candidates out there," Gruver said, looking over the number of PFI members who stood up.

"When I speak at farmer meetings, I don't want to just share research data. I want to tell stories. It's really the same approach I use in the undergraduate classroom, and I need stories to tell, and I don't think there's any place better than PFI resources to find authentic stories that are science, but are also our human story," Gruver continued.

"PFI is just the perfect example of building learning communities, and that's what I try to do in all the different types of outreach, first and foremost with my undergraduate students, but then, in different forums that I participated in online, the community garden, all different things I do, I'm trying to not just tell people something, but create a relationship where we keep learning together."

Gruver's early introduction to agriculture came at 6 years old on his family's 15-acre farm north of Baltimore, Maryland, which, years later, gave him a window into farming as a vocation.

"My parents introduced us to the plants and animals as our neighbors, just like the surrounding farms," Gruver said in a Practical Farmers news release. "That really was very formative for who I am today."

As a teenager, he worked on a neighbor's cow-calf farm where he learned about rotational grazing and developed an interest in grazing systems. Later, he managed a CSA vegetable farming and sheep flock at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. As his pathway to an agriculture-focused career continued, Gruver pursued a master's degree in agronomy at the University of Maryland, and later, a doctorate in soil science at the University of North Carolina.

"Joel is committed to education and innovation," Quee stated in a press release. "When a row-crop farmer experimenting with cover crops asks, 'Have we tried this?' the answer is that Joel is currently doing so or is willing to start."

Each year, Gruver makes a point of speaking at several farmer meetings around the country -- typically 20 or more -- to share what he has learned from his many on-farm research trials and to gain inspiration for new trials based on questions he hears from farmers.

"I have spoken at somewhere between 400-500 farmer meetings since the mid-1990s," Gruver stated in the press release. "It has been part of my identity that I do lots of outreach."

Susan Payne can be reached at susan.payne@dtn.com.

Follow her on X, @jpusan.

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