A Creek Runs Through This Driftless Land: A Farm Family's Journey Toward a Land Ethic
  • Cates, Richard L.

A Creek Runs Through This Driftless Land: A Farm Family's Journey Toward a Land Ethic

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Richard (Dick) and his wife, Kim, co-own the Cates Family Farm LLC in Wyoming Township, Iowa County, with their son Eric and his wife, Kiley, and their daughter Shannon and her husband, Dan. Dick is a life-long farmer who grew up working on his family's beef cow-calf farm, a neighbor's dairy farm, Montana ranches, and in large-scale dairy forage and grain crop production overseas.


Dick pursued professional studies in soil science and agronomy and earned an MS (1979) in soils from Montana State University and a PhD (1983) in soils and plant health from the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences while serving a Leopold Fellowship. Dick began taking over the family farm management in 1987 and then, along with Kim, purchased a portion of the land to build their own farming business.


For the next eight years, Dick helped (part time) lead the development and oversight of the Wisconsin Sustainable Agriculture Program, an on-farm demonstration and research effort of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection with the purpose of reducing agriculture's dependence on non-renewable petroleum-based inputs. In 1995 Dick was given the opportunity (part time) to develop and direct the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers, a program at UW-Madison to train new would-be farmers in business planning and managed grazing. Dick retired from this work in 2018, but over those twenty-three years, he also developed and taught courses within the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences there.


Dick and his family are members of the Iowa County Uplands Farmer-Led Watershed Project and the Lowery Creek Watershed Initiative, where they share information about and demonstrate conservation practices with other landowners and the public.


Dick authored the book Voices from the Heart of the Land: Rural Stories That Inspire Community (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008) and a children's book, An Adventure on Sterna's Hill (2019).


Dick and Kim enjoy walking on the farm and in wild country anywhere, canoeing, skiing, and dancing together. They have four grandchildren who are the love and joy of their lives.