Dirt Rich: Pastured Pork & an Incubator Farm

“What else is livestock farming but sort of a dance and a balance between farmer happiness, livestock happiness, and soil health happiness?”

Dayna Burtness discusses her “pastured pig-centric farm,” marketing enterprise, and incubator farm near Spring Grove, in the Driftless region of Minnesota. Dayna is the sixth generation in her family to farm in Houston County, and she and her husband Nick Nguyen are finishing 75 mixed breed heritage pigs on pasture this season at Nettle Valley Farm.

In her conversation with Jared Luhman, Dayna shares how her production system has evolved over time, her focus on soil health, her intentionality in the incubator farm, and her philosophy on marketing, pricing, and running a farm business. She also offers sage advice to those pursuing similar ventures, and plenty of examples of ‘failed’ and successful on-farm experiments.

Nettle Valley Farm will be one of the featured farms at the Methods of Pastured Pork and Poultry Production field day on August 21st. Learn more and register on our Soil Health page.

You can listen to Dirt Rich anywhere you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Podbean. You can also listen on the SFA website. Do you have ideas for future episodes? Comments? Leave us a review or drop us a line.