Regenerative agriculture crucial to success at Seymour farm

Rachel Sankey

Past Staff

April 18, 2024

SEYMOUR – With an increased focus on sustainability, regenerative farming practices – such as cover crops or no-till soil – have become common practices on farms throughout the country, including here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Vine and Virtue Farm, located at W841 County Road VV in Seymour, is upping the game even more with its soon-to-be-implemented practice: agroforestry.

“Agroforestry means incorporating trees into agricultural land,” Co-owner Shane Kanneberg said. “It can look a lot of different ways.”

Later this month, Shane – who owns Vine and Virtue Farm with his wife, Kenna – said they will be planting a few hundred different kinds of fruit trees on the property (including apple, cherry plums, peaches and pears).

Not only will the trees provide fresh fruits – which he said they plan to use to create hard cider – they will also help keep the land healthy.

The different agroforestry techniques, Shane said, will benefit all moving parts on the farm.

New to agroforestry themselves, the Kannebergs said they have been working with the Savanna Institute, a nonprofit organization that helps farmers with agroforestry, to best implement those techniques.

Some of the agroforestry techniques the Kannebergs plan to implement include:

Windbreaks
Windbreaks – strips of trees designed to enhance crop and livestock production as well as provide conservation benefits – Shane said, will be the first step for the land.

“We have strong winds from the west and southwest, so we’re trying to buffer that to protect our crops on the backside, as well as block any drift from pesticides, herbicides or anything from neighboring farmland,” he said.

According to the Savanna Institute, the practice comes with a variety of economic and ecological benefits, including higher crop yields, better soil health and greater water availability, energy cost reduction, odor and pollutant blockage and diversified income and food security.

Alley cropping, silvopasture
The other two techniques Shane said Vine and Virtue Farm plan to implement, which work hand in hand with one another, will be alley cropping and silvopasture.

This, he said, is where the fruit trees will come into play.

“Typically, orchards are planted with the rows fairly close together and the trees close together because you want to fit as many trees as you can onto the land,” he said.

Alley cropping, he said, is the opposite and instead, the trees are more spread out, with crops planted in between.

“In the row, the trees will be planted at a normal spacing, but we’re leaving about 40 feet between the rows,” he said. “(This is) so we can run our chickens between those rows and run other animals in between them to help graze them and manage some of the paths and other factors with the fruit trees.”

Pictured here is where Shane Kanneberg said he and his wife, Kenna, will plant their few hundred fruit trees. Photo Courtesy of Vine and Virtue Farm

In some of the other alleys, Shane said, they will plant a variety of vegetables and other crops, which they can harvest with the animals through grazing or harvest for human consumption.

That process, he said, is silvopasture – the integrations of trees, crops and livestock managed under one system.

“The goal with integrating the crops, the animals and the trees is to provide better tree health through the fertilization from the animals and the pest reduction through the animals, but also provide those animals some shade from the trees and protection from the wind,” he said. “It’s trying to have each of those pieces work together instead of separating them all and having to manage them all separately.”

A life pivot
Though excited about where farm life has taken them, the Kannebergs said farming wasn’t necessarily in their original life plans.

Though Kenna grew up in a family of dairy farmers, Shane said neither of them intended to become farmers themselves.

“Kenna went to school for bilingual education, and I went for public administration and thought I’d be working in city government or something like that,” he said.

But as fate would have it, Shane said, farm life found them.

While living in an apartment on Green Bay’s east side, the couple stumbled upon a community garden plot down the block – which looking back, Shane said, would eventually inspire a turning point for their careers.

“We enjoyed that space – growing different tomatoes and peppers,” he said. “That was our first dive into gardening in general.”

At the same time, Shane said Kenna began reading “100 Days of Real Food” by Lisa Leake, which talks about the food system and healthy eating.

“That sent us both down a rabbit hole of our food system,” he said. “I (also) like to go on YouTube and learn through (there), and came across the idea of regenerative agriculture – specifically permaculture and working with the land‚ I started thinking more about, ‘well, could we do this as a job?'”

When the Kannebergs bought their house in 2020, which included some land, he said they used it as an opportunity to scale up their garden.

“We just grew it from there,” he said. “We started working on what we wanted to grow and how we wanted to grow it, but also how we wanted to set up our business. We fell into it and fell in love with it, and discovered we have a passion to grow food that’s good, not only for us, but also the land we’re growing it on.”

Today, Shane said Vine and Virtue Farm grows “all sorts of different kinds of produce,” such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and lettuce.

The farm also has chickens, which he said are used for both meat and eggs, as well as ducks for eggs.

CSA memberships
Shane said Vine and Virtue would not be in a position to integrate regenerative farming techniques, such as agroforestry, without community-supported agriculture (CSA).

The CSA program, he said, is a partnership between local households and farmers.

Households support the farm by paying a fee that entitles them to a “share” of the harvest.

“CSA means all of our customers pay in advance, usually in early January and February, and then throughout the growing season from June to October, they get to come out to the farm and pick up produce they paid for in advance,” he said.

Last year was the first timeVine and Virtue participated in the CSA program – growing for about 10 families.

The farm, he said, also received a grant that allowed them to grow for an additional 10 families living in Green Bay shelters, such as Golden House.

This year, Shane said they are up to 25 families.

Just missing the deadline for the grant this year, the Kannebergs said they decided to create their own give-a-share program, called Virtue Shares.

On top of growing fresh produce, Shane Kanneberg said they also have chickens on the farm for both meat and eggs. Photo Courtesy of Vine and Virtue Farm

“People can donate any amount to the Virtue Shares program and throughout the season, that produce will be donated to area shelters and folks in need,” he said.

Though Vine and Virtue Farm does not do delivery at this point, Shane said coming to the farm to pick up their produce provides CSA members an opportunity to be “more connected with their food and where it comes from.”

“Everybody comes out on Thursdays in the summer, and we host a farm night we call Thursdays on the Farm,” he said. “Our customers are meeting each other and hanging out and walking around on the farm to create a community around the food. (It) also gives people an opportunity to unplug from their day and take a moment to take a deep breath and be outside and connect with other people and the land.”

Hard ciders
Much like their dive into agriculture, Shane said creating hard ciders is new for them as well.

He said he and Kenna will be experimenting with different recipes once the fruit trees are ready to be harvested, and have also considered partnering with local breweries or distilleries.

“We are still in the development phase around it,” he said.

And, since it will take three to five years before the trees are ready for full harvest, Shane said it gives them more time to plan.

Agroforestry benefits: land and business
In addition to the above-mentioned environmental benefits of agroforestry, Shane said the regenerative farming practice will also benefit business.

“From the business standpoint, it has diversified (the farm)‚ ” he said. “We have the fruit trees, but then we have the animals and annual crops, so we’re not fully reliant on any one source of revenue for our business.”

For example, Shane said, if Vine and Virtue were to ever have a late frost that affects the fruit, they still have the animals and vegetables to rely on.

Agroforestry, he said, also means better harvests, healthier animals and therefore, happier customers.

“They’re able to, first and foremost, have a product that tastes good,” he said. “Our customers will say time and time again that an egg from our farm is not the same as an egg from the grocery store. (It) tastes entirely different and the yolk is a rich orange color versus a pale yellow color.”

To learn more about the farm, visit vineandvirtuefarm.com.