The Snake River Farm and its farmers are longstanding members of the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota and the Minnesota Bison Association.
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Juan Juan Weidmann has been working seasonally at Snake River Farm for four years. Born and raised in Chile, Juan became a Naturalized US Citizen in 2022. Juan’s first job in agriculture was harvesting berries and tree fruit before school as a little boy. He began working at the age of seven, sweeping buses and selling food to help his family. As a teenager, he took a year off school to serve in the Chilean military. Juan returned to attend technical school for Farm and Ag training. There he was introduced to ranching and animal welfare. After several years working in Chilean wineries, (his favorite job outside of farming) Juan was offered a job in Miami, Florida inspecting produce arriving from South America. At the beginning of the pandemic, Juan and Samantha left the south and came to the Snake River Farm to escape the city. Quickly realizing this was where they wanted to raise their family, Juan and Samantha moved to Minnesota part of the year, still continuing work in Florida during the winter months. Juan also runs a food safety consulting company for small farms and businesses in the Southeast US, Caribbean and parts of Central and South America. Juan and family are now living in Minnesota year-round, while he continues to travel as needed for his food safety business. Juan and Samantha built a new log home on the farm in 2021. You can reach out to Juan Weidmann at [email protected] 954.644.0297 |
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Janelle Janelle has been around Snake River Farm since she was a baby. Janelle refers to Tom and Gail as her “second” or “non-blood” grandparents. Her love of farming was born at Snake River and has continued to grow over the years. Her first job at the farm was picking up brush in the woods when she was 10 years old. She’s been working at the farm ever since. Janelle moved south to work on a sheep ranch when she was 18 but quickly realized nothing compared to working on Snake River Farm. She hurried back to the farm to start working full time. Tom has taught her all she knows and inspires her to always learn more. She’s always had an off-farm job while being at Snake River, but farming will always be her first choice. Her favorite things to do at the farm are fencing, buying cattle, and playing vet when the animals need it. Janelle is a Director of the East-Central Chapter of the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota You can reach out to Janelle Gudim at [email protected] 763.691.4239 |
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Samantha
A Florida native, Samantha is the eldest grandchild of Tom and Gail. Her mother, Shannon (Tom’s eldest daughter), raised Samantha in the southeast while running her own produce import business. An only child, Samantha traveled extensively with her mother during her youth, for work and leisure. Both Samantha and Shannon are fluent in Spanish, as well as comfortable with Portuguese. Growing up in the produce industry, Samantha’s first job was working at her aunt and uncle’s cold storage warehouse, receiving and shipping produce from Central and South America. Later on working for a tropical produce shipper, handling their retail business with companies such as Wholefoods, Costco and Walmart. It was through work and family that Samantha and Juan met. Seeing a growing demand from grocers, as well as increased government regulations, Samantha and Juan founded a food safety consulting company to help small farms and businesses obtain certification for export and sales to the states and abroad. Samantha and Juan have two children, Arthur and Katrina. As of 2024, they are permanent residents of Minnesota. Samantha does administrative work for the farm. She also works as a bookkeeper for her family’s cold storage business, while helping Juan with their own company (De La Tierra Inspections). As her children grow and become more independent, Samantha looks forward to doing more hands-on farming. You can reach out to Sam Barthel at [email protected] 954.292.6162 |
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Ella Ella and her Mom, Amy, and her Dad, Timothy, live just north of us. They have a nice home on ten acres. The Snake River runs through it. Ella is 16 but as my Mother would say, “She was born grown up.” Ella will tell you that she has been farming all her life. That is true. There are tons of photos to prove that. She is particularly good at animal handling and care. Ella does the chores on Sunday mornings. That includes sheep and lambs, several pig paddocks, cattle, horses, and bison. She is an “A” student in Becker High School and a member of Becker’s Championship Dance Team. The Becker team won their conference championship. Then they won their regional title and the right to compete at the state tournament. They did pretty well at the state level coming in 6th in the Jazz competition, and 7 in Kick ranking. |
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Tom
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Gail
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