By Joe Kertzman, managing editor, Badger Common’Tater
Building and maintaining relationships are the two things that Kevin Sigourney credits for carrying him a long way in his career as owner/operator of Sigourney Farm in Coloma, Wisconsin.
Unlike many of his fellow potato and vegetable growers in the area, Sigourney is not a second-, third- or fourth-generation owner, but instead the first of his family to grow potatoes for a living.
“We had a farming background, but not to the extent as the farm is now. The farm was settled in 1850 on one side of the family, but they lost it during the Depression,” Kevin remarks.
“The banks couldn’t sell it, so it just stayed there, and after the war, two of my uncles bought a portion of the land and started a Christmas tree farm,” he says.
“My Uncle Frank died when he was 60 years old and never had any kids, so I ended up buying 80 acres of the land,” Kevin relates. “An interesting part of the story is that I wanted to put irrigation on it and needed money.”
“I went to Hancock State Bank,” he continues, “and the lender said, ‘Kevin, you need to put irrigation on that farm.’ I didn’t have two nickels to rub together, but he trusted me, and we’ve gone from farming 80 acres then to working 2,700 now.”
