The Personal Farmer Program™ is the brain child of Wendy Baroli. She is the full time farmer, although she is supported by her partner Jill S. Heaton and her sister CJ Baroli. Jill is a full time professor at the University of Nevada, Reno and CJ works full time as an artist at IGT and as a personal trainer at CrossFit Initiative in Reno, NV.

Wendy, CJ and Jill have long family histories in farming. We spent much of our childhood and young adult years on our grandparents farms. However, in both cases (Wendy and CJ are sisters) our family farms fell victim to "the lost generation" in which our parents were unwilling or unable to take over the family farm business and the farms were sold. Up to this point, our story is not particularly unique. There are few of our generation that cannot trace their roots back two or three generations to farming. However, this is where the story changes. Unlike many of our generation, we have chosen to return to farming to reconnect ourselves and our community to our food.

Wendy Baroli (aka The Wee Farmer)

Wendy grew up in Reno, Nevada and spent her pre-college years on the fourth generation paternal side of her family’s small ranch on Lakeside Drive. Wendy’s great grandfather Allessandro Baroli came to the United States indentured for passage and a two acre strawberry field at the corner of Lakeside and Moana in 1892. Later he sent for his bride Maria from Genoa, Italy and they raised six boys on what would eventually grow into a local truck farm. They also raised pigs and chickens. Wendy spent spring break, summer vacations and holiday’s in Unionville, Nevada, on her maternal sides small family farm. Wendy’s maternal grandparents were subsistence farmers in Unionville, although Robert Ernst, her grandfather, did custom hay work with the Munk Brothers of Lovelock, NV to pay for taxes and other necessities that the farm could not grow or raise itself. Wendy spent her childhood and early adulthood doing chores, caring for animals, and growing and harvesting produce. She is no stranger to farming, in fact at her Christening she toddled out the door in her little white dress and white gloves and reached down and grabbed herself a handful of dirt. At this point her mother exclaimed “oh no” which left little Wendy with nothing to do but wipe her dirty hands on her white dress front. Nonetheless, as a young adult she had not necessarily thought she would become a farmer.

Wendy went off to college and eventually became involved in state politics in California. Among other positions, she worked as a legislative aide for Assemblyman Paul D. Horcher and was responsible for his work on the Agriculture Committee. This was where the process of returning to farming began. Her journey continued through research into small farming operations, a small specialty garden center in Reno with her sister, family death and the sale of the last remaining brick house of the Baroli ranch on Lakeside, sale of the Unionville farm, 5-acres of citrus and date farming in southern California, and a position with the USDA Natural Resources and Conservation Service as a Conservation Planner. While with the USDA in Pershing County, she worked with producers to enroll them in conservation programs through EQIP, WHIP and
other federal programs. She was even more motivated to farm the land herself after this most recent experience. This is where you will find her today, the Personal Farmer ProgramTM—an economically viable and sustainable alternative to large scale mono-cropping.

Jill S. Heaton, PhD (aka The Professor Farmer)

Jill grew up in Texas, and spent her pre-college years on her father’s parents beef cattle farm (or ranch as they would call it out west) in Hiattville, KS. Her grandparents raised Angus and Angus/Limousin cross. They bred, raised and fed their cattle off of their own land, hay and alfalfa and brought as many as 50 head of cattle to market a year. On her mother’s side of the family her great great grandparents owned the John Deere dealership in Lawton, OK, however like so many other families, they lost everything in the dust bowl. Jill went off to college and earned a B.S. and M.S. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Geography. She is a professor in the Geography department at the University of Nevada, Reno and her research focuses on how to better manage natural resources on public lands. Jill went off to college with the certitude that her parents would one day retire to her grandparents farm in Kansas and someday she herself would retire there. However that was not to be, the farm was sold in early 2000 as neither her father or her aunt were willing to return to the farm. As her aunt’s husband put it “it’s just a piece of land, you can buy that somewhere else”. It didn’t seem like that at the time and it does not seem like that today. They might be able to make new houses, but they cannot make new farm land. Jill and her brother considered buying the farm, but neither we in the position career wise to be absentee farmers. Little did she know that her dream to return to the farm was awaiting her just outside of Reno.

CJ Baroli (aka The CrossFit Farmer)

UNDER CONSTRUCTION