In 1978, Dennis Courtier bought Pepin Heights Orchard, a small apple farm on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River in Lake City Minnesota. More than 20 years later, using farming practices that call for less pesticide use and an intimate understanding of nature's balance, the operation now produces 20% of all the apples grown in Minnesota.

Committed to stewardship of the land and an approach that takes into account the farm's entire ecosystem, Courtier sees his role as working with nature rather than against it. The farm produces 60-70 varieties of apples for eating and the making of cider.

Q: What do you like about farming?

A: There are very few fundamental pleasures in life greater than picking a Honey Crisp apple off of a tree at the peak of its flavor and taking a big bite of it.

Q: How do you approach farming?

A: An apple orchard is a complex eco-system into which we reach with the specific purpose of producing a perennial crop. Biologically there is a ton of stuff going on in that ecosystem and as much as possible we try to work with the natural balance of things and to disrupt as little as possible in meeting the goals of producing the crop.

Q: Can you give an example?

A: For instance, there are species that can be a problem in a commercial orchard that are not a problem when the orchard is left alone. Often times, when we reach in to tweak it, we disturb and disrupt the natural course of things and cause our own problems. So it's really about gaining a greater understanding of how that ecosystem works and doing the minimal things you can do to keep it on track. That really reduces the amount of pesticides, too.

Q: How do you deal with pests in a more natural way?

A: There's a pest called European Red Mite that tends to be kept in balance by several predator species. If you kill off the predator species, you're going to have a problem with European Red Mite. So you really have to understand what's going on with those predator species and be on top of the pests that play a positive role.

Q: Why do you work this way?

A: In this operation we're looking to produce healthy food in a healthy environment. For the most part, the food system in this country is completely quantitative not qualitative. Bigger, faster, cheaper. I'm concerned about how that kind of thinking impacts everything.

Q: What's the basic philosophy that supports the way you work?

A: Understanding how to work with nature. It's really the most important thing to understand what is going on in the environment in which we operate and seeing it as a system, an eco-system, not just a monoculture.

Q: Why is a program like the Midwest Food Alliance important?

A: As the population of this country becomes increasingly urban, people become less and less in touch with where their food comes from and how it is produced. This program is about trying to reverse that and to get people thinking about how the food they eat affects them and the world around them. Ultimately we've got to collectively start thinking about the quality of our food and stop thinking of it only in terms of bigger, faster, cheaper. I think that one tends to perceive the world differently if one is eating good food.

Q: What issues do you look to in the future?

A: Issues of land stewardship will continue to be critical. It just so happens that our operation here in Lake City is on land overlooking the river on a bluff and it's very important to me that it doesn't all turn into land for housing development.

www.pepinheights.com