Liz Garst: A Family Legacy of No-Till Farming and Soil Health

In Iowa, the land tells a story—one of abundance, but also of loss. For generations, farmers have relied on the state’s rich black soil to feed the nation and, in many ways, the world. This soil is so deep and fertile that it has become part of Iowa’s identity. Yet, as agriculturalist and conservationist Liz Garst warns, it’s also fragile.

Since farming began in the Midwest, Iowa has already lost nearly half of its topsoil. Erosion, tillage, monocropping, and changing weather patterns are steadily eroding the foundation of the region’s food supply. The outlook is alarming: Jerry Hatfield, chief USDA soil scientist of Iowa, has projected that in just 35 years, western Iowa may have no topsoil left. Without that soil, farming as we know it will vanish.

For Liz Garst, this is not just an academic concern. It’s personal. As a farmer and the granddaughter of one of Iowa’s most prominent agricultural innovators, her life’s work has become the stewardship of the very resource that sustains us all. To The Story of Food, she embodies what it means to be a Food Hero: someone who connects environment, commerce, medicine, and community through the choices they make about food and farming.

We recognized Liz in Farm Hero, a TV series created by our founder Merlin Yockstick, which is featured on EarthX TV (see video below).

A Family Rooted in Soil

Liz’s story begins with her grandfather, Roswell Garst, a farmer whose name is etched into agricultural history. He lived through the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when over-plowing and drought turned vast stretches of farmland into wastelands of blowing dust. That experience changed him.

Instead of following conventional wisdom, Roswell became an innovator. He pioneered no-till farming, a method that skips plowing and instead plants seeds directly into undisturbed soil. By keeping the ground covered and intact, no-till reduces erosion and helps retain moisture. It was a revolutionary idea at the time, one that went against the ingrained habits of Midwestern agriculture. But Roswell understood something many didn’t: soil is not an infinite resource. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Liz grew up surrounded by this ethos of stewardship. “I am devoted to soil health,” she explains. “That’s what I care about. That’s my passion.” For her, soil isn’t inert dirt — it’s a living system. A single acre of healthy soil can contain more than 2,000 pounds of living organisms, the equivalent of an elephant hidden beneath the ground. These microbes, fungi, insects, and roots form a vast ecosystem that supports plant life, filters water, cycles nutrients, and even stores carbon.

But like any living system, soil needs food. Without crops or cover plants to feed the organisms year-round, the life in the soil starves. In Iowa, where corn and soybeans dominate, much of the farmland sits bare for more than half the year. For seven months, the ground is lifeless, leaving billions of soil organisms with nothing to eat.

This, Liz argues, is the “worst crime” of industrial farming: not feeding the life in the soil.

Cover Crops: Nature’s Insurance Policy

On her family’s land in central Iowa, Liz partners with farmer Darwin Pierce to demonstrate the difference regenerative practices can make. Darwin pulls up a clump of cereal rye — a cover crop planted after the main harvest of corn or soybeans. Its roots are dense and fibrous, holding the soil together like a woven net. The structure is strong, porous, and crumbly, allowing water to seep in rather than wash away.

“Cover crops are of the essence,” Darwin says. They keep living roots in the ground year-round, feeding the biology of the soil while also preventing erosion. They’re not just a practice; they’re protection.

A few steps away, in a neighbor’s conventional field with no cover crops, the difference is stark. The soil breaks apart in sandy fragments. Without roots or microbial glue to bind it, the first heavy rain will wash it downstream.

For Liz, this is the simplest argument she can make: cover crops are insurance. In an era of increasingly intense storms, one seven-inch downpour on plowed ground can devastate a farm. With cover crops, the soil stays intact. “Don’t farm naked,” a local farmer group proclaims on their t-shirts. It’s both a joke and a truth.

Morals Over Revenue

Adopting regenerative practices is not as simple as snapping your fingers. Farming is a business as well as a way of life, and farmers face enormous economic pressures. Many fear that experimenting with cover crops or rotational grazing could reduce yields or increase costs. For farmers operating on razor-thin margins, those risks feel unacceptable.

But Liz and her family have made a different choice. On some parts of their land, they’ve chosen “morals over revenue,” converting fields into rotational grazing pastures rather than row crops. The logic is ecological as well as ethical. Cows grazing on grass that is allowed to rest and regrow enriches the soil far more than continuous cropping ever could. “This shouldn’t be row crop,” Liz says of one pasture. “And so we’ve chosen not to farm it, even if it means less income.”

This principle is institutionalized in the White Rock Conservancy, a 5,500-acre land trust established by the Garst family. Its mission has three pillars:

• Protect and restore natural resources.
• Demonstrate sustainable agriculture.
• Welcome the public to learn from both.

It is a living example of how food, farming, and ecology can exist together — not in opposition, but in balance.

The Global Connection

Liz’s family history also reaches beyond Iowa. In 1959, during the height of the Cold War, Roswell Garst famously hosted Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev on the family farm. While politicians argued over nuclear weapons, Khrushchev and Garst walked the fields talking about corn.

The Soviet Union was struggling with hunger. Khrushchev wanted to learn how to increase production of meat, milk, and eggs to feed his people. For him, agricultural technology was more important than geopolitics. For Garst, the decision to share knowledge was about more than profit — it was about peace. If food could connect enemies, perhaps conflict could give way to cooperation.

Liz carries forward this global perspective. She sees soil not just as a local issue, but as a global one. The loss of topsoil isn’t unique to Iowa; it’s happening in breadbaskets around the world. Once topsoil is gone, civilizations collapse — as she witnessed in Portugal, where farmland that once fed the Roman Empire now lies barren and abandoned.

Policy, Subsidies, and Responsibility

The truth is that farmers don’t operate in isolation. Their decisions are shaped by policies and incentives. Today, government subsidies make up roughly a third of farm revenue in Iowa. Yet, Liz points out, taxpayers see little return. Instead of soil regeneration, clean water, or healthier food, subsidies often reinforce practices that degrade the land.

“Taxpayers aren’t getting much for their payments to farmers,” Liz says bluntly. “They’re getting eroding soil, polluted water, and a frightening future for food production.”

Her call is clear: align subsidies with regenerative practices. If public money is going to support farming, it should support farming that sustains the future, not strips it away.

The Heroism of Soil

Why call Liz Garst a Food Hero? Because she reminds us that food doesn’t begin in the grocery store or even on the farm. It begins beneath our feet, in the living web of soil. Protecting that soil is an act of courage and vision.

Liz’s work embodies all four pillars of The Story of Food:

• Environment: Restoring soil health, reducing erosion, protecting ecosystems.
• Commerce: Balancing economic pressures with sustainability.
• Medicine: Recognizing that healthy soil leads to nutrient-rich food and healthier people.
• Community: Preserving family legacies, welcoming the public to learn, and connecting across cultures.

Heroes, after all, are not defined by perfection but by persistence. Liz does not claim to have all the answers. But she insists on asking the right questions: How do we feed the soil? How do we balance revenue with morals? How do we ensure food for future generations?

The beauty of her land — lush prairies, resilient pastures, healthy fields — is not an accident. It is the product of intention, care, and respect. As Liz says, landscapes seem beautiful to us when they are healthy. And health, in the end, is what food should always be about.

What can consumers do?

Liz admits it’s hard. Buying local, supporting regenerative farms, and choosing sustainably grown products are small steps. But the greater power lies with citizens as taxpayers. If we demand policies that reward soil health, cover cropping, and ecological stewardship, we can shift the trajectory of agriculture.

The fight for soil is not just a farmer’s fight. It belongs to all of us who depend on food. Which is to say: every one of us.

Liz Garst stands as a Food Hero because she is willing to speak truth to power, honor her family’s legacy, and chart a course where farming is not about extraction but regeneration. She knows that soil is not infinite, and that protecting it is the truest form of heroism.

The Story of Food is, at its core, the story of soil. And through Liz’s leadership, that story continues — rooted, resilient, and alive. This is your chance…. Nominate another Hero like Liz in your own community.