The stars align for farm transfer

Alex Christen/Dairy Star

Shelley and Mark Czech stand in the freestall barn June 27 on the dairy farm they recently sold near Foley, Minnesota. Mark grew up on the farm and has milked cows there most of his life.

 

FOLEY, Minn. – Although Mark and Brent Czech are only distantly related, they have come to know each other well. On April 1, Mark retired from dairy farming, selling that part of his farm to Brent after a year of planning for the transition. Mark’s wife, Shelley, said the agreement with Brent seems ideal in timing and structure.

“It’s a good match,” Shelley said. “We are really lucky.”

Three times each day, 600 Holsteins are milked on the farm in a double-8 parallel parlor. The milk first goes to the cooperative in nearby Gilman and then is hauled to First District Association in Litchfield. 

In the sale of their dairy, Mark and Shelley have maintained ownership of most of the cropland – on which they grow soybean, alfalfa, wheat and grass hay – and the equipment needed for continuing that business. Brent has purchased the dairy operation and the buildings on the farm.

“Brent approached us five years ago, and we started talking about it,” Mark said.

“We had grown feed for him in the past. Then he came to us last March (2022) and said that he’d like to make it happen.”

Brent and his family own several dairy farms through their business, New Heights Dairy. Mark and Shelley’s site is now an additional satellite dairy within that business. Mark said he likes that the farm will remain a dairy farm.

 “I’m 65, and I don’t have kids choosing (to take over the farm),” Mark said. “I really wanted (the dairy) to go to the next level. Brent wants to do that. I believe Benton County is a good place to raise dairy cattle.”

Still, letting go of the dairy is difficult. A lot of history, memories and hours of hard work have been involved. Mark’s parents, Joe and Claudette, were the first generation on the farm. Now in their 90s, they live a few miles down the road. Joe comes every day to help with fieldwork or other tasks.

As a boy, Joe had wanted to be a farmer, but he needed to make money first. His own dad had died young, and the family struggled to make ends meet. Joe quit school as a young teen to find work. He and his brother stowed away on an ore ship docked in Duluth. 

“Back then, you kind of snuck on a ship and hid,” Mark said. “Once you were out in Lake Superior, they couldn’t really throw you off. If you were a good worker, you stayed on.”

Joe stayed on for 12 years. That work led to him receiving training for servicing steam boilers, which he did in the St. Cloud area until he was in his early 60s. He bought the farm site in 1954, and he and Claudette milked seven cows and farmed the land’s original acreage while Joe also worked full time off the farm and even served a two-year stint in the military after being drafted in 1959.

As Mark and his three siblings grew up, they began helping with running the farm. 

“Dad milked before he went to work, and we kids did evening milking and other chores,” Mark said. “Dad would rest after work and go bale hay or whatever was needed. It always worked out, and we always farmed.” 

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Mark Czech (left) and his father, Joe Czech, look over their farm in the fall of 2018 near Foley, Minnesota. They were the first and second generations on the farm, which Joe purchased in 1954.

 

By then, they were milking 32 cows in their stanchion barn. When Mark graduated from high school in 1976, he went to technical college for a diesel mechanic course. Afterward, he was employed by a John Deere equipment dealership in St. Cloud, where he worked for eight years. 

Like his father had 25 years earlier, Mark bought his own farm. 

“I bought the farm down the road in 1979,” Mark said. “I didn’t really want to dairy farm; I wanted to crop farm. I always liked the iron part of it – machinery and all of that.”

About that time, Mark also began dating a town girl from Foley named Shelley. They married in 1982. 

While balancing his job as a mechanic with farming, Mark began to rethink things.

“It always looks greener on the other side,” Mark said. “I had a good job ¬– it wasn’t that I didn’t like what I was doing – but I’m the kind of guy who likes to control his own destiny.”

Dairy farming was calling him. 

“His heart’s been in the farm; that’s how he was raised,” Shelley said. 

Mark joined with his father to farm full time. The cows continued to be milked at the home farm while heifers and calves were raised at Mark and Shelley’s farm. Shelley took a full-time job through the Farm Service Agency and worked there for 32 years but also helped with milking and farm chores as needed. The Czechs began buying more cropland and going, at that time, from milking 70 cows in the stanchion barn to building the parlor in 1998 and increasing the herd to what it is today.

“Once you build a parlor and a holding area, it’s really simple to expand,” Mark said. “You just keep building barns. At that time, we milked twice a day and did the fieldwork. Now we milk 24 hours a day and have designated people for milking, so it never quits.”

Shelley said that Mark’s dad was always a role model for them, encouraging them to be progressive and take risks.

“He would always tell Mark to build a barn or do things – to go for it,” Shelley said. “He’d say, ‘You have to be like a turtle. You stick your neck out if you want to get somewhere.’”

When Mark’s parents retired in 2003, Mark and Shelley moved to the main farm. Now they are building a new home and machinery shop about a mile from the farm with the move-in planned for the end of summer. Looking back, both said the time went fast. 

“I still can’t believe we sold our cows, our house, our shop and all the buildings,” Shelley said.

The couple said what they most appreciate is how the new owners have treated the farm’s employees, many of them Hispanic, by offering all of them the chance to remain in their positions. Most have stayed on. Knowing their employees can keep their jobs brings comfort, but the Czechs will miss them. 

“They’ve been like family,” Shelley said.

Mark agreed.

“We pretty much eat lunch together every day; once we move, that will be the hardest part,” Mark said. “It’s fine until you start talking about it. Then I get choked up.”

The Czechs also raised two daughters, Cassie and Jodie, on the farm.    

“Our daughters worked hard on this farm,” Shelley said. “(Mark) even made them come home early from prom so that they could milk cows in the morning. We wanted to reward them by doing something with the family.”

Now that they have sold the dairy, the Czechs surprised their daughters, each married with three children, by announcing they are taking the whole family on a trip to Cancun. Afterall, the dairy will continue in good hands when they are gone.

“We know our cows are going to be in good shape,” Shelley said. “Bottom line, it was a good transaction. We are blessed, and we couldn’t have found better owners to buy our place.” 

Mark agreed.

“We want them to succeed,” he said. “I am going to be working closely with Brent, growing the feed for the dairy herd. I hope this farm just keeps growing, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to.”