When a handful of companies looked to set up a wind farm in southern Marshall county in 2007, Jeff Heil and his neighbors did something that hadn’t been done before: they drew up a contract with over 60 landowners in agreement to participate in a wind farm that would benefit everyone, regardless of turbine location.

“There were two different brokers that sort of go out and develop the farms before they sell them off,” said Heil, a farmer from Haverhill. “A few of us neighbors got together to chat about what was going on because we didn’t want a checkerboard effect.”

Heil and his neighbors decided to do a bit more research, talking to other wind farms, attending symposiums and even contacting the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University.