Jennie Schmidt’s Maryland farm family used climate-smart farming practices long before anybody talked about climate change. They just called it conservation.
One of of Jennie’s favorite pictures is a 1965 Farm Journal cover photo of her father-in-law
Jennie Schmidt’s Maryland farm family used climate-smart farming practices long before anybody talked about climate change. They just called it conservation.
One of of Jennie’s favorite pictures is a 1965 Farm Journal cover photo of her father-in-law, Walter Schmidt, atop his Hiboy Interseeder, which he piloted to plant cover crops into no-till corn. Then and now, both no-till (or reduced tillage) and planting cover crops are farming practices that improve soil health, reduce erosion, and sequester carbon. sequesters carbon.
Fast forward 50 years since Walter and his Hiboy hit the fields, and as of 2017, nearly 105 million arable acres in the United States were farmed using no-till methods, while more than 97 million acres were in reduced tillage, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Land Use Census. Sequestering carbon is one of the top priorities for mitigating the effects of excessive greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
“It was always their philosophy to farm with conservation practices in mind,” Jennie says of Walter and his brother, who were the 2nd generation to run the 1880-acre Schmidt.
Today, Walter’s pioneering and progressive farming spirit inspires Jennie in her 21st century role as a boots-on-the-ground farming changemaker, advancing solutions to climate change. She is one of many U.S. farmers implementing practices that reduce agriculture’s carbon footprint and preserve natural watersheds and regional ecosystems, while growing healthy, nutritious food. Such climate-smart conservation practices already help U.S. farmers sequester 100 times more carbon than is emitted annually in the United States
“Climate change has always been part of farmer’s conservation conversation. We’re just changing the terminology,” Jennie says.
Jennie didn’t grow up a farmer. And while she and her husband, Hans, were raising their children, Jennie worked as a dietician. But in 2016, Jennie and Hans traded places; he took an off-farm job, and Jennie began farming full-time with her brother-in-law, Alan.
“Whenever they needed me to do something, I went out and jumped on that piece of equipment. I made myself as indispensable as I could on the farm, so basically, I worked myself into a job,” Jennie says with a laugh.
When Hans was offered an off-farm job in 2016, she jumped at the chance to fill his boots. She now manages the Schmidt farm with her brother-in-law Alan.
Along with Jennie’s farming bona fides, her non-farming background and dietetic profession have fortified her farmer voice as a popular public speaker, nationally-recognized commentary writer, and social media influencer. Jennie’s no-nonsense approach and leadership have earned her a position as the first female president of the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board. She is also on the Nominating Committee of the National Corn Growers Association, is the Maryland delegate to the U.S. Grains Council, and made the 2021 list of Top Producer’s Executive Women in Agriculture Trailblazer award.
As a member of the USFRA Ambassador Network, Jennie hopes she can reach an even larger audience and have an even bigger impact.
“People are just so removed from agriculture. And what they think they know about farming… they learn on social media,” she says. “They don’t have any connection to how their food is produced and don’t understand what we farmers do, or don’t do.”
Jennie often finds herself answering basic how-is-food-produced questions and dispelling farming and food myths from the perspective of a full-time farmer and dietitian. For instance, questioners often ask her about the differences between organic and conventional farming. She explains that the Schmidts gave organic farming a try for about 10 years, but in order to manage the weed burden on their organic cropland, they needed to employ intensive tillage, because herbicide use would disqualify the crop fro