why send a farmer to the minnesota senate?
Over thirty years, Jack worked alongside a diverse team of employees and community members to build Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables into a $3 million farm business supplying organic produce to consumers across the Midwest.
That’s just the hands-on, practical experience we need to represent us in St. Paul.
Featherstone Farm is a complex organization — like SD 26 and the state of Minnesota.
The business that Jack and company have built from scratch is a vertically integrated “layer cake” of farm production, crop warehousing, and perishable product distribution. Figuring out all the complex relationships within this system—resourcing projects, leading people, balancing the books, and holding everyone and everything accountable—is what Jack has done for three decades. It is perfect preparation for addressing the complex challenges of state government.
Featherstone Farm is a very diverse community — like SD 26 and the state of Minnesota.
Featherstone is a unique melting pot for people of incredibly diverse backgrounds. Urban and rural, young and old, conservative and progressive—English, Spanish, Hmong, and Pennsylvania Dutch speakers—all are essential to what we do. Learning to understand and respect different points of view and to bring various stakeholders on board for a common vision is perfect preparation for bridge building in St. Paul and across the state.
Featherstone Farm has overcome huge challenges — like SD 26 and the state of Minnesota.
In three decades, Jack has led Featherstone Farm through many different challenges: weather-related disasters, farm accidents, financial crises, a global pandemic, and, perhaps most importantly, chronic growing pains. Jack has found a way through them all—identifying and enlisting community supports, prioritizing action steps, and summoning the individual and organizational leadership necessary to overcome them. This is more very relevant preparation for leadership at the state level.
Featherstone Farm is an incubator for innovation—like SD 26 and the State of Minnesota
The complex, vertically integrated business model that Featherstone Farm has developed is exceptionally rare; building it up has required innovative thinking and problem-solving every step of the way. Adapting tool systems; designing, building, and adapting warehouse spaces and processes; envisioning novel distribution systems from urban Minneapolis to rural Fillmore County; developing financial management tools unique to this business—the scope of innovation at Featherstone has been remarkable. All this is very relevant experience for approaching current and emerging challenges in state governance.
Featherstone Farm’s experience with local business relationships — a gateway to understanding statewide challenges
Featherstone Farm has relied on a wide and complex web of local and regional vendors, service providers, contractors, and professional supports for three-plus decades. Jack’s experience of seeing the loss of local ownership of many of these businesses over the years has given him an understanding of what is at stake for rural economies and communities, and ideas about how to push back on this loss, based on real-world experience. All this is very relevant preparation for public policy work in St. Paul.
Featherstone Farmer Jack Hedin as a policy advocate and political bridge builder
Jack began to advocate on public policies that affect agriculture and land use as far back as 2006. He has written about climate change and its impact on food systems, on federal crop insurance programs, and on immigration reform. He has hosted on-farm visits from two US senators, two US representatives, and the state lieutenant governor, as well as countless regional and state leaders. All this is very relevant preparation for the complex work of policy development at the Capitol in St. Paul.