Episode 190: What the 1980s Farm Crisis Should Have Taught Us with Wendy Johnson

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Wendy Mariko Johnson farms in Floyd County, Iowa, near Charles City. She grew up on an Iowa farm, left at 18 in the 1990s for an 18-year career in the Los Angeles fashion industry, and returned in 2010 with her husband Johnny Rafkin. Having watched farms close across Iowa in the 1980s, she came back determined to follow the three things that carried her parents through that era: diversification, low cost of production, and little to no debt. Today Wendy runs two businesses from the same land. Jóia Food & Fiber Farm carries 160 ewes, 25 cows and their calves, plus hogs, chickens, and ducks across roughly 130 certified organic acres, alongside 15 acres of Kernza and more than 6,000 trees…