Being a conservation advocate was not always in Mark Kingma’s plans. The DeMotte, Ind., farmer remembers considering the idea of no-till before fully committing over 35 years ago.
“We’d been toying with no-till on a trial basis with a couple rented planters,” Kingma says.
Since then, he has adopted cover crops on a third of his acreage each year, and he continues to test new practices that will help the soil and water while improving his operation. This dedication to being a steward of the land is something that makes Kingma rise to the top as a 2025 Indiana Master Farmer, an award sponsored by Indiana Prairie Farmer and the Purdue College of Agriculture.
Shifting his focus
Kingma remembers becoming involved in the family farm when he was in just first grade. At that time, his parents raised 50,000 laying hens, and his free time was spent collecting eggs.
He always had an interest in farming, but he stepped away after graduating high school to attend diesel mechanic school.
Upon his return to the operation in 1976, Kingma realized that joining the farm at that time was not ideal as a young farmer.
“It was a tough time to get going farming,” he recalls. With tight margins, Kingma and his father needed to make decisions about what to prioritize. Their planter needed upgrading, and they decided it was time to make the switch to a no-till planter. That meant they would be scaling back from a 12-row planter to a six-row planter.
“All we could afford was a six-row,” Kingma shares. “It was brand new, and nothing broke down on it. What was ironic was a year or so later, we rented a farm that had basically mile-long rows. The planter held enough fertilizer to make one pass down and back. That was a pain.”
The pain was temporary, and Kingma never looked back. Once he committed to no-till, he was all in. And he says he didn’t stray from the course. He remembers a one-liner that was shared at the Midwest No-Till Conference one year that stuck with him.
“The topic there was that you don’t just try no-till,” Kingma says. “The term they used is, ‘Doing a little bit of no-till is like being a little bit pregnant. You either are or you’re not.’”
Seeing positive effects
All jokes aside, what Kingma noticed following years of practicing no-till and planting cover crops was serious. The first noticeable effects were in his ditches. He observed clearer water after switching to no-till. Seeing that clean water lit a fire within him, knowing that it was all flowing to the Kankakee River.
“I felt strongly that more people needed to do that, so at the local soil and water conservation district, we applied for a grant four years ago — the Lower Kankakee Watershed Initiative,” Kingma says. This funding is meant to encourage farmers to cut back on tillage and incorporate cover crops to help keep sediments and nutrients out of the Kankakee River.
On a field-level basis, Kingma explains that the conservation practices have improved soil structure, leading to better drainage. Some fields can experience a rainfall event and be ready to plant the next day, while neighboring fields that are tilled still have ponding.
Thanks to diligent soil sampling and record-keeping, Kingma can now reference the past 35 years to put actual numbers to the changes he is seeing firsthand in his soils. Something he’s most proud of is the increased organic matter content.
“We knew the value of that — the extra nitrogen that’s available in the ground to a growing crop with the higher organic matter,” Kingma adds. “We can now go back 35 years and see the difference. Farms that were at 1.5% are now at 3.5% organic matter.”
Sharing the message
Kingma doesn’t want to stay quiet about these improvements to his soil health and overall crop health. He’s made it a point to share his findings and get involved in various organizations to help others who are just getting started on their soil health journey.
Working with the next generation of farmers is a priority for Kingma. He personally mentors an area farmer who is interested in conservation. But on a larger scale, he is involved with the Jasper County SWCD, the Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts, the Kankakee River Basin/Yellow River Basin Commission, and the new Farm Advisors program.
Kingma says he’s not in the business of telling people how they should farm. But for those interested in improving soil health, he wants to help them be successful.
“I just like the idea to encourage other people to try no-till or reduced tillage along with cover crops,” Kingma says. “There’s only so much in incentives that we can do, and I think it’s a better way to farm.”
Cover crop connoisseur
When Kingma made the switch to no-till over three decades ago, he was going in blind. He kick-started his conservation journey with some farm trial experience, but his journey would be marked with some mistakes.
Kingma is now well-versed in how to operate in a no-till system, but he has spent the past decade perfecting his cover crop routine. He has experimented with a wide variety of cover crops and mixes in search of the system that works best with his conservation and cropping goals.
“The very first one we did was oats and radishes,” Kingma says. “We don’t do that too much anymore because I’d like to have that continue to grow longer in the spring, but that’s a simple way to start if you can get them seeded early and they can get a good start.”
His cover crop routine today consists of cereal rye, annual rye, radishes, crimson clover, hairy vetch and different mixtures of those species. Kingma also has experimented with triticale, buckwheat and some vining species.
While narrowing down the species he plants, Kingma has perfected his seeding system. He uses an air seeder mounted on a vertical tillage tool, seeding the crop while he makes his only pass of tillage.
Incorporating cover crops has been key to improving soil and crop health for Kingma, who shares that his soils are quick to leach nitrogen by spring. Having a growing cover ensures he can make the most of his inputs.
“A lot of the cover crops we use, as they go, they take in the nutrients that are left in the soil,” he explains. “Then, when they get terminated when we plant, as those roots decay, those nutrients become available to the crop we’re growing.”
Mark Kingma at a glance
Age: 67
Location: DeMotte, Jasper County, Ind.
Beginning: Kingma grew up on his family’s farm, where they raised corn, soybeans and about 50,000 laying hens. Upon his return to the farm in 1976 following auto and diesel school, he and his father made tough decisions as margins tightened. They invested in a no-till planter, and Kingma continued to find ways to be a better steward of the land while growing the operation. They exited the laying hen enterprise and raised pigs until the late ’90s.
Farm today: Kingma farms with his nephew Craig Smith. The pair raise corn and soybeans while adopting conservation practices and new technology. Keeping up to date on soil sampling is a priority. They recently updated their grain drying and storage system, and Kingma keeps an open mind about new ideas that Smith brings to the table.
Family: Kingma’s wife, Linda, operates a trucking business in addition to helping wherever needed with the farming operation.
Employees: In addition to Smith, Kingma’s other full-time employee is Chuck Dancer.
Leadership: Current leadership includes the Jasper County SWCD board, Jasper County REMC board, Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts executive board, and the tech advisory board for the Kankakee River Basin/Yellow River Basin Commission. Kingma serves as a mentor for the new Farm Advisors program. He also is a trustee at the Full Gospel Tabernacle following 25 years of leadership with the church.
Notable: Kingma co-hosted the Purdue Farm Management Tour in 2016.