Doing It All for a Better Food System on Green Willow Homestead
Meet Kelsey Jorissen, the phenom farmher and entrepreneur turning lessons learned and eggs raised on her Franklin, WI homestead into education and advocacy for more regenerative world.
Story + Photography by Sarah Carroll
Maybe it’s her daily uniform of t-shirts that read “The Future is Female Farming.” Or her contagious enthusiasm and energy. Or her proud self-label as a crazy chicken lady. It’s hard to pick out just one reason why Kelsey Jorissen, the farmer and entrepreneur phenom behind Green Willow Homestead in Franklin, WI, is the bold voice in sustainable farming that you need to hear. Whether she’s raising pastured eggs or teaching farmers how to grow their marketing efforts, Kelsey is showing that you can truly be it all- fierce female farmer, advocate, and educator working for a kinder, greener food system.
Kelsey went on a winding journey before starting Green Willow Homestead, where she raises heritage egg-laying hens and heirloom specialty produce that she sells in her beautiful farm stand. “I did not grow up on a farm. My two best friends had farms growing up. They got me into 4-H just so I could spend my summers with them,” Kelsey explains. “Ironically enough, I did photography and performing arts within 4-H.” As a young adult she moved to Chicago to pursue acting, and started a career in filmmaking and photography.
But after several seasons in production and filmmaking, burnout started to set in. Something about homesteading and raising her own food kept calling Kelsey and her husband, Paul. “We just realized we kept putting off the things that we wanted. Paul just wanted a workshop where he could work on engines, and I just wanted chickens. I just wanted chickens!” So, they started looking for land where they could homestead and found the Green Willow property, named for the flowing willow in the center of the homestead.
“We were really into sustainability and learning how to be zero-waste and understanding what was happening with climate change,” says Kelsey. “So, we jumped in with homesteading and gardening. And then I thought, you know, I actually want to take this to the next level and be a farmer.”
Meanwhile, Kelsey’s health was suffering, struggling with her fertility, skin, and energy levels. As a vegan with a Celiac Disease diagnosis, Kelsey had a hunch something in her diet was affecting her health. “I just felt that there was no way to eat meat in an ethical way,” Kelsey explained. But then she started learning about regenerative agriculture- the practice of raising food in balance with natural systems that replenishes healthy ecosystems.
“I was like, ‘Oh, there is a way to farm meat that is not bad for the environment and the animals are actually given a really good life. One that is in-tune with their instincts and how they evolved. At that point I jumped off reading all the vegan stuff and I read all of Joel Salatin’s books. We had this vision of just having a simple quiet life, in tune with nature, with the food on my plate being food I was responsible for. That’s what my heart truly wanted. Getting out of the city, having some chickens, gardening, being more responsible for my food. Then taking control of my health.” So, Kelsey started following the teachings of Joel Salatin and Temple Grandin and began raising hens.
"One of the things I've come to understand about my origin story, and many of the origin stories of white homesteaders, is that my guidance has come from other predominantly white farmers and homesteaders,” Kelsey reflects. “As someone who is working on understanding her white privilege within the greater landscape of the white regenerative farming movement, I realize I've had some serious racial blind spots. The lack of indigenous, POC, and Black representation in farming literature and education, and even the acknowledgment that regenerative agriculture and permaculture principles are inherently indigenous, is a travesty. I encourage white homesteaders and farmers to recognize the perspective we learn and then subsequently support is a white privileged one. It's time to expand our understanding and knowledge to include the voices of indigenous, POC, and Black farmers as well."
Kelsey’s regenerative practices can be seen and felt all over the farm. She acts as an observer, looking for how she can farm with and not against nature and incorporates permaculture principles. “For the chickens, we want them to benefit from the land first and foremost. We want to get rid of as many external inputs to raising them as possible. So that’s like having their grain feed be gone in an hour and making sure we’re urging them to actually get out onto the grass, eat the bugs, scratch and peck, roll around in the dirt, and pick through our wood piles. We have wood piles throughout the property that we like them to scratch and peck through, and they’ll slowly turn that into soil. It’s working in tandem with nature’s strengths. That requires observation, patience, and then actually getting out and doing the thing.”
Kelsey is vocal on why we need a pasture-based food system. “We owe animals a good life if we’re going to take their life at the end of it. If you want to eat eggs and meat with a good conscience, you need to be supporting farmers who are giving that animal the best life possible. And that’s an animal that is outside, bottom line. Animals do not belong in cages and they do not belong in a place where they never see the light of day,” Kelsey explains. “There are so many issues with factory farming. Not only from an animal welfare standpoint but the environmental toll that they take, including the carbon footprint of [transporting animal products] from a couple of very large facilities.”
Kelsey uses her own design for mobile chicken tractors, open-air shelters that provide chickens protection from predators like hawks while also being outside on pasture. Moving chicken tractors through pasture can systematically improve pasture and soil health while given chickens access to tasty bugs and fresh area for scratching. She shares her design plans so other farmers can build them too.
As Kelsey learned how to run a profitable farm and taught herself best practices in healthy and sustainable living and homesteading, she’s prolifically shared what she’s learned with others. She created an e-course called “Cultivating Capital” to help other farmers with marketing and business management. “I created a system for myself that I’ve done for the farm stand, and after using it five or six times and seeing it succeed every time, I realized I have a really incredible toolkit,” Kelsey reflects. “And our net profit in our first year was really high for not even going to a farmers market.” So, she shares her toolkit on her website. And, she’s hosts a sustainability podcast, creates guides to help with holistic living, and runs a campaign called “Packaging for the Planet” that aims to start a dialogue and action to reduce food packaging waste at large food companies.
Kelsey is also a living example and advocate for why it’s so important to have more visibility for women in agriculture. “Women have always been on the scene, we just called them the farmer’s wife,” says Kelsey. “That label is incredibly unfair. We’ve systematically ignored women in the agricultural system. And, talking with other female farmers especially around livestock, we love to see farming as a creative venture. And we love the community that we can create, even if it’s online. I love being a part of it. We’re in such a cool time for women to break down these gender norms and barriers.”
With COVID-19 unfolding, Kelsey has embraced that digital community while taking swift action to serve customers safely. She’s changed the farm stand’s hours to be open Thursdays-Sundays from 8 am-sunset starting Thursday April 9th in order to have time for a weekly deep-clean of the farm stand. Kelsey explains, “to prevent the spread of COVID-19, our roadside farm stand is self-serve with online payment only through PayPal or Venmo- no cash!” She’s also instituted a one-dozen-eggs per week cap to prevent hoarding and to ensure all customers have access to eggs. And, she’s paused reusing and recycling egg cartons and asks customers to pause returning theirs to the farm stand.
While at home, Kelsey encourages consumers to check out the Positively Green Podcast she co-hosts and her sustainability e-book and resources. And, she encourages folks to get connected with their local sustainable farmer. “If you really want to support your local economy, buy directly from the farmer. You are benefiting only that farmer and not a not a middleman or transportation company.” And, Kelsey hopes farmers will check out the Cultivating Capital course on her website and say hello on social media.
In the meanwhile, Kelsey is staying focused on raising good food and spreading awareness and education on how to grow food, eat and live sustainably. “I hope we all learn how to care for the creatures that live on the planet earth- from human to chicken. I hope to see us curb climate change and solve the [packaging] waste problem in my lifetime. It’s my vision to be integral to that process and to have an impact, whether it’s inspiring consumers or giving small farmers the tools they need to succeed. Looking back on my life, I want to be able to say I lived life on my own terms, and I did it in a way that left the earth a better place than when I came into it.”
