David Van Eeckhout Email & Phone Number

For the last 4 years I have been bringing my 20 years of farming experience to specialty crop farmers around the Twin Cities area to help them solve problems on their farms. I have built multiple greenhouses, taken and interpreted soil samples, sourced fertility, identified disease and nutrient issues, identified pest problems, consulted on equipment and land purchases, shared information on new varieties, provided farmer feedback as part of the Produce Safety Advisory Group at MDA, helped farmers with their accounting and financial management, and tirelessly advocated for farmers when there were no farmers at the table. I'm especially proud of the work we did in 2020 creating the Local Emergency Assistance Farmer Fund (LEAFF), which helped 47 BIPOC farms by guaranteeing sales to replace markets lost during COVID. I'm also excited to be working with the University of Minnesota on financial benchmarking for small, diverse specialty crop farms.