Josiah & Sarah Harder
Arrow J Acres
Josiah and Sarah Harder own and operate Arrow J Acres, a grass-based cattle operation located near Fort Pier, South Dakota. Though originally from South Dakota, Josiah spent most of his childhood in Wisconsin, where he gained agricultural experience working on dairy farms. In 2022, he completed a summer internship with a ranch ministry in South Dakota, where he learned ranching skills and connected with the landowners from whom he now leases pasture land.
EQIP
South Dakota
We’ve got cactuses, yucca, and all different types of grasses. The beautiful thing about the steep river bank terrain is you can’t till it, so it’s never been tilled, so that pasture goes back thousands of years. You’ll find prairie species that you just don’t find in a lot of other places anymore because it’s been relatively untouched.
Josiah’s wife, Sarah Harder, also originally from Wisconsin, had no farming experience until she met Josiah in the spring of 2024. The two were married shortly after a 30 hour drive from South Dakota to Montana and back to pick up cattle. Before meeting Josiah and becoming involved in farming, Sarah attended the Air Force Academy.
We’re dead center South Dakota right now which is almost dead center US. We’ve got a lot of rolling hills here, which can make it difficult to subdivide paddocks because with an industrial mindset you want to run long straight fence-ways, but we’re just working with the terrain. Right now the cows are in what’s called the river bottoms of the Missouri River just north of the Oahe Reservoir.
With a lifelong passion for ranching, particularly in managing grass-based perennial pastures, Josiah is applying the practices he grew up learning about. Through his family history in ranching, he was inspired by his grandfather’s work with cows and developed a deep connection to the land. Rejecting the notion that farming requires significant financial investments in modern equipment, Josiah adopted a more cost-effective approach influenced by Joel Salatin and Wendell Berry. He emphasizes minimizing equipment use and utilizing portable, low-cost infrastructure, such as electric fencing and solar energizers, to manage cattle efficiently and ecologically.
Through EQIP funding, Josiah is able to bring and hold water to each paddock through water lines and movable stock tanks allowing him to rotate cattle based on forage rather than water availability. His philosophy aligns with the traditional methods of early ranchers focusing on holistic, regenerative land use and meaningful, fulfilling work.
Wendell Berry hits the nail on the head when he talks about this notion of humans taking stock of their place in nature. Some people think humans are coming to take and destroy and develop. On our farm we are working with nature every day. We have a place and a purpose here.
