Grow Getters

How a Pennsylvania Farm Woman Became a Language Advocate

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 12:51:37 GMT

In the heart of Pennsylvania’s dairy industry, Katie Dotterer represents the embodiment of resilience and unity in agriculture. For more than three decades, Dotterer dedicated her life to dairy farming, nurturing both animals and a fascination with languages. This passion has since evolved into a significant mission —bridging communication gaps within the agricultural sector.

Dotterer recently joined Farm Journal’s Grow Getters podcast to talk about growing up on her family’s Pennsylvania dairy farm where today three generations work together. She also shared her deep passion to bridge communication gaps in the agricultural industry.

“A lot of people ask me, do you miss the farm?” she told Grow Getters host, Davis Michaelson. “I wouldn’t be where I’m at today had I not had the upbringing that I did on the farm.”

Dotterer’s journey began on a multi-generational family farm, where her experiences deeply rooted her understanding of the agricultural world and its people. Her insight is now used to teach Spanish and English as a second language, maximizing potential within farm teams and ag service providers.

“That lifelong experience gives me a deep understanding of the ag industry and the people who power it,” she says. “Now, I use that knowledge to teach Spanish and English as a second language to help farm teams and ag service providers connect, collaborate and thrive — in the field and in the barn.”

From Field to Classroom
Dotterer used to teach high school Spanish during the day and then return home to focus on being a dairy farmer.

“I was not just a schoolteacher, as I was literally teaching, coming home and farming,” she says. “I would feed calves, do herd health work in the afternoon and on weekends. I also had an ice cream business that I started on the farm. At one point, I had like five different things going.”

Dotterer’s childhood fascination with Spanish — sparked by a Christmas gift of a Spanish book in the third grade — eventually blossomed into a teaching career when her high school Spanish class wasn’t what she had expected.

“I signed up and I hated it,” she says. “My teacher was a great person, but not a great teacher. You could just tell that passion wasn’t there. And then also, the Spanish we were learning was not applicable to me on the farm.”

The birth of “AdvoKate,” followed by a divorce in 2021, transformed her side pursuit into a full-fledged vocation. Today, “AdvoKate” extends beyond dairy — reaching sectors such as poultry and swine — and enables Dotterer to build meaningful connections within these communities.

A Viral Movement and Trusted Advocacy
Motivated by the desire to empower others and foster understanding, Dotterer became a trusted figure within the farming community, reinforcing the importance of direct knowledge from farmers. Her widely recognized hashtag, “Ask Farmers, Not Google,” embodies her commitment to authentic communication.

“I get to meet a lot of really great people,” she says, sharing that building trust with others to go to farmers as a source is what drives her.

Dotterer says her family hired their first Spanish speaking employee decades ago, and she knew then learning Spanish and being able to communicate would be highly beneficial. Today, her work emphasizes the vital importance of cultural and linguistic literacy in agriculture — a sector where collaboration is key to sustainability and growth

To learn more about Dotterer, go to: Advocate | AgvoKate | Gettysburg and sign up for a class to meet your needs.

To listen to the entire conversation between Dotterer and Michaelson on Grow Getters, go to: Grow Getters: “Ask Farmers, Not Google” — Katie Dotterer’s Mission to Unite Agriculture and Culture

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New Mexico Dairy Farmer Tara Vander Dussen Is Connecting People to Their Food

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 19:47:43 GMT

When fifth-generation dairy producer Tara Vander Dussen went away to college, she planned to leave farm life behind. Flash forward to today and she finds herself one of the agriculture industry’s most popular ambassadors. Having built quite a reputation — and a big social media following — as the New Mexico Milkmaid, she is an in-demand public speaker as well as co-host of the Discover Ag podcast .

“I think it’s one of those things where you don’t appreciate what you have until you’re removed from it,” she tells Davis Michaelsen on the latest Grow Getters podcast , which focuses on how ag producers are diversifying their operations by starting new businesses. Not that college was a huge step away from her roots — she earned a degree in Soil, Water and Environmental Science. But at the time she didn’t see herself marrying a fifth-generation dairy farmer and raising two daughters on a dairy farm.

Working as an environmental science consultant on farms throughout New Mexico, however, was hardly a side hustle. It was her primary job. She’s also a certified NRCS technical service provider, advising producers on nutrient and irrigation management.

As if her life weren’t diversified enough, in 2016 she started writing a blog, “The New Mexico Milkmaid” and started attracting attention. “I wanted to share about cattle’s role in the environment,” she explains. “The conversation can’t just be carbon in and carbon out. Cattle’s role in our ecosystem is so much more complicated and nuanced than that.” As she phrases it on her website, the blog is her way of “sorting through all the cow manure to share the facts about farming.”

The blog led to social media, which led to public speaking, which led to the Discover Ag podcast, which she co-hosts with fellow influencer (and previous Grow Getters guest ) Natalie Kovarik. Tara says that their shared mission is “to bring agriculture in a new, fun and unconventional way to people outside agriculture.”

For ag producers looking to diversify their operation, she offers, “Clarity comes through action.” Before she and Natalie launched their podcast, they educated themselves, even taking courses on podcasting, and then took the leap. “Sometimes you have to just do your idea and see what happens,” she says. “There are going to be things that change and evolve so keep that perspective.”

Watch the full interview on Grow Getters

Visit Tara’s website: https://taravanderdussen.com

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Iowa Farm Family Turns a Small Dairy Herd Into a Beloved, Multi-Product Brand

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 15:52:58 GMT

When the four Hansen brothers came back to the small family dairy farm in Hudson, Iowa, which had operated since 1864, things needed to expand. So, in 2004, the family built its own on-site creamery to create a branded line of non-homogenized milk. A year later, they expanded the brand to include ice cream. And the business just kept expanding, becoming one of the area’s best-known local brands.

Jordan Hansen shares the family’s amazing story on the latest episode of Grow Getters , a new podcast about agriculture’s most inventive side hustles. Hansen’s Dairy has taken ‘side hustle’ to a whole new level. Beyond their line of milk and 20+ flavors of ice cream, they now offer butter, cheese curds and even opened a couple of branded retail shops in nearby Cedar Falls and Waterloo.

“We’re blessed that we have 150 milking cows and they are supporting five owner families and about 60 total employees,” Jordan tells Grow Getters host Davis Michaelsen. “If they had not made this decision 20 years ago to start processing our own products, it would be quite different. We put ourselves on the map.”

Most people in northeastern Iowa don’t need a map to find the seven-generation farm. They’ve been there already for the Hansens’ popular agri-tours. These tours were the family’s first side hustle, starting back in 2002. When Jordan’s husband, Blake, decided to mix a few kangaroos with the usual farm animals, visitors started lining up. Last year, the farm hosted nearly 9,000 guests.

Today the family’s closed herd of purebred Holsteins, each one with a name, drives a multi-level business. A few years ago, the family added Wagyu-Holstein beef cows, which are born and raised on the farm. The product lineup expanded to include filet, New York strip, ribeye, sirloin, ground beef and summer sausage as well as beef sticks and jerky.

All of the products can be ordered online but are only available for pickup at the retail outlets. “We’re pushing forward that ‘buying local’ movement,” Jordan says. “At both our stores we also sell a lot of products made by other local producers.”

Proving that necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention, the Hansen family’s inventive side hustles have turned a small farm into a successful, diversified business that’s well positioned for the next generation to inherit someday.

Grow Getters

How a Pennsylvania Farm Woman Became a Language Advocate

New Mexico Dairy Farmer Tara Vander Dussen Is Connecting People to Their Food

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Iowa Farm Family Turns a Small Dairy Herd Into a Beloved, Multi-Product Brand

Watch the full episode of Grow Getters