It’s easy to forget, when you’re making your way across the fields at Walnut Lane Farm in Dudley, that you are mere minutes away from a bustling downtown, and not that much farther away from the second-largest city in New England. That would be Worcester. 

In fact, feeling the ground crunch beneath your feet as you walk under a sprawling sky that on this day allowed both the  sun and clouds to share equal billing with only a view of farmland and cattle in your immediate sight, you may have thought  you’d  been transported to somewhere in the Midwest, circa the 1800s or early 1900s. 

In one fenced-in area, several beef cattle (the family farmed dairy cows until around 2017) busily grazed away, ignorant to their ultimate destination, and equally unaware of the vital role they play for a farm that has been in operation for well over 100 years. 

Jim Koebke is the fourth generation of Koebke farmers in Dudley, working the farm off of the aptly-named Koebke Road started by his great-grandfather, a German immigrant, in 1910. He does so with his wife Krisanne and their three sons, Gus, Nolan, and Curtis. 

They are a self-proclaimed “mom and pop farm.” Their farm and adjacent land do not stretch as far as some farms in the Midwest may reach, but what they do is fiercely personal, rooted in tradition and a commitment to healthy farming, and dedicated to serving the town they call home and neighboring communities. 

Koebke freely admits some changes will likely have to be made to secure the farm’s long-term viability, even if some of it is admittedly out of his comfort zone. 

But what they do now, they do very well, and with pride in how they do it and a deep connection to the animals they raise and the land they farm. 

“Our business,” Koebke said during a walking interview that stretched about 90 minutes, “is built on helping local small business, doing the best for the land that we can, making it as productive and healthy as possible, and trying to improve people’s diets and health, essentially.”

They accomplish that largely by eschewing commercial fertilizers and conventional tilling, instead engaging in regenerative farming, which involves several key practices such as cover crops, crop rotation, adaptive grazing, and composting. 

Their cattle are moved regularly, grazing in one area as a herd before moving onto greener pastures, so to speak. The cows simultaneously feed on and trample a diverse, multi-species mix of plants, creating a natural cycle that both fattens the cattle and fertilizes and restores the soil biology. 

Koebke likened their management system to how soil was formed long ago. 

“If you went thousands of years back on the prairies out west, even here, there were bison. They moved in groups,” he said. “The predators kept them in a tight group because if you got out by yourself, you’re all done. They would graze voraciously. When you get cattle into a tight group, they graze better, more intense.”

The bison, he continued, would graze non-selectively, meaning, in short, they would only eat in a certain area, consuming and trampling all the plants there, versus choosing only their favorite plants. 

“We’re doing a managed version of that,” Koebke said. 

The benefits are many, including better water storage, because healthy soil absorbs more water; climate mitigation, by pulling carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in the ground; and lower costs, because of less need for expensive chemical fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, which Koebke would like to see used as little as possible with different management systems. 

“Ninety-five-percent of insects are beneficial,” he explained. “Once you go out there with insecticides, it doesn’t just take out the one you’re after. It takes out everything.”

Agriculture, he said, is often about killing things. Conversely, regenerative farming is about “bringing life back.”

“The woods, for example, are very healthy. The soil is well aggregated,” Koebke said. “There’s a lot of oxygen in the soil. When you go for a walk in the woods after it rains, that smell you get, that’s water going in and oxygen coming out. That produces that earthy smell.

“We’re trying to do that in our fields. The majority of farmland in this country … has no oxygen. There’s a lot of tillage. The soil is pretty dead.”

The family’s farming methods aren’t necessarily easy; Koebke admits he could probably get more done using more machinery and chemical fertilizers. But that’s not what Walnut Lane Farm is about. And it’s not the legacy he wants to leave. 

Koebke’s parents took over the farm in 1957 after the death of his grandfather, continuing the focus on dairy. Koebke and his wife bought the operating business from them in 1992 and continued strictly as a dairy farm until 2013, wholesaling and getting into the raw milk business. 

As Krisanne Koebke explained, the dairy industry changed, so the family adapted and looked at how they could incorporate other animal products. 

“Beef cattle seemed like a natural fit,” she said. “We’re ‘cow people’ and love beef, plus we had been rotationally grazing our dairy herd and had a lot of water infrastructure in place.”

Adding chickens for eggs and meat, she added, made sense. 

It also makes for a cacophony of sound when you visit the farm to buy meat or other products at the small store where you’re often greeted by Krissanne. The hens in the nearby barn are happy to alert you to their presence. 

The Koebkes sold most of their dairy herd in 2017 to a family farm in Maine. 

From that point on, sales were exclusively for raw milk on-farm, along with eggs, beef, and chicken. Pigs ultimately joined the business as well. The remainder of the dairy cattle were sold in 2024. 

“Dairy farming at our small scale is intensive,” Krisanne Koebke said, “and it’s easy to burn out.”

For the past two years, she said, the family has focused on improving its management and marketing while maintaining its farm-to-table business.

While the bulk of their retail sales is conducted from their small store, they partner with a couple of local businesses, including BT’s Smokehouse in Sturbridge and Deep Roots Distillery in Brimfield. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jim Koebke cites cost as the biggest challenge facing the farm. 

“Overhead,” he said. “Cost of equipment. Cost of repair. We’re lucky. We’re mechanics. We save on that. Our repair costs would double or triple if we had to send them out to a company. The cost of equipment is insane.”

Taxes are another challenge, Jim Koebke said. And this year, fuel costs have been an added burden. 

As for the future, he predicted more direct sales among New England farms, like his family does. He said the region has a big enough population to support that. 

The future of their farm, in particular, is something the family will likely address in the winter, when the business of farming slows down. With their three sons having expressed an interest in becoming involved, Jim Koebke said they want to produce a plan to keep the farm going for another 100 years. 

“The way it’s managed is going to allow us to get bigger,” he said, even if he still faces the challenge of finding a way to safely migrate the cows to some of their other properties so they can expand the grazing. Busy roadways make that problematic. “Not having contiguous land is a problem. If it were all close to home, I could probably run 250-300 head [of cattle]. I just can’t, as it is right now. 

“Without us becoming an entertainment business where we have live bands and wedding venues … I’m not sure that’s in my DNA.”

In the meantime, Jim Koebke encourages folks to think about where they shop. He knows their product is more expensive, but he’s confident it’s among the best. 

“We’ll put our product against anybody in the country,” he said. “I think we do as good a job or better than probably 99 percent of the farms offering meat for sale.”

Comparing it to going to the polls and voting, Jim Koebke said people can make a big difference with their pocketbook and where they shop.

“We’re just a small farm,” he said. “We can’t spread our costs out, so it’s going to cost a little more, but when you drive by and you see cattle on the hillside, you see green open fields, there’s something behind that. Your pocketbook can really dictate what happens in your community.

“You’re spending a little more, but you’re getting a better product. Your health is better. What is the cost of poor health? You can’t put a dollar sign on that.”

So, Jim Koebke concluded, “Be thoughtful about where you shop. Help small businesses where you can.”