Au Naturel Farm

High tunnels allow Au Naturel Farm to grow during winter months. They are also used for getting an early start on crops that need to wait until the start of spring. (J.P. Mayer/Farm to Fork)

Paul Wiediger holds one of the three Bourbon Red Turkeys that he hopes to breed. Wiediger sold all but three Bourbon Reds with hopes of breeding them himself. (J.P. Mayer/Farm to Fork)

By Amanda Loviza and Sara Shipley Hiles

The Farm to Fork class completed its round of field trips at Paul and Alison Wiediger’s  84 acre Au Naturel Farm in Smith’s Grove, Ky. Alison Wiediger bought the farm in 1989, and worked to reverse the erosive effects of the previous conventional farmer. In 1991, Au Naturel became one of Kentucky’s first certified organic farms. Although it no longer holds the organic certification, the Wiedigers’ farming techniques have never changed.

“I studied under an organic farmer in 1974,” Paul Wiediger said. “Everything I’ve raised is by what I call organic methodology.”

Paul Wiediger met Alison in 1995, and later that year they put up their first “high tunnel.” The high tunnel allows the Wiedigers to extend their growing season into the winter months. That first winter they tried growing 26 different crops, just to see what would work. Twenty-five survived.

Seedlings are kept in the greenhouse until they are ready to be planted or sold to customers at Au Naturel Farm near Smiths Grove, Ky. (J.P. Mayer/Farm to Fork)

“It’s just absolutely phenomenal what I can grow in here,” Paul Wiediger said.

The Wiedigers grow a large variety of crops, including lettuces, spinach, arugula, and collards, along with raising turkeys, chickens, cattle and sheep with not many workers to tend to the farm. They have an intern, Emma Franklin, who helps them on the farm.

Alison Wiediger works full-time off the farm as a network administrator for Hart County schools. She was also recently appointed to the USDA-Farm Service Agency state committee.

“For them to have an organic grower, a sustainable grower, on the committee, is really exciting,” she said. “I may have a chance to have a voice.”

Allison Wiediger bought her farm, Au Naturel Farm, in 1989. Her husband, Paul Wiediger, began helping her in 1995 after they met. (J.P. Mayer/Farm to Fork)

The Wiedigers are working hard to spread their vision of natural, local farming. Along with Alison’s work on the USDA committee, Paul has become a national consultant on high tunnels. They want more farmers to learn how to grow like they do- but they must spread awareness without using the word “organic.”

“The government now owns the word ‘organic,’” Paul Wiediger said.

Wiediger got a phone call from the undersecretary of the National Organic Program, who told him that he cannot use the word “organic” on his website since Au Naturel is no longer a certified organic organization. Wiediger immediately removed the word from his website and has reverted to using terms like “natural farming” and “organic methodology.” But the wording doesn’t change the fact that the Wiedigers do not use any form of pesticide, herbicide or antibiotics with his crops and livestock.

Paul Wiediger had hoped that the recent recession would lead to our country becoming more focused on local food. But he remains confident that soon enough, the US will have to return to small farming. He said that as long as we develop the market in the right way, we will be able to feed ourselves by local, sustainable food.

“Right now we produce more food than can be consumed by the world,” Wiediger said. “It’s not a matter of production, but distribution. America is the most overfed, malnourished place on the face of the earth…I actually believe that small, sustainable farming is the wave of the future.”

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Kaylee Acres, Sam Oldenberg, Amanda Loviza, and Sara Shipley Hiles walk with Paul Wiediger as he leads them to one of the hoop houses that are used for winter growing at Au Naturel Farm near Smiths Grove, Ky. (J.P. Mayer/Farm to Fork)