Fostering an ethic of land stewardship while operating a profitable, efficient farming operation is a compelling mission, and one Ben Pederson has been following for the past decade. A third-generation farmer in Lake Mills, Iowa, Pederson and his dad, Gary, grow 4,000 acres of corn and soybeans about 6 miles south of the Minnesota border.

Pederson began strip-tilling in 2011, after his frustration with soil erosion and lost nutrients led him on a search for practices that would keep the soil in place, retain nutrients and reverse the degradation that he could see was inevitable under conventional practices. 

“Conservation wasn’t my biggest emphasis for getting into strip-till. It was more that I wanted to band my fertilizer and make a better seedbed, which I did,” he says. “But once I tried it, I loved how we infiltrated water across the hilltops and across every acre more efficiently. And I loved how we kept our soil from blowing and washing away and we’re able to control our field traffic.”

Now after a decade of refining techniques to reduce waste and streamline his operations, Pederson has been named the 2021 Strip-Till Innovator Award winner.

In addition to operating the farm, Pederson also runs Sprout Ag, a sales and service company that does planter retro-fits, builds custom SowMaster planters…