We've Been Doing This Since Before It Was Cool.
The Origin
In the early 1990s, Joe Fitzgerald made a decision that most of his neighbors thought was a little crazy: he was going to transition to organic farming. No synthetic fertilizers. No pesticides. No herbicides. Just soil, rotations, and a belief that farming could work with nature instead of against it.
Joe planted his first certified organic crops in 1994. That commitment has never wavered.
How We Got Here
The farm's growth started with a relationship. Mabel Brejle, a landowner in our community, believed in the Fitzgerald family enough to help us purchase her 200-acre farm in the year 2000. That single act of trust set everything in motion. It's also why we never take the responsibility of farming someone else's land lightly.
Today, Matthew — Joe's son — leads the day-to-day operation alongside his wife Hannah, with Joe and Ane still deeply involved. The farm has grown to approximately 2,700 acres of certified organic ground in Central Minnesota, producing corn, soybeans, wheat, peas, and edible beans.
How We Farm
Organic farming is not a shortcut — it's a system. We rely on extended crop rotations, cover crops, mechanical weed control, and manure-based fertility instead of synthetic inputs. We track soil quality on every farm we operate, and we can demonstrate measurable improvements in micronutrients and organic matter over time.
We are also actively working to restore the edges of the land we farm — taking marginal acres out of row crop production and converting them to perennial pollinator habitat and native grassland. We work with federal conservation programs including EQIP and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on long-term conservation easements. We are not interested in extracting everything the land can give. We're interested in what it can become.
Why It Matters
Of 400 farms in McLeod County, only five are organic. We're proud to be one of them — and we believe the next generation of farming in Minnesota has to look more like what we're doing, not less.
We've been recognized for this work by Modern Farmer, Mad Agriculture, Climate Land Leaders, and the Land Stewardship Project. Matthew is an active voice in Minnesota beginning farmer policy, focused on making sure that the next generation of organic farmers has a real chance to access land.
That's the long game we're playing. And we're looking for landowners and investors who want to play it with us.