To suggest that this guy was merely pleased to learn that his farm had been named Wayne County’s Conservation Farm of the Year for 2025 would be a gross understatement. I had called Roger from the road as I was heading back to the office from a meeting. I couldn’t wait to get back and tell everyone about his reaction.
“I have never heard anyone be more excited about any award of any kind, ever!” I told the staff.
Having only worked in Wayne County for a few years, I was a little late to the game in getting to know Roger, and I really wasn’t sure what he was all about. I knew that he was a long-time local producer and had been a pretty big deal on Farm Bureau. I’d encountered him at various events and field days, but I didn’t have a clue how he farmed. That changed when I was invited out to his place to consult on some streambank erosion issues he’d been working on. It was late spring, and everyone around had been struggling to plant in an unusually wet season. From where we stood on Roger’s land, everything was already green. There wasn’t a patch of bare ground as far as the eye could see.
“My mission is to have something growing on every single acre going into winter,” he said.
Our conversation took off from there. In short order, we were standing in one of his fields a few miles down the road, watching one of his guys planting green into a cover crop of cereal rye as high as my head. That was just the beginning of the lesson. The more we talked, the more I realized that guy was absolutely devoted to the very sort of thing that we beat our heads over trying to convince others of: no-till, minimum till, cover crops, planting green—the whole soil health ball of wax, it seemed. Months later, I was thrilled to learn that our Board of Supervisors had chosen Baker’s Acres for the 2025 Conservation Farm Award.
Roger Baker will tell you right off that he didn’t do it alone, and that he has always had the support of family, friends and neighbors and a whole host of great relationships in the broader community. Dave Brandt was among many trusted advisors that also includes a small group of, “Neighbors who also happen to be (his) best friends.”
“I have always had someone believe in me even when they didn’t even have a reason to,” he said.
Roger is a passionate guy. If he cares about something, he is all in all the time. That’s the way he feels about his land and it shows. That’s why the Conservation Farm award means so much to him—and why he’s the perfect recipient for it.
