Spend some time with any group of farmers, and you’ll discover they hold on to a couple of things very tightly — their land and their opinions.

After all, it’s hard to hold a farm together if you’re not very sure about what it is you're doing.

Not long ago, we spent time with a farmer whose opinions just might raise a few eyebrows around the heartland. But few people could deliver those opinions with more grace and charm.

Here’s the story of a woman, a farm, and a small empire quietly growing in a tucked-away Idaho valley.

I looked for my place at the end of a dirt road for ten years, unrelentingly.  I read every real estate ad; I was not to be deterred. — MaryJane Butters

It’s Farm Fair weekend on Wild Iris Lane in Moscow, Idaho. MaryJane Butters’ “place at the end of a dirt road.”

A little farm that started in organic eggs, produce, and flowers. 

It became fertile ground for the ideas of this organic lifestyle pioneer.  She calls it the “farm girl” way: a vision of self-sufficiency and community with the small farm at its heart. She's become so successful that some folks have started to call her "the Martha Stewart of organic agriculture".

Through her self-published magazine and website, MaryJane’s Farm has become the center of gravity for a nation of farmers and would-be farmers who embrace her message.

We’ve really devalued food in our minds and what ends up on our plate. We’ve devalued it and laced it with chemicals and the cheap food hasn’t worked out long-term. I think that I sell not just good wholesome food, but I also sell hope. People crave that.
— MaryJane Butters

With her new book out, something has happened to this farmer on her way to market.

She’s become the product, the brand. Suddenly, the life and lessons of this Utah farmer's daughter and former forest ranger are something everyone wants to know about.

Years of roughing it as a ranger inspired MaryJane to grow and sell her own packaged organic meals for backpackers. It’s a tough but tidy business.

It comes from not having a silver spoon in your mouth, but that you have to survive and you have to make do and certainly those rural sensibilities help me do what I’ve accomplished. — MaryJane Butters

Get into a chat with MaryJane, and you soon find out what happens to a farm where ideas grow thicker than crops, and good old can-do is as plentiful as water. Seems she can do just about anything. She takes most of the photographs for her magazine and books. She has also opened a design studio, a retail store, and a very rustic bed and breakfast for overnight guests (check out her web site and you'll see what we mean). She even grows mustard and uses its oil as fuel for her car.

The combined energies of 18 employees plus family, friends, and neighbors fuel this home-spun enterprise.  Her “farm girl” message is to keep it simple, keep it small, and “make it, don’t buy it.”

It’s resonating – even on some of the grander farms in the heartland.

I love that we found our common ground, which is we’re farmers; we want the best life that we can have.  We want the soil and our families to be healthy. How to get that is our struggle and our work. — MaryJane Butters

In a recent season, MaryJane allotted her farm acreage as follows:

• 4 acres for organic fruits, vegetables and herbs
• 26 acres in pasture
• 22 acres for the mustard seed needed to produce the biodiesel that powers her car
• and 26 acres set aside in a crop reserve program.

Additional information:
For more about MaryJane, her philosophy, farm visits and almost everything about her enterprise, go to www.Maryjanesfarm.com