14. Bob Warrick, farmer and conservationist

Sustainable Agriculture Policy with Ron Kroese

Born in 1935 during the Great Depression in Meadow Grove, Nebraska, Robert (Bob) Warrick still owns the farm where he grew up.

On this week’s podcast, he talks with Ron about farm life beginning in the 1930s, when they still worked the land with horses; through the 1950s when the government subsidized, then backed out of the corn market; then about his involvement in advocating for sustainable agriculture policies in Nebraska and Washington, D.C.

After attending the University of Nebraska, serving in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960, and working for the U.S. Forest Service for a year, he began farming full-time in 1961 near Meadow Grove. He raised hogs, cattle, grass, and row crops until retiring in 2003.

Locally, Bob was elected to the Madison County, Nebraska, Soil & Water Conservation Committee in 1964, serving until 1973. From 1974 to 1975 he served as Natural Resource Director for the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resource District. From 1980 to 2002, he was a Madison County Planning Commission member, including several years as its chairman.

A lifelong environmentalist and hunter, Bob became a Sierra Club member in 1973 and served as Sierra Club's Agriculture Chair from 1975 to 1985. In that role, he helped devise and promote policies to advance sustainable culture for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and its founding member, the Center for Rural Affairs.

He became a board member of the Center for Rural Affairs in 1976, and still serves as a director emeritus today.

He and his wife, Gudrun, married in 1963. They moved after retirement to Oceanside, California, to be close to their grandchildren, where they currently reside. In his retirement, Bob continues to be an active outdoorsman and skier, taking advantage of the Sodbuster Act each fall when he goes hunting for ducks in South Dakota.

Since 2003, he has volunteered as a docent and gardener at the nearby Santa Margareta Y Las Flores Rancho & Veterans Memorial Garden on the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base.

The interview was conducted on Feb. 16, 2017.

Links this episode:
National Sustainable Agriculture Oral History Archive (video link)
Center for Rural Affairs
Sierra Club
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