In celebration of Mother’s Day, AG Web Farm Journal teamed up with FarmHer to highlight farm moms who embody the grit and grace found in rural America.
In 2020, life changed for everyone, but for Amanda Nigg and her family, it felt like a sucker punch. As the world was shutting down, the Niggs lost their house and all their belongings in a fire. But thanks to some cinder blocks and an online fitness community, Amanda found a renewed purpose in the farm community and a new lease on living a physically and mentally healthy life.
Known as Farm Fit Momma, Amanda is the mastermind behind Farm Fit Training. She teaches farmers everywhere their farmyard is a gym — it just requires a little creativity and determination.
Grit has been instrumental throughout Amanda’s life. For example, after flunking out of college her freshman year, she filed a petition to be accepted back in and became a 4.0 student.
Amanda graduated with a degree in radiation therapy and moved to South Dakota. After two months, she realized that career path wasn’t the right fit, so she decided to take a step back. In the meantime, she started selling supplemental insurance to farmers, which ended up being her jam for the next 11 years.
And that’s where she met her husband, Louie, a fifth-generation corn and soybean farmer from Sisseton, S.D. Together, they built their dream home and began raising two sons. It was all coming together, but in an instant, it all fell apart.
The day before the country went on lockdown for the global pandemic, Amanda’s life went up in flames … literally. Their home, belongings, everything was gone. Not to mention, selling insurance door to door was no longer possible because of the pandemic.