The Featherstone Story
Featherstone Farm is a 250 acre certified organic farm located in the bluff country in and around Rushford, Minnesota. The farm produces around 70 varieties of fresh market fruits and vegetables for distribution to local co-ops, restaurants and grocers, wholesalers and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members throughout the region. We offer Summer Share CSA, and Winter Share CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for subscribers to participate in across the Twin Cities Area, Rochester, La Crosse and Winona.
Founded in 1994 by Jack Hedin and Jenni McHugh, Featherstone Farm draws its name and focus on environmental sustainability from the Featherstone Township homestead (80 miles upriver) where Jack's great grandfather farmed and planted trees in the 19th century.
Jack and Jenni were among the 6 founding members of the Zephyr Valley Community Land Co-operative in rural Winona, MN, the first home of Featherstone Farm (1997-2007). They had a number of farm partners in the early years, including Jack’s brother Ed and an old friend of Jenni’s from an orchard in New York, Rhys Williams.
In 2000, Jenni moved on from daily work on the farm to follow her passion for working with families and babies and now works as a childbirth and parent educator. Even though she doesn’t get to spend much time in the fields or with the crew, she will always be connected to the rhythms of the farm and work that brings fresh, good food into people’s lives.
Jenni and Jack have three sons: Emmet, Oscar, and Jasper. Since flooding in 2007, they have owned a home in Winona. However, in October 2010 they were able to purchase a 118 acre farm on the ridge above Featherstone’s shop. Everyone in the family looks forward to enjoying a swimming pond and big, beautiful woods right out the back door.
The Featherstone Mission
Mission Statement
Featherstone Farm is committed to produce and distribute high quality, certified organic fresh vegetables, in a way that reflects values of personal, financial and environmental sustainability.
Enhanced Statement
Featherstone Farm is dedicated to building soil, protecting resources, creating renewable energy and to enhancing the rural environment in which it operates.
Featherstone Farm operates a mid-sized, significantly mechanized, certified organic farm, which balances big picture goals of ecological and human health with day-to-day realities of economics (both the need to be profitable as a foundation of sustainability, and the need to be efficient to make quality food affordable and accessible to large numbers of people).
Featherstone Farm is committed to being a fair, transparent and accountable agricultural employer, and to making farmwork a safe, respected and personally sustainable profession.
Featherstone Farm is dedicated to placing good regional food at the center of a vital rural-urban community of people.
Nature and Purpose of this Statement
This mission statement is meant to be a living document, to be actively (re)considered and revised on a periodic basis.
