Our story
The Century Farm, worked by Paulsens since 1905
The front place, along Interstate 80 in Cass County. A hundred and twenty years in one family.
The Paulsen family moved onto the front place in 1905 and has worked it ever since. In Iowa that earns a specific designation. A farm held by the same family for a hundred years or more is a Century Farm, and this one passed that mark two decades ago.
A hundred and twenty years is not a marketing line and we would rather not use it as one. It is four generations of decisions, most of them made by people we can still name, on ground that is still here to show for it.
This is where the business starts. Not because history sells anything, but because it is the honest answer to why two people would take on something this hard in the first place.
What the front place is
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A hundred and twenty years in one family
The family moved on in 1905. Nobody has sold it since. That is the whole claim, and it is the only one on this page that a document can back up, which is exactly why we lead with it and not with anything about how we farm.
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An Iowa Century Farm
Iowa recognizes farms held by one family for a century or more. It is a real designation with a real record behind it rather than a phrase a farm can decide to use about itself. The front place qualified and the family has the certificate.
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Ground directly on Interstate 80
The farm runs right along I-80. For a century that was simply where the road happened to go. For a business that eventually wants people to drive out to it, it is the single most useful accident of geography we have.
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Between two cities, near neither
Council Bluffs and the Omaha metro are about fifty five minutes west. Most of Des Moines is around an hour east. Being genuinely close to two metros while sitting in open country is unusual and we do not take it for granted.
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Four generations of soil decisions
Every field here reflects choices made by people who are mostly gone now. Some of those choices we would make again and some we would not. Either way we inherited the results rather than starting from a blank piece of ground.
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The starting point, not the whole plan
The front place is where the chickens are and where the first seasons happen. The back place is where the operation is headed. Both matter, and the story only makes sense with the two of them side by side.
How a farm stays in one family that long
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1
Somebody starts it
In 1905 a Paulsen took on this ground. What that decision cost, and what it looked like at the time, is the part of the story we know least about and would most like to know more of.
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2
Somebody keeps it through the bad years
Iowa farms have had a great many chances to leave the family since 1905. Depression, drought, the farm crisis of the eighties, every decade that made selling the sensible move. This one did not sell.
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3
Somebody hands it on
A century farm is really a chain of people who decided the next generation should get the chance rather than the proceeds. That is a harder decision than it sounds and it has to be made correctly every single time.
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4
Somebody decides what it is for now
That part is ours. The ground does not tell you what to do with it. We think what it is for now is clean food for families nearby, which is a different answer than the last few generations gave, on the same dirt.
Why the history matters to what we sell you
Anybody can start a farm this year. Nobody can start a hundred and twenty year old one, and we are aware that this is the one thing about our operation that cannot be copied, bought or hurried.
But we are careful about what we let it prove. Longevity does not mean we know more than the person who started farming last spring, and it does not mean the food is better. It means we are not going anywhere, and that our name is attached to this in a way that a business with a lease and a five year plan cannot match.
That is the part worth something to you. When you buy food from a family that has been on the same ground for four generations, the incentive to do it right is structural rather than moral. We have to keep living here afterward.
There is a bigger version of this argument on our story page, about food, land and what Alex calls sovereignty. This page is only the deed part of it. The reasoning is over there.
Questions people ask
What is an Iowa Century Farm?
It is a designation for a farm that has been owned by the same family for a hundred years or more. Iowa keeps a formal record of them and issues a certificate. The front place passed the mark in 2005 and holds the designation.
Have the Paulsens always farmed it the same way?
No, and we would not claim so. Four generations of Iowa farming covers enormous change in equipment, chemistry and scale. What we are doing now with pastured poultry is a departure from recent decades, not a continuation of them.
Is this where the chickens are raised?
Yes. The front place is where the current operation runs, including the broiler batches. The back place is where the longer term plan is pointed, and the two are described separately because they are genuinely two farms.
Can I come out and see it?
Families picking up an order come to the farm and get directions and a window from us directly. Beyond that we are not set up for visitors yet. Opening the place up properly is a real ambition and it is years out.
Where exactly is the farm?
In Cass County, Iowa, near Atlantic, running along Interstate 80. We are not publishing a street address while this is a working family home rather than a business people drop in on. People with an order get what they need.
Is the other farm also a Century Farm?
Not quite. The back place has been in Alex's grandmother's family for somewhere close to eighty years, which is a heritage farm but short of a century. Its story is on its own page and it is the more interesting of the two right now.
Elsewhere on the farm
Hear what comes off this ground
The list is how we tell people what is ready and when. It is the same list for chickens, flowers and everything after, and getting on it commits you to nothing at all.
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