One of the highlights of my job at Care Farming Network is visiting care farms in person and seeing how they operate and grow. This past week, I drove from my home in Minnesota down the interstate to The Specialty Crop in Hudson, South Dakota, where Katie and her husband Chris are building a phenomenal farm that blends a homestead, agritourism destination, and a growing care farm.
Katie and Chris purchased their five-acre farm in rural Hudson, SD in August of 2021, and spent that first stretch pouring countless hours into renovating and building out their vision. By spring of 2023, that vision had a name: The Specialty Crop.
The farm itself is two organizations working in tandem. The first is an LLC, run by the family, which promotes agritourism in South Dakota through their farm stay and on-site events. The LLC- along with donations and partners- feeds into and promotes the second part: a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called The Specialty Crop Collaborative. The Collaborative is where the care farming happens, offering adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities job and life skills training through hands-on agricultural experience.
The nonprofit tends a half-acre garden, growing produce for sale at their farm stand, and cares for a flock of about 50 laying hens, with participants handling coop chores, egg collection, and chicken health management. The Collaborative also takes on farm upkeep, from grove clearing to small building projects, and makes space for rest and relaxation, whether that’s sharing the food they grow or taste-testing their own farm products. At its core, it’s about cultivating community and sowing a meaningful life for people of all abilities.
Good Food and Good Company
Katie and Chris’s farm is really unique, in that they welcome visitors for a farmstay experience and are also building out programming for people with disabilities. Walking their gardens and high tunnel, I got to see the sheer variety they’re growing: many different varieties of tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, multiple kinds of berries, medicinal plants, beets, and more.
We shared meals together during my stay, and Katie completely wowed me with a loaf of sourdough croissant bread (yes, that’s a real thing, and yes, it’s incredible) that she bakes and sells at their farmstand alongside their produce.
I stayed in the log cabin on their property, and my neighbors for the night were a couple car camping in a Sprinter van, making their way from Yellowstone back home to Canada. It was neat to see how a farm can be both a place of respite and connection not just for the people it’s built to serve, but for folks passing through.
Rebuilding After the Storm
In July of 2025, a devastating storm tore through the property, taking out more than 200 trees. The damage was severe enough that Katie and Chris made the decision to remove their entire grove, tree by tree, to make room for new growth.
In its place, they’ve planting 343 new trees and shrubs. Katie put it well in a recent update:
“When you take out your entire grove one tree at a time, it makes things look different! During your farm visits this summer, you’ll no longer see a beautiful grove full of mature and century trees, but an open space with many ‘planted’ tree tubes and stakes among wildflowers and native grasses.”
Where trees once stood, there is now a beautiful orchard, bee hive, high tunnel, quarter-acre garden, a roadside farm stand, outdoor shower, and proof that this family is very serious about undertaking a lot of projects!
Seeing the scale of what they’ve taken on like the irrigation system, the hundreds of trees and shrubs replanted, and an NRCS water-capture project, was astounding. It’s one thing to hear about a setback like that, and it’s another to understand just how much work recovery actually takes.
And yes, I have to mention the brooder! Check out the hilarious story of where they got their brooder, and meet Rosie the rabbit!
How The Specialty Crop Came To Be
The heart of The Specialty Crop is deeply personal. Katie grew up in a special needs family- her oldest sister, Shaina, was autistic and cognitively impaired. Katie’s family made a point of including Shaina in every part of life, modeling a kind of radical, everyday advocacy that shaped Katie’s own path toward special education.
The spark for the farm itself came even earlier than that career choice. As a senior in high school, Katie took a work experience course and landed a job at a Montessori preschool set on a farm. In her words:
“Each day, the kids would arrive and we immediately went to the barn to feed the animals, collect eggs, and take a nature walk to observe the seasons and natural world around us. It filled me with such a sense of wonder. To see such young people filling big responsibilities and grasping the importance of caring for creation was inspiring, and it stirred something in me. I knew then that I wanted to have an educational farm and I wanted to use it to serve people with disabilities.”
Katie went on to earn degrees in elementary and special education and spent years teaching, watching her students light up on nature-based field trips. The dream of a farm never faded – she just had to wait for the right season of life. As she puts it: “After raising four babies and paying off our student loans, it was finally time to see that dream become a reality.”
Growing Alongside Community
The Specialty Crop Collaborative currently offers two core programs:
- Sow Program — For farm-curious children 18 and under with developmental and intellectual disabilities, offering a safe first step into farm life through garden work, harvesting, animal husbandry, outdoor education, and recreation.
- Grow Program — For adults 18+, building on foundational skills with hands-on experience in planting, harvesting, food preservation, livestock care, and customer relationships, while developing teamwork and communication skills that can carry into future careers.
They also offer a Social Membership for community members who want to stay connected to farm events and programming without enrolling in a formal course.
You can watch a video of Katie describing their indoor programming space and future plans below!
You can learn more about their programs here, and if you’re ever passing through southeastern South Dakota, their farmstay is well worth the visit!
The Specialty Crop is a member of the Care Farming Network. Explore our full member directory to find care farms across the country.