Locally owned farms in Iowa will not only be welcoming in the new year but welcoming residents to their farms as a part of a new open house series in 2022.

The USDA recently awarded the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT) nearly $175,000 for its “Small Farm Summer: Marketing Iowa’s Local Farms to Their Neighbors” initiative. The investment will help SILT promote and host 24 farm-based events over three years across rural Iowa. SILT is a nonprofit land trust that works with landowners to permanently dedicate their land to sustainable food farming. . Red Fern Farm in Wapello is one of six farms protected by SILT that will be hosting events this year. Owner Kathy Dice says that while some of the details are still being worked out, they look forward to hosting youth and adult friendly programming at the tree farm, “What we’re looking at is, like for the kids, maybe having a scavenger hunt in the closeby area where the kids might see if they can find a chestnut, that’s one our big things we grow, or a yellow flower. And for the grown-ups, we’re gonna have samples out for people to taste because we grow a lot of things that many people have never tried before.”

Dice added that beyond chestnuts, they grow Asian pears, persimmons, pawpaws, cornelian cherries and other crops that grow naturally in Louisa County. SILT matched more than $52,000 for a total investment of $225,773 for the program, and they plan to grow the open house list by two new farms each year. For more information, visit here.