Oldenkamp sets sights on future of Martin County land
Trending
MARTIN COUNTY - Working with farmers on conservation and precision agriculture to make the most of their land, Shelby Oldenkamp is Martin County's new Southwest Minnesota Precision Ag and Conservation Specialist with Pheasants Forever.
Farming is in Oldenkamp's blood, having done so since she was a kid. After high school in Austin, she graduated from Iowa State with a degree in animal science and completed a feedlot management course at the University of Lincoln. Ultimately, she decided that wasn't a forever career, and pivoted over to conservation.
"Helping farmers make more profit on their ground, but at the same time creating more landscape," she said.
For the last year and a half, Oldenkamp was the Precision Ag Specialist in Austin, which gave her plenty of experience for her new position in Martin County.
"We worked on some Reinvest in Minnesota, which is a conservation easement that a producer willingly puts their ground into permanent conservation, while still keeping it under their ownership," she said. "It’s really cool to see how we worked with them to find different areas."
Recently, Oldenkamp got engaged, and her fiancé lives in the Martin County area. The opportunity to be a Precision Ag and Conservation Specialist in Martin County opened up as well, and Oldenkamp jumped at the chance.
In being an ag specialist, Oldenkamp said her job is to work with farmers and conservationists to create the best landscape they can get and make sure their land is profitable.
"Whether that’s helping the farmers find less profitable ground, or if they got problem spots in their fields, help them find more of a conservation solution or a change in management to help them create a better return on their investment for their property or farm," she said.
Through her work, Oldenkamp said the impact of conservation, even in small patches of a farmer's farmland, can be seen through the 10 percent rule.
"Odds are 10 percent of your field is probably not making you the biggest bang for your buck," she said. "By taking that 10 percent out, that could be an acre, a half an acre, a quarter of an acre. It’s really impactful for a farmer economically, but at the same time, you’ve created a small ecosystem for that covey of partridge, turkeys, pheasants, deer. A small little piece they can reside in for an hour of their day, and then continue to move on."
So far Oldenkamp has only been in the area for a few weeks, and has taken the beginning steps to know the area and people living in it.
"The first two weeks have just been getting used to the area, working on trying to do some outreach to get out to the producers, so they know that I’m here to help them, and then just getting to know the different conservation areas around the area."
As she has gotten acclimated to the area, Oldenkamp said she sees a lot of potential wonderful opportunities.
"There’s a lot of great initiatives that the soil and water districts are working on, and I’d love to be able to help them in any way," she said. "Also, the Conservation Club and the Pheasants Forever chapter are really great in doing all the work that they’ve been doing. I’m really excited to partner with them and see what we can do to help out the Martin County area along with the rest of the southwest of the state."
While she is still in the beginning weeks of her position, Oldenkamp is thinking long-term about how her work could impact Martin County's wildlife and plants for the better moving forward.
"I can’t wait to see what it looks like in 30 years," she said. "It’s something I can be able to accomplish and say to people that fall behind in the industry or even in farming, be like, 'Yep, we saved this soil so we can continue to do whatever we need to do.' Whether that’s conservation or saving the grounds so that their children can keep farming it down the road."
For more information, visit facebook.com/MartinCountyPF/.