A dozen counties in northern Lower Michigan experienced a disastrous ice storm that lasted from March 28 through 30, 2025. The storm is long gone but the damage remains and farmers need the help of all of us to repair extensive fence damage, pay for debris removal, replace lost seedlings, and fill the gap from weeks of lost income. Groundwork teamed with Crosshatch, Northern Michigan Local Food Alliance, and NE MI Healthy Food Initiative to create the Ice Storm Farm Relief Fund to raise dollars for farmers in need this season. Donate here. Farmers can apply for relief funds here. In this article, we hear from Andre Kitscher, of Peaceful Valley Farm. [As told to Jeff Smith]

Andre Kitscher: My grandpa and his sister originally purchased the land where my farm is back in the 1930s. The five and a half acres I have is part of that original farm, so I’m carrying on a tradition that my grandpa instilled in me. He wasn’t a full-time farmer, but had a big garden, and I was helping him plant things when I was just 2 years old. 

So farming has been part of my existence for as long as I’ve been around, but my farm, Peaceful Valley Farm, started about 15 years ago. I’m pretty much a one-man show—pretty small scale. I still have an off-farm job in the winter. I’m not a certified organic farmer, but I follow organic protocols. These days I don’t have any animals, other than honeybees, and I concentrate on vegetables—root corps like potatoes and radishes and onions, and also tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and greens. I mostly sell at two farmers markets.

When the ice storm hit, I was still working my winter job at a ski shop. But I had started farm activities in February, like starting seedlings in my house. Just the week before the ice storm I had turned on the heat in the hoophouse and moved a lot of my plants over there. Originally when the storm hit my power did not go out. But then Saturday it did. I was able to turn the heat up in the hoophouse, which kept ice off the greenhouse, so that saved the greenhouse. But the power was off for a week.

I measured the thickness of ice on tree branches and it was two-plus inches thick. It was destroying things as you just stood there looking at it, just breaking the trees down, breaking the tops off the trees. After the storm I had to clear the pathway I use that goes through the woods from my house to where I farm. It’s maybe 30 yards through the woods, and the tree limbs and branches were stacked over my head. it took me over a day of cutting with a chainsaw and dragging to clear just that short trail. 

I had propane heating the hoop house, but without electricity to run the blower it was not going to keep the plants warm enough. So I had to move the plants back to the house to keep them warm. I moved as fast as I could to do that. But there’s not enough room in my house for all those potted plants. And walking through my house with plants covering almost every bit of floor and on every shelf, it was like playing Twister or something.

I had to choose which would live, and I still lost about 600 plants. If I had sold those as plants they would have gone for $6 each and if I had raised them and sold, say, tomatoes from them, it would have been quite a bit more. So for a small farmer like me that is a chunk of change. 

Then, of course, for the plants I did save, there’s not much sunlight in a house compared to a hoop house, and that makes the plants spindly and really tall and they’re difficult to transplant. When the power came back on and we got some warmer days I was able to move the plants back. But, yes, losing 600 plants will definitely affect the amount I bring in this year.

The ice storm was surreal, but it was also on one level, beautiful. You have to look at in the bigger picture, like, the beauty of things. I remember at one point looking outside a few days after the storm and the sun was finally shining, on all the ice and the trees. 

I guess farming is in my blood. Growing up helping my grandpa was a pretty amazing time, and I’ve been around farming in different aspects. You know, there’s a struggle, but obviously I enjoy it enough that I continue to do it. Growing things and supplying people with quality food is what I know. For me, there’s nothing more amazing than to be able to take some really nice produce to the farmers market and hear people say, “Hey, thanks. Thanks for bringing this.”

Jeff Smith is Groundwork’s Communications Director.
jeff.smith@groundworkcenter.org