Surviving because of organic prices

ROLLINGSTONE, Minn. — For the Pronschinskes, being organic has given their farm the financial ability to continue. From 2009-2018, the family was embroiled in a court battle that went all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court over the succession of their farms.
Kim and Kim Pronschinske are the owners of Do Over Dairy near Rollingstone. The Pronschinskes farm with the help of their children, Annabelle, Clayton, Adreanna, Gage, Autumn and Alaina. They milk 85-100 organic cows on 315 acres split between several farms, including a wooded acreage in Wisconsin.
The legal challenges the Pronschinske family went through were difficult to endure.
“It was like you were walking around in quicksand with a silo stave on your back,” Mrs. Pronschinske said. “You just didn’t feel like you could get ahead, but we really couldn’t get out, because then we would have lost everything. If we walked, we wouldn’t have been able to fight for anything that we had invested.”
The farms have been in Mrs. Pronschiske’s family for four generations. In 2008, after her dad passed, the future of the farms came into question with two non-farming siblings involved in the will and some parties desiring the farms to be sold for cash versus continuing as a dairy.
“A trust came in and owned the farms, and we all became tenants,” Mrs. Pronschinske said. “It was a nightmare.”
During the battle, the Pronschinske family was transitioning to organic. About a decade and $300,000 in legal fees later, the Pronschinskes owned their farms.
“If we weren’t organic, we’d have never survived,” Mrs. Pronschinske said. “It’s a good way for the future to survive, if they can get into it.”
Annabelle, 22, and Clayton, 20, are both interested in being the next generation to farm. Through their growing-up years, they also experienced the hardship incurred by the legal challenges.
“They’d come home from that (legal) stuff and they’d ask us, ‘How bad do you guys still want to farm,’” Annabelle said. “(Mom) would be crying. … Seeing her in tears every day made it harder for Dad. … We kept fighting for it. There were definitely times where we thought, well, maybe this is it.”
Currently, the dairy cannot support all four adults, so Annabelle is part time. She is finishing up school at Ridgewater College and working for a cooperative.
“It’s tough because you know what you want to end up doing, but you can’t do it quite yet,” Annabelle said.
Annabelle helps with the genetics. The dairy has predominantly Holstein cows with some crossbreds and Red & White Holsteins. They are breeding for A2A2 as well as using almost exclusively polled bulls.
Clayton does field work and most of the feed mixing. Adreanna works off the dairy but helps as she is able, and Gage, Autumn and Alaina lend a hand with chores every night, helping with milking, fencing, pitching pens and more.
For Annabelle and Clayton, flexibility is a big draw to farming.
“The wages (for an off-farm job) are awfully tempting and everything, but I don’t get my own schedule,” Clayton said. “The biggest thing is my own freedom and schedule.”
For their parents, they said seeing the dairy continue would help make the struggle they have had worth it.
“If nobody’s going to do the work that we did, was it really worth it for us to do that?” Mr. Pronschinske said.
His wife agreed.
“You don’t want to see all your work go to waste,” she said. “On the flip side, Kim said it was our dream, it doesn’t mean it’s their dream. And that’s something harder for me to swallow.”
Over the years, the Pronschinskes have made updates to the farms. In 2018, they retrofitted the parlor, poured a cement feed alley, built a lean-to and took down two silos. With everything they do, cost is forefront.
“You got to know the numbers,” Mrs. Pronschinske said. “You can’t just be a ‘yes’ person and anything goes, because that doesn’t work.”
Their milk is sold to Organic Valley. The dairy has been a patron of Elba Cooperative Creamery, which handles their milk, since 1957.
They have looked into putting in robotic milking units to make it easier for the next generation, but the costs have made them pause, especially after working hard to pay off the farm early.
“We’re not really wanting to jump back into debt, because it’s the first time we’ve been out of debt,” Mrs. Pronschinske said. “(My husband) is pretty much if we can’t cash flow it, or we can’t pay for it, he doesn’t get it.”
They have considered adding another grain bin to the dairy if they can find a good deal, so they could buy all their grain for the year at once at the best prices. The Pronschinskes grow their own forages but buy organic grain. They have found that if organic grain comes up for sale, they have to move quickly to secure it. They collaborate with the other farmer to find a good deal for both of them. The Pronschinskes prioritize maintaining their relationships with the farmers around them.
“You don’t want to burn bridges, because you usually have to cross them again,” Mrs. Pronschinske said. “Organic maybe teaches you more to be humble in that way, because you’re in a smaller pool. … We help each other to survive and thrive, remembering everything we have is a gift of God. We’re all just trying to be successful with our faith, our families and our farms.”
The Pronschinskes have tried to instill in their family the motto, “Keep God in first place and everything else will fall into place,” which was shared with them by their IBA Dairy Supplies dealer.
After their succession battle, one of Mrs. Pronschinske’s goals is to make sure other farmers understand the importance of having a working, legal succession plan.
“I wish that people could hear the horror stories of family farms who have had to go through this,” Mrs. Pronschinske said. “Do not sit on your thumbs and think this is all going to work out, or the kids can deal with it. … You got to have some sort of a plan.”
Now, the family is trying to find the right plan for their own next generation. The Pronschinskes said they want their kids to work and invest in the farms outside their parents’ leadership.
“The biggest thing is, is there going to be enough profit there in the future, even with organic (to be) worth their time?” Mr. Pronschinske said.
Mrs. Pronschinske agreed.
“If this is something they want to take on … we will support them, but they will have to put the work in to make it happen,” she said.