Family farmers

Are you a family farmer? Obviously, different people would define that term based upon their beliefs, but where do they get their beliefs from? I will bet you that a customer in a grocery store will define a family farmer as small, with a few acres if it’s a vegetable farm or 10 to 50 cows if it’s a dairy or beef farm. They aren’t wrong, but they are missing out on a lot of other family farms. Family dairy farms come in all sizes – from 10 cows to thousands. Over 97% of the farms in Wisconsin are operated by families.

I thought about this last Saturday as we had a wedding at a local church. Dustin is our assistant herdsman and his bride is Shelby, who has been helping us grow healthy calves for a few years now. At the wedding, Jamison, the two-year-old son of our calf barn manager, McKenzie, was a ring bearer. As he was walking up the aisle in church, he recognized some of the other kids from the farm and the ring bearing session was over. Jamison has mastered running without falling down anymore, and the race was on to try and catch him. Those two-year-olds move pretty fast. I’m sure God had a laugh, too.

We like having kids around the farm and Jacqui’s hip is a magnet for the smallest children. All of her own four kids grew up in a stroller stationed at the end of the hospital parlor, usually with our big yellow lab parked next to them. Cora is now in second grade and can identify over 50 cows by name out of the 900 on our farm, just from being near the parlor with her mother. She knows the milking routine and how to care for newborns. Henry, Jacqui’s third child, has been driving a skid steer since he was young and can unload trucks as well as most 20-year-olds. Farm kids don’t realize the talents they earn by growing up in the country. Parents need the help and most kids want to help, so the practical education gets moved up a notch almost every day. Help mom with chores, help dad fix a machine that needs an extra hand or two to repair, or help the neighbors chase their heifers because we could need help the next time ours are out. Farm kids learn just from being farm kids. How important is that in life? They won’t realize that value until later in life. Ever wonder how that can be taught without a farm? Why doesn’t someone start an all-agricultural school for kids in grades first through eighth using animals and plants as the basis for education?

I can hear some parents ask about farm safety. As farmers we teach our kids and grandkids or employees’ kids every hour of every day about how to be safe – where to go if a tractor is coming, where to be when a cow is coming towards them in an alley. When they get older, we teach them how to shut off an engine. Yes, accidents can happen, but I believe they can happen regardless of whether parents helicopter. Peter was 12 years old when I pulled the pin on a forage wagon with a rope and it began to roll toward a hill. So I jumped out and turned the wagon tongue but slipped on the wet grass and the full wagon ran over me. Peter saw me and called my wife on the radio without being coached. I still can hear the sirens as from six miles away headed to a hay field because a 12-year-old boy knew what to do.

My youngest son, Tony, was in the Marines in an outpost in Afghanistan five miles from another base when his superior officer asked if anyone could operate a backhoe. He wanted to build latrines and berms to protect the soldiers from enemy bullets. The only farm kid in the platoon was Tony and he volunteered. He said it was better than using a shovel.

Thirty years ago, the milk truck started at our neighbor’s and filled his truck in the next four miles. Today there are only two of us still milking cows. A recent controversy in our township brought out negativity from some residents. It seems like they looked at the land needed to feed the cows on these two farms and all the equipment needed for harvest and have developed envy or resentment. Although we do a lot of community outreach, like teaching kids to read, serving on the hospital board, or feeding hungry kids, we are perhaps not reaching enough residents with the family farm story. As hard as family farmers work this is a story we need to tell. Every farm, but especially dairy farms, support our local towns. When 100 dairies quit over the years and only a few remain, our small towns suffer.

The family farms who remain have to find ways to keep the kids involved and compete with the many 40-hour work week opportunities that kids have. It isn’t easy and it’s a challenge that we all face. It’s our business, but it’s also our life. We do it for our families and the land and the cows; we rarely do it for the money.