Eastern Iowa Farmer Fall 2017

The Eastern Iowa Fall 2017
Farmer
A Publication of Sycamore Media
THE Next
generation
Families and farming have always gone
together in Eastern Iowa. Careful planning
is key to keeping it that way.
Rite of passage: Detasseling
has been around since the late 19th
century and is still a rite of passage
for many teens in Eastern Iowa.
Water and ag: A look
at state and local water issues that
affect agricultural interests in your
neck of the woods.
Industry update: Volatile
prices, regulations challenge dairy
farmers.
PLUS:
Four pages
of photos
of your friends
and neighbors!

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Farmer
Directory of advertisers
adamson-lindsey agency..................62
ADM...............................................................54
American Mutual...................................19
bellevue state bank............................64
bellevue veterinary clinic.............24
breeden’s vermeer..............................36
C&J Trucking............................................25
cascade lumber co ............................23
central dewitt
performing arts............................123
Channel Seed.............................................2
Citizens first bank............................116
Citizens state bank..............................74
Clinton national bank........................39
Clover Ridge place.............................27
cornelius seed......................................47
county Line ag........................................83
Dale Junk .....................................................4
dave river construction.................93
davisson tiling....................................110
deep creek applicators....................35
Delaney auto & ag.................................28
delmar grain service, inc.................63
dewitt bank & Trust..........................132
dewitt hospital foundation.........115
east iowa realty................................100
eastern Iowa propane
& Petro, Ltd..........................................53
eberhart farm center.......................69
Farm bureau federation...................86
farm bureau financial
services................................................49
farm credit services..........................95
Farmers creek antiques...................31
fidelity bank & trust...........................68
first central state bank..................55
franzen family tractors..................96
green tech............................................103
HD Equipment..........................................25
heartland cottons.............................44
heritage mutual insurance..........119
hermes auto & upholstery, Inc......38
highway 64 auctions...........................96
hostetler precision
ag solutions LLC............................105
iowa concrete products.................81
Iowa title & Guaranty Co.................54
J&S Auto Specialists............................24
jim lee insurance..................................71
keeney welding.....................................65
Kruger Seeds............................................6
kunau implement................................107
LG Seeds....................................................26
low moor ag service, Inc..................91
Mac’s wine cellar.................................31
Maquoketa feeds..................................85
Maquoketa financial group............52
maquoketa livestock......................114
maquoketa lumber............................115
maquoketa state bank........................82
martens angus farms........................44
mayberry home appliance
center.................................................101
melissa burken mommsen.................75
merschman seeds..............................113
miner, gilroy & Meade.........................57
Nissen-caven insurance
& Real estate....................................102
northwestern mutual......................29
Ohnward Farm Management............11
ohnward insurance group.............43
Ohnward tax, accounting,
& business services.........................88
ohnward wealth & retirement......37
osterhaus pharmacy.........................78
park farms computer
systems..............................................120
people’s company..............................130
peters beef genetics......................121
Petersen Insurance
Company, Inc ........................................30
pioneer seed........................................117
PMC Agri-Service...................................20
prairie creek seed...............................70
regency retirement...........................77
River Valley Cooperative.................48
Rob-See-co............................................122
roeder brothers..............................112
roeder implement................................66
rolling Hills Vet service.................89
rolling meadow Devons...................60
scherrman’s implement.....................79
Schmidt ag services.........................109
schoenthaler, bartelt, kahler
& Reicks - attorneys at law...........46
Schueller & Sons
Reconstruction.................................17
schuster & Co. PC.................................73
Scott Wirth construction...........106
sheridan & Associates
insurance.............................................30
solar planet...........................................84
spain ag service.....................................80
state farm................................................65
stickley electric.................................72
sycamore media.....................................42
the crossroads inspired living....45
the engel agency.................................21
the feed and grain store.................92
the insurance group..........................76
theisen’s....................................................85
thiel motor sales, inc........................94
thrivent financial................................61
veach diesel & Automotive
repair.......................................................33
welter seed & Honey Co....................58
wheatland manor.................................41
White Front.............................................16
Wyffels hybrids....................................34
8 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

Story Index
the next generation
50
Families and farming have always gone together in
Eastern Iowa. Careful planning is key to keeping it that way.
summer
pluckin’
12
For generations,
Eastern Iowa’s farm
youth have risen early
to walk miles of rows
to make a few bucks
dairy
industry
22
Industry evolves
with robotics,
organic farming
water
quality
40
Iowa pays a price
for being an
agricultural giant
global
perspective
98
Traveling the world
for Merck, local
woman remains
rooted in family farm
32 Grazin’ on the Green
young farmer repurposes
golf course to expand his herd
108 Getting Involved
FSA office offers opportunity
for local decision making
111 Family, Fitness and Farming
training helps Charlotte farmers stay
in shape for the demands of the job
118 Dad
herb Carlson was a blessing
and a curse
123 Land Values
prices creeping upward after
three-year slide
124 Iowa laws
verbal or written, leases goverend
by specific provisions
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / trevis mayfield

Farmer
The Eastern Iowa Fall 2017
A Publication of Sycamore Media
THE NEXT
GENERATION
Families and farming have always gone
together in Eastern Iowa. Careful planning
is key to keeping it that way.
Rite of passage: Detasseling
has been around since the late
19th century is still a rite of passage
for many teens in Eastern Iowa.
Legislation and Ag: A look
at state and local issues that impact
agricultural interests in your
legislative district.
Just can it: Enjoy the fruits
of your garden labors year-round
with tried-and-true preserving
methods from local cooks.
PLUS:
Four pages
of photos of
your friends
and neighbors!
The Eastern Iowa
Farmer
Sycamore Media President:
Trevis Mayfield
Advertising: Stephanie Birkinbine,
Melissa Lane, Kim Galloway, Trevis
Mayfield, Rosie Morehead, Luke Renner
Creative Director: Brooke Taylor
Editorial Content: Erica Barker,
Lowell Carlson, Kelly Gerlach,
Nick Joos, Larry Lough,
Nancy Mayfield, Trevis Mayfield,
Adrienna Olson, Kristine Tidgren
Photography Content: Beau Bowman,
Kelly Gerlach, Nick Joos, Larry Lough,
Trevis Mayfield, Brooke Taylor
Editors: Kelly Gerlach, Nick Joos,
Larry Lough, Nancy Mayfield,
Trevis Mayfield
Published by: Sycamore Media
108 W. Quarry St., Maquoketa, IA
563-652-2441
Cover: Trevis Mayfield, Brooke Taylor
Cover Models: Nick and Kaylin Novak
The Eastern Iowa Farmer is a specialty
publication of Sycamore Media Corp., 108
W. Quarry Street, Maquoketa, Iowa 52060,
563-652-2441 or 800-747-7377. No portion of
this publication may be reproduced without the
written consent of the publisher. Ad content is
not the responsibility of Sycamore Media Corp.
The information in this magazine is believed to
be accurate; however, Sycamore Media Corp.
cannot and does not guarantee its accuracy.
Sycamore Media Corp. cannot and will not
be held liable for the quality or performance
of goods and services provided by advertisers
listed in any portion of this magazine.
Message from the Publisher
Cover story hits close
to home for me, too
The cover story of this issue of The
Eastern Iowa Farmer hits close to home
for a lot of folks, including me.
My family owns a small (yet much
bigger than it used to be) farm in Indiana
that has been part of the Mayfield family
for well over 100 years, at least the first
96 acres of it. It was almost lost during
the Great Depression, saved only by my
Great-Aunt Geneva, who bought the
farm back at auction.
Ever since, it has been my family’s
goal to keep the operation going and to
keep it in the family one way or another.
I know my parents will be reading this
issue closely.
When we began
working on the
cover stories, titled
“The Next Generation,”
I knew we
would have plenty
to write about, and
I was right.
We talked to
young farmers
Trevis Mayfield
President
Sycamore Media Corp.
trying to acquire
land to get started,
farmers close to
retirement without
heirs interested in farming, fathers
and sons trying to navigate transition
issues, tax experts, attorneys, and even a
poet. With 55 percent of Iowa’s farmland
owned by someone age 65 or older, we
knew the topic would be robust.
We appreciate the access our sources
gave us. They provided a lot of insightful
information, some of it quite personal in
nature.
As I have written before in this space,
we love hearing from our readers, especially
when they have story ideas or
send us photos from the farm. One such
photo appears on page 126 of this issue.
The photo, sent to us by Barbara Lippens
of DeWitt, shows a young boy and his
Blue Heeler puppy, both fast asleep after
doing their chores.
Being a dog lover, I found the photo
to be one of my favorites, and the note
Barbara wrote us was nice, too. “Love the
Eastern Iowa Farmer,” she wrote. “Even
the advertisements are clear, colorful and
show the people who will help you with
their services. Imagine it took a lot of
ground work. Keep up the good work.”
You may notice a few changes in this
issue of the Eastern Iowa Farmer. In past
issues, we have always included a story
about food, and we have received a lot of
positive comments about it. That’s why
I thought I should tell you now, before
you read any further, that you won’t find
any food stories in this issue. For that,
we apologize to those who were looking
forward to it.
Our plan was to have a feature on
canning and cooking with home-grown
vegetables, but as it turned out, we found
so many good stories about generational
planning that we simply ran ourselves
out of space. But don’t despair too much.
Food will return as a regular feature in
the spring issue.
And speaking of that, one of the food
stories in the hopper for future issues will
focus on the various kinds of ethnic foods
area farmers have passed down from
generation to generation. If your family
has a specific recipe you’d like to share,
please send it our way. You can do that
by going to eifarmer.com and clicking on
the “submit story idea” button. We’ll look
forward to your ideas.
And, as always, I need to thank all the
advertisers who supported this issue.
Without their strong support, The Eastern
Iowa Farmer would not be what it is.
We hope you enjoy this issue as much
as we enjoyed putting it together.
Sincerely,
Trevis Mayfield,
Sycamore Media president
10 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

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summer
pluckin’
For generations,
Eastern Iowa’s
farm youths have
risen early to walk
miles of rows to
make a few bucks
BY trevis mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
Never mind that it’s
summer vacation.
The alarm goes off in
Korey Schepers’ bedroom
at 6 a.m., and her
feet hit the floor without hesitation.
There’s no sleeping in and no snooze
button during the middle weeks of
July.
That’s the way it’s been for the past
seven years, ever since Korey joined a
local army of kids and young adults
who walk miles through eastern Iowa
cornfields to ensure that next year’s
seed corn will carry the correct genetic
codes.
These early-bird troops who assemble
at 7 a.m. for roll-call at Cornelius
Seed’s Springbrook headquarters hail
12 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

Connor Willret of Camanche, along with
about 90 other teenagers and young adults,
spends a few weeks of his summer vacation
detasseling for Cornelius Seed.
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photos / Trevis Mayfield
from as far away as Clinton and Independence.
One, a few years ago,
was from Omaha and stayed with
friends, Korey recalls.
Their specific orders are the same
each day: Pluck the tassels from the
corn stalks that will produce the
seed local growers will plant next
season.
Battling the heat on a sweltering
July day, Olivia Clark of Maquoketa
tries to stay hydrated.
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 13

detasseling
Clockwise from
right: Casidy
Dondiego of
Clinton checks for
any tassels her
co-workers missed
in a field near
Springbrook.
Having some fun
during their break,
Brielle Goetzinger
of Maquoketa
(left) and Adyson
Nemmers of
Bellevue share a
laugh while making
what they called
“tassel sombreros.”
Rubber Crocs
and boots are the
shoes of choice
for many of the
walkers.
14 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

detasseling
This is the important work –
some would call it a rite of passage
– that Korey and more than
90 other area youths sign on for
every year.
The goal of the crews is to
seek out and pluck any tassels
that the detasseling machines
missed, according to Will Cornelius,
who has been in charge
of managing the detasseling
efforts for his family’s business
since returning from
college seven years ago.
Removing tassels is vital to
the seed business. The process eliminates
a corn plant’s ability to fertilize itself,
which means the pollen – along with the
genetic codes that go with it – is provided
by only what Will calls the “male” rows
of corn. Every corn stalk has both male
(the tassel) and female (the silks) reproductive
parts, and is normally capable
of completing the reproductive cycle by
itself.
To raise seed corn with tightly controlled
traits, Cornelius plants four rows
of “female” corn (with specific genetics)
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 15

detasseling
for every single row of “male” corn
(that also has specific genetics),
which answers the question rural
motorists often wonder: Why are
there tassels on only a few of the
rows in a field?
The “male” corn is allowed to
keep its tassel, which provides the
pollen that fertilizes the “female”
plants, while the “female” plant is
unable to fertilize itself, creating
a nearly perfect cross-bred hybrid
with very specific genetic traits.
The process is nearly identical at
seed companies throughout the
Midwest, although some no longer
use walkers, instead relying exclusively
on machines.
Will, who started detasseling
corn at age 11 (employment law
does not apply to family members
who work for the family business),
Crew leaders Ches Craig and Korey Schepers, both of Maquoketa, coordinate their efforts before morning roll call.
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16 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

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detasseling
likes to tell the walkers, “I’ve been doing
this more years than you’ve been
alive.”
Korey got her start as a 14-year-old
after hearing an announcement over
the high school public address system
that Cornelius was looking for detasselers.
She hated it at first because the
weather was hot and the work was
hard, but her opinion changed with
time.
“In high school, all my friends came
and worked out here, and it was fun.
… It was hard work, but we just all
hung out in the cornfields,” Korey
said while standing in a cornfield
during an overcast morning.
With age and adulthood, Korey has
worked her way up the detasseling
food chain and is now a crew chief
who will earn somewhere around
$2,500 this season. What the job
means to the now 22-year-old recent
graduate of Iowa State University has
changed, too.
A few years back, while she was
working on her degree in studio art,
her summer’s work paid for a trip to
Lollapalooza, a big music festival in
downtown Chicago. But this year her
earnings will be spent differently.
“When I was younger, I used the
money for whatever I wanted,” she
said. “But now I use it for bills and
student loans.”
Ches Craig, 21, of Maquoketa, has
worked summers at Cornelius for
almost as long as Korey. He, too, has
been a crew leader for the past few
years.
He started in his early teens because
he wanted a job that was outdoors
and because he needed money for a
very specific purpose: An aspiring
clarinet player, Ches wanted a professional-level
instrument that could
help him eventually to make his
living as a musician.
That was high school. Today, Ches –
whose mother was a detasseler before
him – is a senior at Luther College
with a major in clarinet performance
nearly completed. His next stop
will be graduate school, and then he
Caden Stephany takes advantage of early morning
roll call to rest his legs before spending a day in
the fields.
hopes to play in a major symphony
orchestra or a military band. Wherever
music takes him, detasseling will
have played a few of the background
notes.
This summer he was still walking
corn rows in a red plaid shirt, keeping
his crew focused and helping the new
kids to figure it out.
When you first start detasseling,
the heat can feel overwhelming, Ches
remembers.
At first, you think, “Wow, it gets really
hot out in the cornfields,” he said.
“Just keep coming back,” he advised,
“and you’ll end up building up
a tolerance to it.”
The conditioning sometimes comes
in handy at school, too. When his
roommates at college complain about
the heat in their dorm room in late
August, he often feels just fine, and
quips, “It feels pretty good in here.”
For 15-year old Adyson Nemmers, a
second-year detasseler and a sophomore
at Bellevue High School, the
job is a way to visit with friends, stay
active during the summer, and save
some money that will eventually be
spent on a car and college.
Her mother, who had been a detasseler,
told her what to expect. But
Adyson, too, remembers the difficulty
of getting used to the heat when she
first started. “It was a lot hotter than I
thought it was going to be,” she said.
Moisture that accumulates on the
corn overnight also poses some challenges
on some mornings.
“Sometimes I just take it and get
wet,” Adyson explained, “but sometimes
I’ll wear my rain coat and
boots.”
Darien Jones, a 14-year-old incoming
freshman at Camanche High
School, has a full-blooded pedigree
when it comes to detasseling.
When he started looking for a
summer job, the first-year detasseler’s
mother suggested he sign on with a
crew. Both she and Darien’s father
worked with crews when they were
in high school, but the work, Darien
says, isn’t as tough as she had warned
him about.
“I actually kind of like it because
I’m one who would rather do manual
labor than sit at home by myself,”
Darien said from a field during a
comfortable 78-degree morning. “And
it’s not really as hard as my parents
made it out to be.”
Darien works with a contracted
crew out of Clinton that shows up at
Cornelius’ fields in a yellow school
bus. The bus departs from the Kwik
Star gas station in Clinton at 5:30 a.m.,
which means Darien and his Clinton
County co-workers are out of bed an
hour or so before that. It’s an early
start to the day, but the $8 an hour is
worth it to Darien, who has a financial
strategy for his summer earnings.
“I’m going to put 80 percent of it
into car, because I already have a
couple cars I’m looking at,” he said.
“And I’m going to put 20 percent of it
into spending money.”
Besides the money and cars, Darien
has some other reasons to get out of
bed so early.
“I love meeting new people and
making new friends,” he said. “I’m a
very social butterfly.” n
18 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

detasseling
Will Cornelius
takes roll
call at 7 a.m.
before the
workday
begins.
Immediately
following this
morning ritual,
the workers
file into a fleet
of vans for
transportation
to their
assigned
fields.
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 19

The next generation
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Office 563-652-5684 • 800-684-0693

dairy industry
Volatile prices, regulations
challenge dairy farmers
Scott Hingtgen explains the
benefits of using a robotic system
for milking his herd.
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke Taylor
Industry evolves
with robotics,
organic farming
BY Kelly Gerlach
eastern iowa farmer
Marvin and Kim Lynch
eyed their burgeoning
corn crop and
ripening oats. Their
calves were bottle-fed,
and their cows were
chewing their cud after the
morning milking.
The Lynches knew they
had found the perfect life –
raising their three sons on the
family dairy farm.
Their next-best decision? To
go organic in 2006, thereby skirting
the violent drop in regular milk
prices that plagued the nation eight
years later.
“We got tired of the uncertainty of
the up-and-down in the conventional
market,” Marvin said as he and his
Data collected on the
computer at the Hingtgen farm allows an
immediate snapshot of each cow’s production level,
change in behavior and if the cow is becoming sick.
wife stood on their Cascade farmland.
The land has been in his family for
three generations.
“Organic milk prices are set at the
22 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

dairy industry
beginning of the year,” Kim
explained.
“Conventional milk is a commodity
in Chicago constantly
getting traded,” Marvin added.
That trading and the 2014
decrease in dairy exports to
China led to volatile markets,
which dramatically dropped
milk prices from what had been
historic highs, according to
Dr. Larry Tranel. He is a dairy
specialist based in the Dubuque
office of Iowa State University
Extension and Outreach.
“The past one to two years
have been very difficult because
milk prices have been relatively
low compared to relative costs
in production,” Tranel said.
“It was and still is a stressful
time.”
iowa dairy by the numbers
• 12th in total pounds
of milk produced
• 12th in milk cow numbers
• 12th in production per cow
• 9th in fluid milk bottling
• 8th in total dairy products
processed
• 7th in number of dairy herds
• 7th in cheese production
• 6th in cottage cheese
production
• 6th in production of
American cheese
• 4th in ice cream
production
• 4.35 BILLION: pounds of
milk produced (2011)*
• 240 million: pounds of
cheese produced (2010)*
• 1,403: number of
dairy farms (2014) **
• 204,000: milk cows in
production (2011)*
• 21,309: average pounds of
milk produced per cow (2011)*
• 201: number of dairy goat
farms (2013)**
• 1 full time job is created for
every 10 dairy cows in Iowa
(2012, ISU study)
• 22,000: number of jobs
provided by the entire dairy
industry - (2012, ISU study)
• $23,445: total economic impact
per cow • (2012, ISU study)
• $4.9 billion: annual amount
contributed to the national
economy from the dairy
industry • (2012, ISU study)
* USDA ** IDALS Updated June 2013 Information from the Iowa State Dairy Association
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 23
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dairy industry
Historic highs
and sudden lows
Skyrocketing demand
from the Chinese sent milk
prices soaring to historic
highs in early 2014. Two of
the top five dairy-supplying
nations, Australia and
New Zealand, experienced
droughts, so U.S. producers
upped the ante by increasing
their herd sizes and
milk production.
The increased demand
sent prices to a high of
$24.50 cwt. in September
2014, according to the U.S.
Dairy Export Council.
Cwt is the abbreviation
for hundredweight, which
is equal to 100 pounds.
When those countries
re-entered the export game,
supply outweighed demand,
causing a glut in
the market. Prices steadily
dropped until the market
bottomed out in the summer
of 2016, setting milk prices
back by at least $10 cwt.
That drop made a huge
impact on expansion
discussions of one Jackson
County family.
Robotics becoming
the norm
Milking is a 24/7 operation
at the dairy farm of
Scott and Jessica Hingtgen
on Bellevue-Cascade Road
in Jackson County. But the
cows virtually milk themselves
thanks to two Lely
robotic milking machines
the couple installed in December
2011.
Theirs was the first dairy
operation in the county
to mechanize the milking
process that way.
About 75 Iowa farms
invested in robotic milkers
when the trend hit Iowa.
Now the state has more
than 200.
“We expect it to continue
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke Taylor
Kim and Marv Lynch, along with their sons Wyatt, Waylon, and Willy, keep their herd on an all-natural feeding system to
produce organic milk. Standing on their farm northwest of Cascade, the Lynches explain the process of going organic.
to grow by about 25 percent
per year,” Tranel said. “We
don’t see it ending.”
The Hingtgen dairy herd
numbers about 250, but
only about half of them are
fresh.
At their leisure, cows one
by one mosey head-first
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dairy industry
onto the metal milking platform.
Sometimes their udders are bulging
with milk; other times they are
hungry for the sweet pellet feed that
awaits them in the robot. The milkers
automatically attach to the cow’s teats
to extract the milk.
However, the machine will kick
them out if it’s too soon for milking.
How?
“Each cow wears an electronic
collar,” son Cameron Hingtgen
explained as he sat behind a desk
watching surveillance footage of the
bovines. “[The collar] tracks their
weight, when they ate, when they
came in to be milked, their rumination
[how often cows chew their
cud].”
“They track their ID, and they’re a
heat detector as well,” Scott added.
That’s heat as in reproduction, not
temperature.
This dairy cow wears two tracking collars. In order
for the cow to make use of the robotic milking
system, the collar acts as a data transmitter.
All that data gets tabulated on a
computer spreadsheet, creating activity
graphs – immediate snapshots
of each cow’s production level and
change in behavior. It can even indicate
if a cow is becoming sick.
Going robotic was a risk, Scott
admits, but he has noticed the improvement
in the health of his herd
as well as the increase in production
numbers. His cows are producing an
additional 10 to 14 pounds of milk per
milking than they had been, averaging
output of about 85 pounds of milk
per day.
Increased production fattened his
family’s milk check. However, the
increased production in Iowa and the
United States, combined with less
consumer dairy consumption and
decreased exports, caused that glut in
the market in 2014.
“The milk prices sucked the last
few years,” Scott admitted as he
glanced over at his $200,000 robotic
milking machines. “Right now the
prices are just OK.”
Scott said he has been getting $16.50
to $17 cwt. for his milk this year. He’s
not getting rich, but it’s a definite
improvement from the milk checks
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that registered only $13 to
$14 cwt.
The severe drop in prices
eliminated the Hingtgens’
choice on whether to expand
their operation.
“I had hoped to put in
another robot last year,”
said Scott, who has been
milking since about 1990,
“but the milk prices
stopped me. You have to
watch your spending.”
He admitted that pulling
out of the dairy business
then “did cross a guy’s
mind” because of the instability
and dismal outlook.
However, he talked to his
loan officer and extended
some bank notes to mitigate
the damage.
“It’s definitely a challenge.”
Dr. Larry Tranel
Dairy specialist
Iowa State University
Extension and Outreach
Organic milking
Three generations have
been on the Lynches’ 440-
acre Cascade farm since
1947.
Kim and Marvin started
the three-year organic
cleansing process in 2006
after they bought Organic
Valley cottage cheese and
yogurt.
“It was the best we ever
had,” Kim said.
For the milk to be certified
organic, the livestock
must be allowed to graze at
least 120 days on grass.
“That lets them absorb
Vitamin D and omegas, and
those health benefits transfer
to us and the consumers,”
Kim explained.
The cows must be fed organically
certified fodder or
feed, cannot be treated with
most drugs such as growth
hormones, and must be
treated humanely.
The Lynches grow their
own corn, alfalfa, beans
and oats without chemicals
so they can feed it to
their cows. It cuts down
somewhat on their feed bill
– “organic feed suppliers
are few and far between
around here, it’s so rare,”
Marvin said – but there’s a
bigger reason.
“This way you know
what you’re getting,” he
explained.
They received their organic
certification in 2009.
Marvin and Kim, with
help from sons Wyatt, Willy
and Waylon, milk about 100
cows twice a day, with 28
cows at a time in the freestyle
barn. Each of their
Holsteins produces about
50 pounds of milk each day.
The organic milk market
is about 6 percent of the
overall market, but that’s
“quite a lot higher” than 20
years ago, Tranel explained.
Despite the stability of
organic milk prices, the
Lynches said their prices
had dropped this year
because sales had slowed
down. That left a glut.
“Then the processors try
to sell it on the conventional
milk market,” Marvin
said, noting that when an
overabundance of milk is

dairy industry
available, some farmers must adhere
to quotas to decrease production.
Whether conventional or organic,
a glut in the industry often leads to
manufacturing of the popular export
whey, which is the liquid that remains
after milk has been curdled and
strained.
If the Lynches have too much milk,
their calves also are more than willing
to drink it.
The importance
of the industry
Milk prices have rebounded since
last summer, but they are nowhere
near the highs of a couple of years
ago.
“People have a hard time understanding
the importance of the dairy
industry in everyday life,” Tranel said.
Every dairy pumps about $23,445 a
year into the local economy, he said.
That includes the labor force, where
100 cows equal about 10 jobs, and not
all in the ag field. With an estimated
217,000 head in Iowa in July – up
about 3,000 from a year ago – that
means about 21,700 Iowa jobs.
And dairy is big business in Iowa
– which ranks eighth in the United
States for number of milk cows and
milk production. It’s especially big in
eastern Iowa. Tranel said one-quarter
of the state’s dairy industry comes
from just four counties: Clayton, Delaware,
Dubuque and Jackson.
Iowa has about 1,300 dairy farms;
probably 99 percent are family farms,
Tranel said.
Milk prices not
the only difficulty
Dairy producers also face problems
besides the volatile marketplace, Scott
said. Chief among them is labeling.
“Labeling. Saying it’s antibiotic-free
doesn’t mean what people think,” he
said. “No milk has antibiotics in it.
We test it before it gets on the milk
truck, and they test it when it reaches
Earlville and then again when it
reaches AMPI [Associated Milk Producers
Inc.] in Arlington, Iowa.”
Then there are booster shots for
BST, an animal growth hormone approved
by the Food and Drug Administration
to increase milk production
in cows.
“It’s naturally produced by the
cows,” Scott said, “but we gave them a
booster shot, and now we can’t do that
anymore. The real problem is GMOs
[genetically modified organisms].”
Animal rights groups also have
raised a fuss about the dairy industry,
saying it is inhumane to breed cows
for the purpose of milking them.
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dairy farming
“They don’t understand that
we have to treat them humanely,”
Scott explained. “The
better we treat the cows, the
better they’re going to treat us.
“People are going off what
they hear and what they fear.
If it’s harmful to the consumer;
it’s harmful to me and my
family. And I’m not going to
give it to them if it’s dangerous.”
That’s when firsthand education
becomes crucial to the
industry, Scott said.
With a decline in the number
of family farms and the
increase in city dwellers, fewer
people know where their food
comes from. So for a handful
of years, the Jackson and
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have hosted Lunch on the
To maintain the organic certification
standards, the Lynches raise their
own cattle on their Cascade farm.
Dairy Farm in June.
“We’ve served about 1,600
people at these things, walking
people through the milking
parlor, letting them see the
cows get milked, seeing their
comfortable living conditions,”
Scott said. “People are
just amazed at what we do.”
The drop in demand and
prices affects not only the producers
but their hired hands as
well. For the Hingtgens, that’s
two part-time employees and
full-time worker Brad Till.
The lack of processing
capacity in Iowa is another
issue, leaving a glut of milk,
Tranel said.
“More milk is being produced
now than ever before,”
said Tranel, who grew up on a
dairy farm.
Despite fluctuating markets
and unpredictable weather,
Marvin is in the dairy business
for the long haul.
“We’re raising good, responsible
kids and doing what
we love,” he said. “Being our
own boss, we can pick and
choose what we’re going to be
doing each day. I don’t think
there’s anything else I’d rather
do.” n
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Grazin’ on the
GREEN
Young farmer repurposes golf
course to expand his herd
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photos / Nick Joos
Payton Marx has spent months transitioning the former Canyon Creek Golf Course into pasture for his cattle.
BY nick joos
eastern iowa farmer
For a guy who hasn’t swung
a golf club more than a couple
times in his life, Payton
Marx sure spends a lot of his
time on a golf course.
Or, at least what used to be one.
In February 2016 the rural Bryant
farmer took possession of the former
Canyon Creek Golf Course between
Goose Lake and Clinton along state
Highway 136. Marx, 22, wanted to
expand his small livestock operation,
but he had only four acres of pasture.
Then came the auction.
“There were about 20 or 30 people
with bidding numbers,” Marx said.
“Only me and one other lady made
offers; she said she wanted to turn the
property into residential.”
The entire nine-hole course was
part of the Joyce E. Koehler estate,
and in November 2016, the property,
in addition to all course-maintenance
equipment and golf carts, was auctioned.
“The first day we came out here
for the viewing to see what it was all
about. Everyone was showing up in
fancy cars, and here me and my buddy
come rolling up and we have feed
dust on us,” Marx recalled. “Then,
when we went to the auction, I never
imagined it; I thought [the price]
32 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

grazin’ on the green
would skyrocket out of my price
range, but it didn’t. If I would have
listened to everyone else, I wouldn’t
have shown up. Good thing I went.”
At the time of the acquisition, Marx
owned eight head and four acres, not
an optimal ratio. Variables considered
when determining how many acres
a farmer needs to nourish livestock
include weight, grass type, and animal’s
age. Marx, who plans to feed
out heifers into the 700-900-pound
range, aims for one acre per head. He
also plans to implement rotational
grazing, which, when done correctly,
can double a pasture’s capacity.
Marx financed the land with a
personal loan from a local bank and
a beginning farmers loan through the
USDA Farm Service Agency. Loans
obtained through the FSA can offer
opportunities to farmers who are:
• Looking to start, improve, expand
or transition family farming
operations
• Beginners in the industry, racial
or ethnic minority farmers, or
women producers
• Running specialty crop operations
• Young people actively involved in
agricultural youth organizations
who need financial assistance for
income-producing, educational,
agricultural projects
• Urban and roof-top farmers
• Using alternative farming methods,
including hydroponics,
aeroponics, vertical farming, and
freight-container farming.
FSA loans (direct, microloan, or
joint financing) come with interest
rates from 1.5 percent to 3.75 percent,
depending on type of loan and down
payment. Marx’s rate is locked at 2.5
percent interest for 40 years.
His loan features joint-financing
for beginning farmers with a 5-45-
50 breakdown. Marx paid 5 percent
down on the property, and FSA
financed the remainder of that half.
The other half came from a bank loan.
The loan required the land to be
used for agricultural, so Marx was responsible
for the transition. He wasn’t
in uncharted waters, though. In fact,
Marx joked, his family specializes in
buying and re-utilizing golf courses.
His grandparents, John and Betty
Tautz of Mount Carroll, Illinois,
bought Oakville Golf Course south of
Mount Carroll in spring 2016. They
have transitioned it into row crop
land after extensive excavation.
“Pastures are a premium, especially
in Clinton County,” Marx said. “Drive
up and down the road. How many
pastures do you see versus cropland?
Pastures are hard to come by.”
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 33

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grazin’ on the green
FSA farm loan manager
Craig Thines, who works in
Jackson and Clinton counties,
said about a quarter of
his 220 customers are beginning
farmers. To qualify for
an FSA beginning farmer
loan, Marx must farm the
land – or in this case, use it
as pastureland – for at least
three years. For FSA purposes,
a beginning farmer
is one who has not owned
farmland for more than 10
years, or who does not own
land greater than 30 percent
of the average farm size
in the county – 80 acres in
Clinton County.
“It’s hard to find land because
of the competitiveness
of cash rental rates,” Thines
said. “And if they don’t
Craig Thines
FSA farm loan manager
Clinton and Jackson Counties
have non-farm income, they
can’t purchase too much
ground over $3,000-5,000
per acre. So the availability
for ground is not very good
for beginning farmers.”
Thines said Marx is the
only customer he’s worked
with who is looking to farm
“strictly off pasture,” a
commodity even harder to
come by thanks to historical
corn prices.
“When it was $7 corn, a
lot of pastures got ripped
out,” Thines said. “There’s
not availability of pasture
anymore.”
Marx and his dad, Floyd,
had their eye on the golf
course well before the sale.
“Before this golf course
even came into the equation,
my dad would always
say, ‘Man, that would make
really pretty pasture,’” Marx
said.
He sold the golf carts,
lawn equipment, and rolls
of sod from some of the
greens to a local public
course. He renovated the
clubhouse, now a rental
property. Besides those
changes, the golf course still
looked like a golf course.
And it still does today to
some degree, except the
long grass, weeds, and piles
of torn-out bushes and
bramble. Marx is learning
through trial and error that
cattle don’t enjoy much of
the grass.
“We’re finding out as we
get more into this is that the
golf course grass is a bluegrass,
and it doesn’t have
a lot of nutrition,” Marx
explained.
A tour around the 53-
acre plot reveals patches of
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 35

grazin’ on the green
weeds and grass elbow-length in height
that the cattle do not touch. In other areas
grass is eaten down to the dirt. Marx
dispatched a bat-wing mower to chop
down the unwanted, seeding tall grass
on the golf course’s rough areas.
As newer grass has grown in
throughout the property, the cattle have
kept it chewed down.
“This fall we’re going to seed it or
rip it up and then put in a pasture mix
with clover and something with a little
more nutrition,” Marx said. “It needs
to be done. You need to spend money
to make money, but I think in the end it
will be worth it.”
Marx uses rotational grazing, which
staggers the areas where the cattle
roam. This fall and spring, it will be an
important tool to regulate the ground
cover’s health, as Marx plans to seed
much more clover grass and nutrition-rich
coverage for the cattle.
“When we turned them out there,
[clover] was the first thing they found to
eat,” he said. “It’s very high in proteins;
it’s like a kid eating candy, where the
[bluegrass] is more like salad. They’ll
survive and grow on it, but they won’t
enjoy it as much as that clover.”
Another adjustment Marx discovered
was how to deliver water.
In the middle of the pasture sits a
pond, into which most of the property’s
runoff pools. The main water source, it’s
a prime location for cattle to gather, but
Marx keeps the pond fenced off so cattle
don’t get stuck in the mud and tear up
the banks.
In the middle of the pond is a pump
that was used to deliver water to all
nine greens around the course. Marx
has discovered another use for it.
“I was trying to figure out a way to get
water down to these cattle,” Marx said.
“We thought about running pipe down
there, which would have cost a lot of
money. The pump irrigates the greens,
The former golf course’s pump used to irrigate
the greens; now, it provides water for the cattle.
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36 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

grazin’ on the green
so we thought we may water
the cattle at the greens, but
then we could bust a line or
something, and that’s a lot of
underground stuff we don’t
know a lot about.”
Instead, some PVC pipe,
a six-inch field tile, a large
stock tank, and that pump
solved the problem..
“[The pump] shoots out 90
gallons per second,” Marx
said. “When we tried it out
for the first time, I was holding
the pipe onto the pump,
and there was so much water
pressure coming off the
pump I could only hold onto
the pipe for a little while.”
To solve that problem, he
hooked chains to the pipe.
Now the entire rig is secure
and fills the 1,500-gallon tank
Payton Marx takes a break from chores to discuss his grazing strategies.
in less than 30 seconds.
It’s just one lesson learned
for the young farmer, who
also works at Nestle Purina
in Clinton. And, he says, he
still has plenty of aspects to
iron out. He has toyed with
the idea of removing a majority
of the trees, but says
their shade is more valuable
than the grass that would
grow in their place. The
former greens, which have
a deep, sandy sub-level that
makes growing grass next
to impossible, will be turned
over soon and seeded with
the rest of the property. He
also had 6,000 feet of fencing
installed. As for the sand
traps on the former course,
the cattle love them.
“I don’t know what it is
with cattle and sand pits,
but I’ll see them lying in
those sand pits more times
than not,” he said. “Maybe
it’s like when you go to the
beach. You sink your feet
in there and it’s cool under
the surface. I imagine that’s
what they’re doing.
“It very much is a trial-and-error
deal; I don’t
claim to know what’s going
to happen,” Marx said. “It’s
not like you can go ask your
neighbor on how to manage
your golf course that’s now
a cow pasture. It’s been fun
and it’s been stressful, but if
I didn’t enjoy it I wouldn’t
be doing it.” n
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 37

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water quality
Improving water quality
complex and costly
Iowa pays a price for being an agricultural giant
BY larry lough
eastern iowa farmer
Head north out of Elvira
in northeast Clinton
County, drive a few
miles beyond where the
pavement ends, and in
the shadows of twin silos that share a
silvery roof you will find the 101-yearold
family farm operated by Norlin
Mommsen.
A self-described “small guy” in Iowa
agriculture, where many farms are
measured in the thousands of acres,
Mommsen has about two-thirds of his
230 acres in corn, most of the rest in
soybeans, and some hay and wheat.
He also has a few hundred feedlot
cattle, a mix of black and red Angus.
He still uses a 44-year-old Oliver
tractor. His “new” tractor is a 36-yearold
John Deere.
But when it comes to farm policy in
Iowa, Mommsen isn’t such a “small
guy.” In fact, he has a seat at the table
– literally.
The two-term Republican from
District 97 is a member of the House
Agriculture and Natural Resources
committees, and is chairman of the
appropriations subcommittee for those
two areas.
And he’s not buying the idea, promoted
by some environmental groups,
that Iowa is facing a “crisis” in water
quality because of today’s farming
practices, which result in the runoff of
large amounts of pesticides and fertilizer
– mainly nitrogen – into the state’s
waterways.
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Trevis Mayfield
Norlin Mommsen, a farmer and state legislator, is a member of the House Agriculture and Natural
Resources committees. Mommsen, shown with his sidekick Daisy, believes as soil health improves in
Iowa, water quality will as well.
Mommsen refers to an 1804 journal
of Northwest Territory explorers
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark,
who reported finding sediment in the
drinking water they drew from the
Missouri River. He noted that John
Deere didn’t make the first commercially
successful steel plow until the
1830s, which made tilling the soil
efficient and enhanced water runoff.
“Sediment was part of our water
long before we made a significant
impact on the landscape,” Mommsen
said. “Nature did that.”
Root of the problem
In fact, much of the nitrogen in
Iowa’s rich farming soil is created naturally.
That’s what has helped to make
the state an agricultural giant.
Iowa is easily the nation’s No. 1 corn
producer, having harvested more than
18 percent of the U.S. crop in 2016.
The state’s 20 million hogs make
Iowa by far the top pork producer.
Iowa also is a close second to Illinois
in soybean production, and seventh
among the 50 states in total cattle.
But modern farming has used
40 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

water quality
manufactured fertilizer – “nutrients,”
the ag community calls it – to significantly
boost yields and help to feed
the world with affordable food.
The problem is made worse by
Iowa’s two principal crops – corn and
beans, according to Nathan Young of
the Iowa Flood Center at the University
of Iowa.
“Row crops are not as deeply rooted
as natural vegetation,” Young told
a water quality forum in DeWitt in
August.
Without a deep root system to slow
down and clean up water, the nutrients
– especially highly soluble nitrogen
– are carried off to streams, Young
explained.
Flooding also tends to be more frequent
and more intense, he added.
And use of drainage tiles, which
has made about 12 million acres of
Iowa land farmable, adds to the runoff
Sen. Rita Hart
(D) Clinton, Scott
counties
problem by moving
water more
quickly into the
state’s waterways
– while destroying
wetlands that
filter pollutants
naturally.
High nitrate
levels in Iowa’s
lakes and rivers
have worsened
over the years as
farming has become more “efficient.”
Among the 61 nitrate sensors in the
state’s rivers around the state, readings
in 2016 showed 40 percent had an
average daily concentration above the
federal drinking water standard of 10
milligrams per liter.
“Think about what it’s doing to the
drinking water,” said state Sen. Rita
Hart, who organized the water quality
forum in DeWitt. “Think about what
it’s doing to the habitat.”
She called pollution “one of the
greatest challenges facing our state
right now.”
“We want to enjoy our lakes and
streams,” said Hart, who grew up on
a dairy farm and still farms grain with
her husband in the Wheatland area.
“And we want cheap food.”
The question is, At what cost?
Adding to ‘dead zone’
If there is good news, it’s that nutrient
levels in water appear to have
leveled off. Whether that continues
won’t be known until the state checks
the 70 monitors it now has installed in
waterways.
But pesticides don’t pollute only
Iowa’s waters. Runoff from this and
every other Midwestern farm state
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 41

water quality
contributes to what is now the largest
“dead zone” ever measured in the
Gulf of Mexico.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Association reported in early
August that scientists had found an
area approaching 9,000 square miles
– roughly the size of New Jersey –
where decomposing algae had so
completely depleted oxygen levels
that all marine life had been suffocated.
Scientists believe a wet spring resulted
in heavier stream flows, which
carried even more fertilizer and
manure from farm states down the
Mississippi River, accelerating algae
growth in the Gulf.
Of course, that pollution has many
sources: leaky septic systems, weedand-feed
that keeps suburban lawns
free of dandelions, chemicals that
make Iowa’s more than 30,000 acres
of golf courses green and lush, and
even municipal wastewater treatment
plants. Most of those city systems
are not capable of filtering out
nitrogen and phosphorus, according
to Adam Schnieders of the state’s
Department of Natural Resources.
But those sources don’t compare to
what comes from Iowa’s 24 million
acres of cropland in production,
which is two-thirds of the state’s land
mass, according to Matt Lechtenberg
of the Iowa Department of Agriculture
and Sustainable Living.
Kamyar Enshayan, director of the
Center for Energy and Education
at the University of Northern Iowa,
wrote recently in the Des Moines
Register that public officials fail to
understand “the urgency of polluted
streams, the urgency of soil erosion
and contaminated drinking water,
or the urgency of Iowans’ well-being
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / larry lough
Clinton County farmer Dennis Campbell describes a
part of his operation to Congressman Dave Loebsack
(in hat) during a recent tour of Campbell’s farm near
Grand Mound.
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42 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

water quality
compromised by massive animal confinement
operations, or by annual spraying of
35 million pounds of corn and bean pesticides.”
That’s not to say Iowa is doing nothing.
The state’s Water Quality Initiative, established
in 2013, has a “Nutrient Reduction
Strategy” with a goal of reducing nitrogen
and phosphorus losses into waterways by
45 percent – but it is a purely voluntary
system, and it has no deadline for hitting
that target.
Ben Gleason, sustainable program manager
of the Iowa Corn Growers, said soil
health is promoted by, among other things,
farmers’ use of cover crops, reduced tillage,
and better “nutrient management” – meaning
more efficient application to cut usage.
Such things, he said, reduce erosion and
build organic matter, which means less
fertilizer is needed.
“If we improve soil health, water quality
will come along for the ride,” Rep. Mommsen
said.
To that end, Bill Northey, Iowa Secretary
of Agriculture, announced in August that
a record 2,600 farmers had signed up to try
various soil conservation measures – “cover
crops, no-till/strip-till, or nitrification
inhibitor” – on more than 270,000 acres in
98 counties.
The state will put up almost $5 million to
share the costs with farmers, who themselves
will invest an estimated $8.7 million
in the program.
Will it be enough?
‘Turn the ground green’
On his farm near the Jackson County
line, Mommsen uses some no-till after the
soybean harvest, and he plants wheat as
a cover crop to limit soil erosion in those
fields between growing seasons.
“They used to say you need to turn
the ground black,” Mommsen said of
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 43

water quality
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traditional fall tilling to control weeds. “Now we need to
turn the ground green.”
At the water quality forum in DeWitt, Grand Mound
farmer Dennis Campbell said cover crops were part of his
strategy.
“We get something green growing within a week [after
harvest],” he said, explaining oats were planted to “self-terminate”
over the winter and “cushion the rain” effects on
soil in spring.
He also has 2.5 miles of grass buffers along waterways
and has planted 5.5 acres of hardwoods – mainly walnut,
oak and cherry trees – as a “gift to our grandchildren,” he
said with a grin.
What do farmers get from such strategies?
“All those things cost a ton of money,” Mommsen
observed, “and they don’t add to the bottom line. Who’s
going to pay?”
Another DeWitt forum participant, Robb Ewoldt, a District
6 director with the Iowa Soybean Association, this past
spring built what is believed to be the first large bioreactor in
this area on his farm in Muscatine County. He and his wife,
Jennifer, a veterinarian, farm land there and in Scott County.
They spent an estimated $20,000 on the “denitrification”
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water quality
device that is 100 feet long, 25 feet
wide, and 8 feet deep – filled with
wood chips to filter water from a field
tile.
“I don’t look at it as an expense,”
Ewoldt told the crowd. “I see it as an
investment because of the nutrients it
can tie up.”
Matt Helmers, professor of agriculture
and biosystems engineering
at Iowa State, says those are good measures
– but more farmers need to get
on board with the program, which also
should include extended crop rotations
and retirement of pasture lands.
Cover crops are now used on only
3 percent of Iowa farmland, Helmers
reported. The state has 83 wetlands –
and needs 7,500 acres, he said.
While 50 to 60 bioreactors are in
use around the state, he predicts that
hitting nutrient reduction goals would
require 120,000.
Rep. Andy McKean
(R) Anamosa
“We probably
don’t have
enough trees in
Iowa for that,” he
joked about the
wood chips that
would be needed.
But tree farming
and bioreactor
construction,
including trench
digging, do represent
economic
opportunities, according to Gleason of
Iowa Corn Growers.
The DNR’s Schnieders said some
states, like Wisconsin, take a stronger
regulatory stand in requiring some
conservation measures, unlike Iowa,
which merely encourages farmers to
participate.
But Mommsen, from his seat at the
policy table, does not like government
mandates. And he thinks a part of
the solution will involve a yet-undiscovered
approach that will improve
profits.
“I think voluntary is working very
well,” he during an interview at his
farm. “As soon as you show how it
makes money, it will take off.”
Legislature struggles
If the solution were easy, if there was
a consensus on approach, the Legislature
would have dealt with it by now.
Instead, during the 2017 session, the
Republican majority dealt swiftly with
its social agenda – limiting bargaining
rights of public employees, enacting a
voter identification law, denying funds
to Planned Parenthood – but ran out of
time on the more difficult problem of
improving water quality.
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 45

water quality
with some Republicans, including
Rep. Andy McKean of Anamosa.
“I was very disappointed we held
it off until the very end of the session,
until it was too late to put … something
together to agree on,” he said
when the session ended in April.
“We didn’t get as far as I would
have liked,” Rep. Mommsen conceded.
“The bill we had lacked some
[spending] accountability. We need
to spend correctly, and for the right
reasons.”
Whatever the Legislature decides,
the policy is likely to continue Iowa’s
approach of voluntary measures –
with some state financial incentives,
such as money to help cities upgrade
wastewater treatment facilities.
But water quality often is not a
priority in money-strapped states like
Iowa.
“The funding from the government
isn’t what it used to be,” complained
Bob Milroy, wastewater superintendent
of the city of Clinton’s Water
Pollution Control Division.
With some government help, Clinton
spent $60 million to upgrade its
treatment process to filter out nitrogen
and phosphorus.
“Clinton is definitely a leader in
this field,” according to the DNR’s
Schnieders, who reported Des Moines’
system even captures the phosphorus
from wastewater and converts it to
pellets for reuse.
But such an “investment” comes at
a cost. Residents of Clinton, the 18th
largest city in Iowa, pay the second
or third highest municipal water rate
in the state, Milroy said at the water
quality forum in DeWitt.
That has left the city with no money
for a long-term treatment and control
plan, he added.
The church lady test
So, how much is enough?
The fiscal 2018 state budget includes
$9.6 million for the Department of
Agriculture and Land Stewardship to
support conservation and water quality
initiatives around the state.
That was not quite the $500 million
the Iowa House was willing to commit
through 2029, a proposal that had – as
Mommsen noted – some accountability
issues and came during a time when
the state’s revenues were falling tens
of millions of dollars below projections
on which the state budget had been
built.
DNR’s Schnieders, who promotes
upgrades in municipal treatment systems,
estimated the state would need
to spend $1.5 billion over 20 years to
meet its “base line goals” for nutrient
loss reduction.
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46 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

water quality
farmer who works with the Environmental Law and Policy
Center, told the water quality forum that the state would
have to spend up from $4 billion to $5 billion over 20 years
“before we get to where we need to be headed.”
Mommsen shakes his head at such numbers.
“If we raise four to five billion, we’ll spend all of it,” he
said. “I guarantee we’ll spend it.”
He questions how realistic proposals are that seek to purify
Iowa’s drinking water.
“That’s not going to happen, no matter how much money
we spend,” he said, “So, what should be our expectations?”
Sen. Hart said the state needed to fund a program with
money outside current revenue streams.
“Everyone would like us to try to
find some dedicated funding for that,”
she said.
Rep. Mary Wolfe, a Democrat from
Clinton, agreed.
“It can’t be done without a new
source of revenue,” she said shortly
after the 2017 legislative session ended.
“It’s not just shifting [the state’s] money.”
Rep. Mary Wolfe
(D) Clinton
In fact, Iowa voters approved such a
dedicated funding source seven years
ago. Nearly 63 percent of voters in 2010
approved a statewide referendum to
create a state Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation
Trust Fund, supported by a 3/8th-cent increase in the state
sales tax. That would raise an estimated $150 million a year.
According to the constitutional amendment, the fund was
established in the state treasury “for the purposes of protecting
and enhancing water quality and natural areas in this
State including parks, trails, and fish and wildlife habitat,
and conserving agricultural soils in this State.”
Mommsen said it was a proposal that was hard to oppose.
“I think I voted for it,” the legislator said.
But despite voter approval, the Legislature never enacted
the tax, and Mommsen said he would still oppose it until
the formula was changed for spending the money. Much of
the revenue would go to recreational facilities, he said, and
only 20 percent would be spent on water quality.
The second-term legislator said he had a simple test for
deciding how to spend tax money on such initiatives.
“Can I explain to the ladies at church how I spent their
money?” he said. “I’m not sure at the end of the day … we
get our bang for the buck.”
Falck of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, who
suggested billions needed to be spent, concurred.
“We need to see that the money being spent is working,”
he agreed.
But Mommsen is convinced that the answer is not in
massive spending but in widespread adoption of proven
conservation practices on Iowa farms.
“How do we change the paradigm?” he said. “Turn
ground green in the fall.” n
800.218.1862
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 47

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THE Next
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Trevis Mayfield
Families and farming have always
gone together in Eastern Iowa.
Careful planning is key to keeping
it that way.

generation
Gary and Angie
Koppes
Maquoketa
For Adam, Zach,
Angie, Gary and
Matt Koppes,
managing their
dairy farm is a
family effort.
Five Sons,
One Farm
‘Making the pie bigger’ will allow Gary and
Angie Koppes’ sons to be involved with family
farm part-time, full-time or from a distance
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
Dairy farmer Gary Koppes remembers a
point in his life, a few years ago, when
his five sons were either away at college
or so busy with school sports that they
had no time to help him with chores.
“I wondered if any of them were ever going to come
back and work on the farm,” he said.
It’s a memory he and his wife, Angie, laugh about
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 51

the next generation
now as they sit with three of their five
boys in the office at their home that overlooks
their growing dairy operation just
across County Road E17, east of Canton.
It’s a pleasant June evening, and the camaraderie
they share is obvious through the
good-natured ribbing, often punctuated
with laughter, among the brothers and
their parents.
“I never wanted to pressure them,” Gary
said. “I would say, ‘Do what you want to
do with your life.’”
As it turns out, the pull of the farm
reeled three of the boys back in and draws
a healthy interest from the two others.
Adam, 30, lives with his family just
north of Cedar Rapids and works for
Genex Cooperative Inc. in animal genetics,
an expertise he brings to the family
operation. Matthew, 23, who recently
bought into the business, works with his
dad day-to-day, while Zach, 19, is attending
Muscatine Community College and
helping at night and on weekends.
Twins Aaron and Andrew, 29, both
studied horticulture in college and work
in that field in Mason City and Woodbury,
Minnesota, respectively. While they aren’t
directly involved in the dairy operation,
they like to keep up with what’s happening
on the home front. Their influence is
also seen in the flower-filled landscaped
front yard that Angie maintains.
At 53, Gary doesn’t plan to quit anytime
soon, but he and Angie knew the operation
had to grow if it was going to be big
enough for the whole family.
“Angie and I a couple of years ago
decided that we needed to start thinking
about how to make the pie bigger in order
to share it,” he said. That became part of
their conversations with bankers and other
advisers, as well as with their kids.
Part of the challenge in bringing children
into a farming operation, experts say, is
lack of communication. Members of older
“I never
wanted to
pressure
them. I
would say,
‘Do what
you want
to do with
your life.’”
— gary koppes
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the next generation
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Trevis Mayfield
generations of Midwestern farmers aren’t
always comfortable talking about
their feelings and sharing in decisions.
The Koppes family seems to be an
exception to that rule.
That strategy has guided the
family’s decisions for the past several
years. Gary’s goal at this stage in
his life is to do everything he can to
expand the farm to a level that could
someday involve multiple family
members.
“We looked at how to grow and
handle things manpower-wise,” Gary
said.
Their planning is fluid, and they
adapt as they need to, based on the
frequent conversations they all have.
While Gary generally has the final
say, everyone’s input is valued.
“Nothing is sacred,” Angie added.
This give-and-take dynamic works
Matt Koppes recently bought in to the family dairy business and works with his dad on daily operations.
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 53

the next generation
for them as they chart their course
with a good possibility that Zach will
join the operation full time after he
finishes his degree.
They currently farm 525 crop acres,
which gives them the ability to raise
food for their roughly 270 milk cows
and 250 yearlings. In 2016, after Matt
expressed a desire to come back and
work, they completed a new dairy
barn and upgraded the milking
center. Future strategy calls for a new
milking center to accommodate their
growth.
About 12 months ago, and after
a couple years of planning, they
launched into genomic testing and
started embryo transfers on genetically
elite animals, tapping into Adam’s
niche.
After starting genomic testing, they
were able to identify an elite heifer
that ranks in the top 1 percent for
Lifetime Net Merit, a measure that
predicts an animal’s profitability, in
the Holstein breed and is the third
highest Lifetime Net Merit animal in
the United States for her sire group.
The family also reached another
milestone for their dairy when the
first embryo transplant heifers were
born in May. They plan to continue
flushing several animals later this
year.
They constantly look for ways to
expand the operation to make room
for more people.
“The whole point of view is to
move toward the potential of selling
genetics as a possible source
of revenue,” Adam said. “I like
taking what I do every day and
seeing how I can apply it here.
We always try to make the right
decisions, because this has to
grow.”
As the operation continues
to expand and his sons
develop expertise in different
areas, Gary said, he’s had
to learn to let go. Matthew
oversees the heifer management
operation for the
farm. And while Gary said
he at first hovered over his
son, he quickly saw that he could
move onto other projects. Indeed, he
pointed out how Matt’s leadership in
that area has yielded many improvements.
Sixteen months ago they were bottle-feeding
nine calves; now they are
feeding 36. In addition, since Matt has
taken over the heifer-management
portion of the farm, the calf mortality
rate has dropped. For his part,
Matthew finds it easy work alongside
his dad.
“I’ve only learned to dairy farm
from one guy, so why would I question
what he does?” Matt said. “It
means a lot to me to be able to learn
from my dad. None of us ever really
work alone because we have each
other to bounce ideas off of.”
The boys all shared their early
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo /
Trevis Mayfield
memories
of the farm.
For Zach, it was milking cows at
age 10 or so. Matt remembers mowing
hay, while Adam shared some funny
stories about equipment mishaps. As
the young boys grew into men, their
parents grew the operation that is
now giving them a common business
purpose and a way to bond.
Gary and Angie started their operation
from nothing in 1984 and then
bought the same farm in 1998. After
years of sweat, surviving lean times,
and capitalizing on many ideas and
opportunities, they feel confident the
farm’s future rests in good hands.
“As you get older, you want your
life’s work to go forward with a
plan,” Gary said. “That’s important to
me.” n
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the next generation
Starting the
conversation
Iowa poet laureate’s play addresses the kind of land transition
challenges that many eastern Iowa farm families are now facing
Mary
Swander
Kalona
Iowa’s poet laureate
Mary Swander sits in
her home discussing
her one-woman play,
Map of My Kingdom,
a story that details
farmland ownership
and transition.
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke Taylor
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
Angela Martin says “For most
farmers I know, owning land
means everything.” Martin
is the fictional character in a
one-woman play about land
transition, Map of My Kingdom, written by
Iowa’s poet laureate Mary Swander.
Farmers in eastern Iowa well understand
the significance of that sentence. In an agricultural
community, attachment to land –
which has oftentimes been farmed by many
generations of the same family – runs deep.
In the play, Martin is a lawyer and mediator
in disputes over land transition.
She shares stories of how farmers and
Read an
excerpt
from Map
of My
Kingdom,
page 59.
56 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

the next generation
landowners she has worked with over the
years approached their land successions,
sometimes stepping into character as those
clients.
During the hour-long performance, Martin
recounts cases where violence erupted
and relationships dissolved during land
sales or transfers. She also talks about
peaceful solutions that maintained strong
family ties and the viability of the land.
According to the playwright, the script
resonates with people who have been
through, or are working through, challenging
land transfer issues, including dividing
land among siblings, selling out to a neighbor,
or attempting to preserve the land’s
integrity against urban sprawl.
“It’s the perfect tool for people to start
the conversation,” Swander said as she sat
at the kitchen table of her light-filled home,
which was formerly a one-room Amish
schoolhouse just outside of Kalona.
Getting people to talk about these issues
was a driving force behind the play, which
was commissioned by the Practical Farmers
of Iowa. Map of My Kingdom was performed
in DeWitt and Maquoketa in February
2015. Both performances were followed by
discussions, during which local farmers,
bankers and others shared their own stories,
asked questions, and gave tips on how to
navigate those waters.
The play’s topic hits home with Swander,
who found herself in an uncomfortable
transition years ago. Her grandmother,
who operated a Carroll County, Iowa, farm,
died. Five years later, Swander’s mother,
who was the heir, died. She left the farm to
Swander, then 23, and her two brothers, 25
and 27.
“It was all about expectations, which
were different for each of us. First we had
never discussed the inheritance of the
farm,” said Swander, who was living in
Iowa and assumed they would keep the
100-year-old organic farm going. Her broth-
Map of My Kingdom
is available on DVD,
and performances
in local communities
can be arranged by
contacting Swander.
Information is on
her website
maryswander.com.
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Front row, left to right: Deb Behn, Senior accountant, Savanna; Mary Stephany, office administrator, Maquoketa; Gloria Miner, CPa, Savanna; Cassie
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CPa, Maquoketa; arlene lyon, CPa, Maquoketa; Susan Green, Clerical, Maquoketa; John Gilroy, CPa, Maquoketa; Jenessa Bormann, Senior auditor,
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 57

the next generation
ers, both living in California, didn’t
have the same attachment to the land.
“We tried all sorts of things, including
dividing it into thirds,” she
explained. “Several scenarios were
put forward, but we couldn’t agree
on those. After two or three years, we
finally sold it.”
The decision, for her, came down to
wanting to end the fighting and stay
on speaking terms.
It was a key experience that, she
thinks, is emblematic of what many
people are going through now. And it
taught her that planning and communicating
those plans are the most
important things.
“People are looking for that first
step,” she said.
She advocates that landowners start
by writing a legacy letter to give some
history of the farm and to look to the
future.
“Put it down on paper.
‘Here are my memories.
Here’s what I would
like to see happen,’” she
said. That piece of paper
can serve as an entry
into conversation.
“It has to do with how
people feel wedded
to the land,” she said.
“They want a legacy.
They want their vision
to play out. There are a
lot of factors to consider.”
Strong Midwest values often come
to the surface regarding transitioning:
strong family focus, ties to the
community, work ethic, dedication
to agriculture. But people aren’t used
to, or don’t know how to, talk about
their feelings about those things.
“In the Midwest, we don’t talk
Mary Swander shares a laugh in her backyard cabin in Kalona.
about money or death,” she said.
Swander knew she wanted to
address legacy planning in a creative
way, but she struggled for months
about how to do that. She started going
to farmland transition seminars,
and that put her right in the middle of
many firsthand stories about transition,
and Map of My Kingdom was
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the next generation
Excerpt from
(ANGELA opens up the LAST
BOX.)
But sometimes when it starts to fall
apart, a family finds its way. Sometimes
I help ... I am learning to help
more and more.
I had known Marilyn and Gerry
for a long time. They had a large farm
– really thriving. They survived the
Farm Crisis, grew responsibly – real
respected members of the community.
I was surprised when they walked
into my office – for a year Gerry
worked closely with his lawyer,
accountant, and a consultant to make
a plan for his land – for after he and
Marilyn stopped farming or … well if
something happened. Gerry reached
this place where he and Marilyn had
digested everything that the consultant
and lawyer and accountant suggested.
Then they set up a meeting
with me.
Gerry and Marilyn had everything
in order – the books, the abstracts –
they had asked tough questions and
were working those out together.
They worked on a mission statement,
a plan for the farm and got their kids
and family on board. It had seemed
easy.
I didn’t know how hard it had been
for them, how hard they had worked
to make it seem easy, until Marilyn
came into my office a few weeks after
Gerry’s passing to put that plan we
had made together into motion.
She sat down, exhausted from the
funeral and those lonely weeks after
– all that work tying up loose ends,
all that work that nobody ever sees,
all that work that leaves little time for
doing, let alone feeling anything else.
Marilyn came in. I put on the coffee
and we just sat. And then she told me
a story.
(ANGELA takes on MARILYN,
grabbing a mug from the box, and
sits. She takes a big breath, and exhales
quietly. A beat.)
I went to see the pope once.
(A beat.)
Never thought that would be something
I’d want to do. Not Catholic,
you know. But the pope was traveling
across the states, visiting churches,
you know … blessing people … and
I got the idea that I was going. This
is what I was going to do – see the
pope.
Gerry … he was busy, not interested,
but said “go on”… you know,
knock myself out. With the pope.
That’s funny.
(A beat.)
So, I drove into the city – people
everywhere – he drove up in that
… that pope-mobile … and you just
start waving, you know – can’t help
it. He’s there in his little ... aquarium
... and you raise your arm up in the
air and he’s waving and I felt he was
saying “Hi” right to me and I just
start hollering, waving, whistling. I
mean, I never got to see the Beatles or
Elvis, so I guess I got it all out of my
system with that pope.
And we settle in to listen to him –
sitting on these hard bleachers to …
you know … hear the pope.
And Gerry was at home on the
farm choring, doing the milking in
the barn. I guess he turned on the
radio and they were broadcasting
the pope … so I was sitting in the
bleachers and Gerry was milking, but
we are both listening to what this guy
had to say. And what is some guy
from Rome, you know, with the fancy
robe gonna have for us – me on the
bleachers, Gerry on the farm? I mean,
really?
And the pope started to talk and
I was looking around at all these
people and Gerry must have been
milking, not really listening much
and then suddenly we heard the pope
talking about the need to be stewards
of the land and how we are called to
leave the Earth, the soil in better condition
than we found it ... “The land
is yours to preserve from generation
to generation.”
That hit me. And it hit Gerry.
I started to cry. Right there, the
pope talking and tears running down
my face.
I got home that night and Gerry
was sitting at the table. No, “How
was it?” or anything just sitting there
– hands folded, thinking.
“Gerry?” I said and he reached
over and took my hands …
(MARILYN reaches out, thinking
about the moment. A beat.)
Gerry told me he had listened on
the radio and almost fell on the barn
floor when the pope talked about the
land. Gerry started to think about our
kids and what we were leaving them.
And how we were leaving the farm
to them.
And I said, “Me, too.” The pope’s
speech did the same thing to me. And
we sat there a bit ... thinking ... and
then we got up, cooked dinner and ...
Well, that was it ... So we just decided
we wanted to figure out what we
would do next.
(ANGELA takes off MARILYN,
puts mug away, stands.)
And they did.
They found a way to communicate
to their kids what they valued and
hoped for the land going forward.
Everybody signed off on the plan –
no surprises. One son was going to
stay on, farm the land while renting
from his siblings. Gerry had him
build another house down the road,
far enough away so that he couldn’t
see Gerry and Marilyn’s farmstead.
Gerry figured that would keep him
from trying to meddle in how his son
was starting to farm and keep his son
from trying to fix what he thought
Gerry was doing wrong.
And that wasn’t really the fix you
know – it just got the issue out in
the open, got them talking about it,
Gerry and his son, and they figured it
out as they went right up until Gerry
passed. It wasn’t easy, but I learned
that day how hard they had worked,
how much honesty or courage it took
to make it look like it was.
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 59

the next generation
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke Taylor
Wes
Hosch,
Gary
Kunde
Cottonville
Gary Kunde (right) used Iowa
State University’s Ag Link
to find Wes Hosch (left) to
continue his farm operation.
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60 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

the next generation
The
Right Fit
When Gary Kunde met Wes Hosch 11 years
ago, he found the perfect person to keep
his farm operation running once he retires
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
Gary Kunde was
itching to plant
beans the day
that Wesley
Hosch stopped by
the shop on his Cottonville farm
in 2006.
“I didn’t put a whole lot of
effort into our meeting,” Kunde
recalled. “It was short, maybe 15
minutes. I just wanted to get out
into the field.”
Hosch, a junior at Iowa State
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 61

Protecting
Your
tomorrow
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the next generation
University at the time, was answering
a request Kunde had placed through
ISU’s Ag Link. The service helps to
preserve family farm business by
matching beginning farmers who do
not own land with farmers who do not
have heirs to continue the business.
Kunde and his wife, Mary Ann,
have three grown daughters, none of
whom is interested in running the farm
operation. In fact, it was the suggestion
of one of his daughters to put out some
feelers for an eventual replacement on
Ag Link. He wanted to line up someone
who could work alongside him for
the years until he decided to retire with
the knowledge that his farm would be
well cared for.
The late spring day Hosch showed
up, Kunde had already met with two
candidates who didn’t pan out. He
wasn’t feeling enthusiastic about the
prospect of finding a young person
Kunde’s 1954 McCormick Farmall tractor was his
first machinery that “did everything.”
whom he might train to run his farm
someday.
“Those previous interviews set the
stage,” Kunde said. “I was giving up
hope in a hurry.”
But something he saw in Hosch
made Kunde invite him back. This
time, they sat down in the house and
talked for more than an hour. Kunde
made an offer for Hosch to come work
with him on what was a trial basis for
both of them.
“We needed to find out if we could
work together,” Kunde said. “We
agreed to try.”
Eleven years later, Hosch, 33, is the
chief financial officer of Cottonville
Farm Inc. and buys all the seed and
chemicals for the grain farm. He works
side by side with Kunde, 68, at their
joint operation, and he also raises hogs
and farms some of his own ground in
Bellevue.
The successful arrangement was
born out of some good planning.
Transferring a farm to a non-family
successor poses some challenges.
With family transfers, both parties
have known each other for most of
their lives. That’s often not the case
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 63

the next generation
“I guess
you could
say I
learned
there’s
more than
one way
to tie a
shoe.”
— gary kunde
in a non-family successor
situation, according to Land
for Good, a nonprofit organization
in Keene, New Hampshire,
dedicated to improving
land access for beginning
farmers.
It recommends that farmers
who are looking for successors
take steps similar to what
Kunde did – conduct solid interviews
to gauge work habits,
work ethic, integrity, management
skills, and growing skills.
Employ a trial period to make
sure arrangements are formal
and details are written.
Hosch is a shareholder in
Cottonville Farms Inc. He
will eventually become the
sole owner of the corporation,
which owns the buildings and
equipment. The land is outside
the corporation and will stay
with the family.
For Hosch, who grew up on
a family farm in Cascade and
had a passion for the industry,
the arrangement is a dream
come true. During his first
three years of college, he didn’t
expect farming to be a possibility.
As many young farmers
find, getting into the business
isn’t easy as land and capital
can be hard to come by.
“It was not an option to
go back to the family farm,”
said Hosch, an agriculture
systems technology major
who expected he’d get a job in
an industrial setting. But the
meeting with Kunde changed
his course.
“I really just wanted to get
back into farming,” he said. “I
enjoy the variety. I never get
bored.”
When Kunde decided that
he was going to seek out
a non-family successor, he
thought about the best way to
approach it and what type of
person he thought would be a
good fit.
“I wanted to try to build a
system to attract their interest,”
he said. “I wanted a
person who has new ideas and
techniques to look at things
from a fresh perspective. And I
needed some management and
technical assistance.”
At the Beginning Farmer
Center in ISU’s extension
office, he attended a course
for people like himself who
are looking to bring someone
else into the business, and that
was quite helpful. (For more
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the next generation
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“That course talked a lot
about opening the communication
channels, and it really
opened my eyes to what
I was getting into,” Kunde
said. “I would encourage
anyone in my position to
take that course.
One thing he learned was
the importance of him and
Hosch being clear on their
expectations of each other.
“I guess you could say I
learned there’s more than
one way to tie a shoe,”
Kunde said. “It was important
for me to have him help
me manage things day to
day, but also think in terms
of what his qualifications are
and how can I best tap into
his experience and make
changes to utilize his training.
We each have our own
style, and we’ve learned to
respect each other’s territory
and knowledge.”
As for Kunde’s daughters,
“they are very in-step with
what’s going on,” he said.
“We’ve been very transparent
with it.”
They are all on board with
keeping the farm, which
was started in 1972, a going
concern.
“If my goal is to keep the
wheels rolling, this was
something I needed to do,”
Kunde said, adding that he
and his wife feel they got
lucky with their find. “Wes
has got the talent, and I’m
glad to be using it.” n
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the next generation
Planting the seeds
for a future in farming
Young farmers look to word-of-mouth, marketing techniques to find land to rent, manage or buy
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke Taylor
Alex
Beck
Maquoketa
Alex Beck is a
young farmer who
believes that building
relationships is a key
to building his own
farming business.
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
Alex Beck grew up on a
150-acre dairy farm in
rural Delmar.
He wasn’t sure whether
he wanted to continue
the family tradition of farming, so he
decided to attend the University of
Dubuque. After earning a degree in
business and marketing, he launched
his job search.
As it turned out, he landed back
home in the eastern Iowa market, taking
a sales position with Pioneer Seed.
And something happened when he
came back. Beck, 24, discovered he did
want to farm. So now he spends nights
and weekends working as a farm hand
for both his dad and another family
farm operation.
While some families are researching
options for the transition of their land,
others like Beck are working to get in
the game by providing retiring farmers
a solution.
His goal is to one day have 500 to
1,000 acres of his own to farm.
For Beck and other young farmers
who look to build their own row crop
or livestock business, it can be an
uphill battle.
“The number one challenge is capital
availability,” Beck said, referring
to both access to money and access to
land.“The number two challenge is
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 67

the next generation
“When I think about
how we can look at
the ground here in
Clinton County and
the state of Iowa,
and see some of
the best soils in the
world, I think what a
blessing this life
is every day.”
— alex beck
being patient and trusting the process will
work itself out in the end. It always does,”
he said, noting that the agriculture industry
is trending toward larger and larger
operations.
Industry data point to both those challenges
as key barriers for new farmers, and
several government and nonprofit organizations
have developed programs to help
address them (see pages 70-71).
Often people who have chosen to earn
a degree are facing student loans, vehicle
payments, and mortgage payments. They
need a secure job to meet those obligations
and need to balance that with pursuing
farming.
“A combination of patience and assertiveness
is the name of the game,” Beck said.
That and building good relationships
with neighbors and friends are core to
Beck’s strategy.
It’s vital to use your network, to make
sure the people in your sphere know of
your interest if land ever becomes available
to rent, manage or own.
Bryan Whitman, 31, of Grand Mound
takes a similar approach. He has knocked
on many doors within 5 miles of the farm
where his parents live to have conversations
with people he knows. He watches
the newspaper for people wanting to rent
ground.
Three years ago, Bryan and his brother
and sister-in-law, Peter and Lydia Whitman,
built a brochure called “Whitman
Farms: Farming to Live. Living to Farm.”
It serves as an icebreaker to conversations
that allows them to express their desire to
farm for a living. It outlines what they have
to offer to farmers. One example is eligibility
for government assistance programs
for young farmers that can also benefit the
landowner through tax credits. It also outlines
the services and equipment Whitman
could bring to the table.
The brochure plants seeds for the future,
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the next generation
Whitman said. He and his
brother delivered many of
them personally because
they realize the importance
of making a connection and
being able to have a discussion.
He also talks with people
about his family’s four-generations
of farming experience,
as well as his views on
conservation and nutrition
management.
It is also important that
his friends and neighbors
understand he is simply
expressing interest that if
the time ever comes when
they are looking for a trustworthy
individual to rent
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mind.
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Whitman
Grand Mound
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke Taylor
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the next generation
“We don’t want to make them think we
wish they would quit farming,” he explained.
Beck and Whitman, who are also involved
in agriculture groups that help to give them
visibility, are doing the right thing by reaching
out, according to succession experts.
One of the barriers to farmers who
want to exit farming and don’t have family
members who wish to continue is not
being aware of people who want to become
farmers, said John Baker, an attorney and
the director of the Beginning Farmer Center
at Iowa State University. So making that
connection is crucial.
Beck and Whitman are both tied to family
operations, Beck with his father and Whitman
with his father, uncle and brother.
But those operations aren’t for everyone to
make a living at this point.
Whitman cash rents 122 acres, which he
pieced together about 40 acres at a time. He
and Peter also have a cow-calf operation.
“I don’t make enough money farming
to make a living,” he said, although that
is his goal. Currently, he works for Precision
Planting, sells seed, and works for Ag
Spectrum.
After graduating from ISU with a degree
in agriculture engineering, he worked at
Hardi Sprayers in Davenport, traveling the
world and designing sprayers.
“But I was a farmer at heart,” he said,
“and I got antsy.”
While his big question was whether or
not his plan would work, he doesn’t regret
leaving Hardi, which he said was a good
employer, and he values the business savvy
he gained there.
He and Beck are both steadfast that farming
is in their blood and in their futures,
despite the challenges.
“When I think about how we can look at
the ground here in Clinton County and the
state of Iowa, and see some of the best soils
in the world, I think what a blessing this life
is every day,” Beck said. n
Several
programs
lend a hand
to beginning
farmers
State and federal governments
are responding to need to
assist new farm operators
n Beginning Farmer Tax
Credits are available in Iowa to
give farmland owners incentive
to lease their land to beginning
farmers. Visit
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gov and click
on the Iowa
Agricultural
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programs.
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70 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

the next generation
n The United States Department
of Agriculture (USDA)
and its Farm Service Agency
(FSA) offer several assistance
programs, including those listed below. Go to
newfarmers.usda.gov for more information on
them.
Conservation Reserve Program Transition
Incentives Program provides for the transition of
expiring Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)
land from a retired or retiring owner or operator
to a beginning, veteran, or underserved farmer or
rancher. This program can provide annual rental
payments for up to two additional years after
the expiration of the CRP contract, provided the
transition is not to a family member.
Farm Loans: The USDA
makes and guarantees loans
to farmers who are unable to
obtain financing from commercial
lenders. The FSA’s lending assistance can
be a valuable tool in certain transition situations
by helping a producer to pay normal operating or
family living expenses, buy and develop farmland,
and purchase livestock and equipment.
FSA Land Contract Guarantees: FSA land contract
guarantees are a tool to help retiring farmers get
assurances on the future of their land and financial
interests when selling to a new farmer or rancher –
and to help new and beginning farmers enter into
rent-to-own situations.
How it works: A retiring farmer and a new or historically
underserved farmer or rancher enter into a
contract on a piece of land being sold. The retiring
farmer maintains an ownership interest in the land
until the completion of the contract. The new farmer
purchases interest in the land gradually over the
length of the contract. FSA guarantees the payment
of a land contract held between the purchaser and
seller for 10 years.
Benefits to landowner: Payments on the contract
are made as agreed by the landowner and purchasing
beginning farmer or rancher, creating long-term
revenue streams. For many landowners, this can
also be a good investment tool as you get a higher
interest rate than other types of savings accounts.
Landowners can choose between two types of
assurances offered, depending on which option of
contract they choose (may only choose one):
Prompt Payment Guarantee: If the
purchaser does not make payments on
the account, FSA will make payments on
the buyer’s behalf, up to a certain point,
in execution of the contract.
Standard Guarantee: USDA will pay 90 percent
of any losses once the property is sold again.
Benefits to new farmer: New farmers have
access to an affordable interest rate (not to
exceed 3 percent above FSA’s direct farm ownership
interest rate); they are able to buy land
on installment; and, it requires a smaller down
payment than conventional real estate loans.
n Ag Link Ag Link is a service to help preserve the
family farm business by matching beginning farmers
who do not own land with retiring farmers who do not
have heirs to continue the family farm business. Ag
Link maintains a database of potential beginning farmers
and landowners. It is run by Iowa State University
Extension and Outreach Beginning Farmer Center.
Check out the Beginning Farmer Center at extension.
iastate.edu/bfc/ for information on this and many
other resources.
n Practical Farmers of Iowa also offers services
under its “Beginning Farmers” program link. Visit
the site at practicalfarmers.org for that and other
information.
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 71

the next generation
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72 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

the next generation
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke Taylor
Doug, Sue
and Tyler
Petersen
Spragueville
Doug and Sue
Petersen are working
with their son Tyler
to transition the
artificial insemination
business they’ve
built over 30 years.
Lasting
Business
Petersens structure transition of
Eastern Iowa A.I. to fit needs of
entire family, keeping fairness in mind
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
When Doug and Sue Petersen married in
1981, they worked together to farrow
sows on their rural Spragueville farm.
Doug eventually bought some boars
so he could do his own breeding. He
began collecting and processing semen and learning the
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 73

the next generation
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / contributed
Eastern Iowa A.I. uses state-of-the-art labs and
equipment for biosecurity protection.
business of artificial insemination.
Word of his work spread to neighbors
with sow operations, and the Petersens
found themselves with a growing
side business.
“It was a word-of-mouth thing,”
Doug said. “The process was something
I was interested in learning
more about, and we ended up with
some neighbors and a couple of other
customers. Then we had to make
more room for the artificial insemination
business.”
In 1997, they decided to build their
first separate collection facility to
house 50 boars and liquidate their
herd of 400 sows. Eastern Iowa A.I.
Inc. was born.
“Building that first barn was a big
decision,” Sue said. “It’s been a lot of
hard work since then.”
Over the years, thousands of hours
of sweat equity, along with capital
investment, has been put into the
business. A few years ago, the Petersens
found themselves facing not just
another big decision, but a series of
them: Eastern Iowa A.I.’s corporate
structure, its future ownership, and
their eventual retirement.
They are now creating a vision with
their family about their expectations
for the future of Eastern Iowa A.I.
And it’s an important, careful process.
“The biggest thing is you need to
align yourself with professionals
who are good with what they do and
who are comfortable with agriculture
operations,” Sue said. “We found a
lawyer who specialized in agriculture
who helped with trusts and transitions,
and gave us really good advice.
We have a banker we are comfortable
with and a really good accountant
who has a lot of ag clientele. There’s a
lot to it. It’s a procedure.”
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74 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

the next generation
Their son Tyler, 28, grew up on the farm as the
business grew. He can recall the days before the
barns were built and the animals grazed in the
pastures surrounding the family home.
“I remember running around with our border
collies, herding the sows,” Tyler said. His mom
recounted how he always toddled along after
Doug, interested in anything that had to do with
the farm.
Tyler went away for college and studied agriculture
business. He interviewed with a large
operation in Kansas, but realized in the interview
process that working for such an organization
day-to-day would mean dealing with red
tape and bureaucracy to make simple operational
decisions. In working with his parents, no
such layers existed. That environment appealed
to him.
So he returned to the farm with a degree and
desire.
“I always knew I was coming back,” Tyler
said.
Tips for dividing farm business assets
Practical Farmers
of Iowa has gathered
information and
anecdotal stories from
farmers across the
state about their experiences
with transition
planning. Through its
research, it has identified many
best practices. It shares those
and other advice in its recent
publication, Your Farmland and
the Future: Setting Goals, Taking
Action.
Regarding the decisions that
need to be made when deciding
how to pass down a farm operation
to children who are both
on-farm and off-farm heirs, the
report said:
“Whatever approach you take to
keep your farming heirs farming,
communicate early and often.
Communication is always important,
but more so when you plan
to divide your assets in a way that
is not financially equal. Doing this
will keep your farming heir from
being forced to defend your
decisions when you are gone.”
Among the tips the report
shares are:
n Decide which is more
important: Treating all heirs
financially equal, or keeping your
farming heir on the land?
n Consider valuing the “sweat
equity” that the farming heir has
provided.
n Use non-farm assets to
compensate non-farming heirs.
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 75

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the next generation
And he was welcomed.
“He came home from college, and we
said, ‘OK. We need the help,’” Sue said. “We
didn’t want him to feel like he had to come
back, but we were glad he did.”
Sue and Doug also have two daughters,
whom they knew weren’t coming back to
the business. Their oldest child, Jill, is a
nurse in Dubuque. Their younger daughter,
Amy, operates a dog grooming and boarding
business in Clinton County.
As they began talking with Tyler and their
daughters about succession planning, fairness
was a big focus.
Experts agree that is a key concern for
families who have children who are going
to be involved in day-to-day operations as
owners and/or managers and children who
choose not to have that level of involvement.
Finding an equitable way to divide
things and determining how to value such
things as sweat equity or non-farm assets
come into consideration, according to the
nonprofit Practical Farmers of Iowa, which
produced a recent publication on transition
planning. (See box, page 75)
“There are definite objectives when other
kids are involved,” Doug said. “You have to
find the balance for everyone.”
Doug and Sue knew what path they wanted
to take, and when the plan was developed,
their lawyer asked for all the family
members to be present so he could explain it
thoroughly to them and answer any questions,
Sue said.
“This process has to be based on trust,”
she said. “We have no secrets.”
Doug explained: “Sue and I had three
main goals. Number one, to structure the
transition so that, financially, it would
work for us as we retired. Number two, we
wanted it structured so that Tyler and his
sisters were all treated as equally as possible.
Number three, it had to be structured
so that, financially, it would work for Tyler
“It is a big
deal for me
because
what it takes
to start
today is a
lot different
than what
it took in
the past.”
— tyler petersen
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the next generation
to start buying into the business.
We came up with a value based on
yearly net income. When the time
comes that Tyler would want to buy
more shares, a new value would be
calculated based on current net income.
We, also, formed a Revocable
Trust and a LLC to help implement
our transition plan.”
When Tyler started his official career
with Eastern Iowa A.I., he lived
in the rustic cabin that sits by the
pond beyond the Petersen’s house
and A.I. barns and labs.
“We thought we’d try things out
for a year or so; it went really well,”
Sue said, noting that Tyler ended up
staying in the cabin for seven years.
(He now lives at a house in town just
minutes away.)
After two years, Doug and Sue
changed Tyler’s pay structure from
a flat rate hourly wage to a salary
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78 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

the next generation
Over the years Eastern
Iowa A.I. has grown in
space and employees.
Eastern Iowa Farmer
Photo / contributed
based on production. While they saw their son was a
hard worker, they also felt that providing him additional
incentive was important. They also wanted to give him a
vested interest in the operation. The business was already
incorporated, so it was a matter of assigning shares.
Today, Eastern Iowa A.I. employs about 20 people. The
Petersens have each gravitated toward a different part of
the business. Sue handles the bookkeeping and administrative
duties, Doug is focused on the lab, and Tyler
concentrates on the barns.
Today, the company sells 9,000 doses of semen a week
from its 400 boars to sow farms in Western Iowa, South
Dakota, Illinois and Minnesota, among other places. It is
a high-tech operation with three confinement barns and
a lab, all heavily focused on the intense biosecurity that’s
necessary in the industry.
“I’m pretty lucky with what I have,” Tyler said. “It is
a big deal for me because what it takes to start today is a
lot different than what it took in the past.”
His parents believe the operation that began with five
boars is in good hands.
“We’d rather have this go to family than just anyone off
the street,” Doug said. “Tyler is the right person.” n
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 79

the next generation
Curtis and
Kendall
Claeys
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Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / trevis mayfield
Kendall Claeys,
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80 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017
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the next generation
Mapping out the future
With firm transition plan in place, the
Claeyses focus on day-to-day operations
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
Kendall Claeys was eased
into a real-life farming experience
when he started
high school.
While he had always
enjoyed helping with chores on his
parents’ grain and cattle farm near
Delmar, he had never had the ultimate
responsibility for any of it until his
father, Curtis, gave him 25 acres of corn
to manage.
“That blossomed into something for
me, even though it was small-time,”
Kendall said. “It was a great learning
experience. Some kids have never gone
through those types of processes to
learn how to survive.”
Managing that small acreage also
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 81

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the next generation
planted the seed in Kendall’s mind that he
wanted to work with his dad and one day
take over the operation.
Curtis and his wife, Diane, felt strongly
that Kendall should go to college and work
“in the real world” for at least five years to
prepare him for the challenging and unpredictable
farming profession. He earned a
degree and landed a good job at ADM.
While the family had talked over the
years about Kendall becoming integrally
involved in the operation, the real preparation
started when he invited Curtis to
attend a legacy-planning seminar in Ames.
“That is where we learned how to begin
a transition,” Curtis said. “And a lot of that
had nothing to do with finances.”
Indeed, both father and son stress that
communication and having constructive
ways to handle disagreements is key to
preserving family relationships.
“There are some family members who
farm together, but they can’t sit down at
the same table for Thanksgiving dinner
together,” Curtis explained.
In their case, the seminar, which was
conducted by John Baker, a lawyer and
specialist for the Beginning Farm Center
at Iowa State University, started robust
conversation that led to action.
In a nutshell, Baker encourages people
to consider the following questions about
their farmland:
What do I own, how do I own it (joint
owner, right of survivorship, etc.), what is
it worth, who do I want to give it to, when
do I want to give it to them, and how do I
want them to own it?
The Claeyses worked through those
questions and assembled a team – including
their banker, accountant, lawyer, and
financial adviser – and talked about their
options. They formed a corporation, Belgian
Acres Corp., which allows Curtis and
Kendall to draw salaries for their work.
“There are
some family
members who
farm together,
but they can’t
sit down at the
same table for
Thanksgiving
dinner
together.”
— curtis claeys
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 83

the next generation
They put their plans on paper,
drew up agreements, and defined
the relationships, as they also have a
daughter, Nicole Jonas, 37, who is an
off-farm heir. Since 2007, she and her
husband have operated the Boone, Iowa-based
Red Granite Farm, a garden
center that offers landscape design
consultation services and sells locally
grown produce and free-range eggs.
“I’m very proud of Kendall; he
works hard,” Jonas said. “As the offfarm
heir, I’m very grateful to him
and my dad. They make it work, and
we talk about how and why it works.
The communication is important.”
Every three to five years, the family
revisits the transition plan. Major discussions
include Curtis, Diane, Kendall
and his wife, Candace, as well as
Nicole and her husband, Steve.
“We look at our plan and ask ourselves
if we need to make changes or
tweak any aspect of it,” Curtis said.
That planning is imperative
so they can focus on day-to-day
operations.
“It takes some of the emotion
out of it,” Kendall said.
Their business includes tending
1,000 acres, raising 250 stock
cows, and finishing 500 to 650
head of beef cattle.
Over the past three years,
Curtis has been turning over
management decisions to Kendall.
“Not that we don’t have our moments,”
the father said with a laugh.
But each gravitates toward different
areas of the operation. Kendall orders
all the seed and does all the research.
They both enjoy the hands-on work
with the livestock.
“It’s important for us both to be
open to each other’s suggestions,”
Kendall said. “It’s about knowing
Curtis Claeys has been
gradually turning farm
management decisions
over to his son.
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / trevis mayfield
when
to back down and let
experience, knowledge and wisdom,
versus ambition, do what they can
do.”
It’s a balancing act, Curtis added,
but it works. He appreciates the
things Kendall brought to the table,
like using precision planting and instituting
electronic recordkeeping.
“Kendall really shines with the
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84 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

the next generation
records,” Curtis said. “I
never dreamt that we could
do all this.”
Some ideas for office
innovations came from
Kendall’s experience
working for ADM, a job he
quit when his twins were
born about three years ago
(he and his wife have three
boys). While that might
seem like the worst time to
say goodbye to the security
r Publication of a steady paycheck, it was
a decision he was confident
in based on the planning
ctober 2017
the family had done.
While the farming industry
isn’t always certain,
Curtis and Kendall felt
strongly that they had to be
sure the financial underpinnings
are there to make it
work.
Curtis and Diane lost
everything in the farm
crisis of the 1980s and had
to start over.
“We don’t want our kids
to ever go through anything
like that,” Curtis said.
Kendall believes the
planning when times are
stable will help weather
any rough patches.
“That’s why our succession
plan is in place,” he
said. “We want to be able
to focus on the day-to-day
operations, because at
times when struggles might
explode you don’t want
to have to be dealing with
important questions for the
first time. You don’t want
that kind of stress.” n
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 85

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the next generation
Melissa
Burken
Mommsen
Preston
Calla
Parochetti
Maquoketa
Lawyers Melissa Burken Mommsen and Calla Parochetti
help guide clients through the farm succession planning
process. They urge open and frequent communication
among family members.
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke taylor
‘Fair is not necessarily equal’
Good planning team includes legal perspective
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
Preston lawyer Melissa
Burken Mommsen grew
up on a 180-acre family
farm outside Clinton, and
she lives on a farm today.
As a lawyer who specializes in
estate planning, Burken Mommsen
uses her experiences to guide clients
in securing the future of their legacy,
which is becoming more common as
the majority Iowa’s farmers are aging
and more land changes hands.
In the case of a farm that is staying
within a family, a big issue is how to
divide it when there are on-farm and
off-farm heirs.
“What’s fair isn’t necessarily
equal,” Burken Mommsen said.
She works through such questions
with clients as who is doing the work,
how is the workload being shared,
and how many heirs are involved.
“That’s when I turn that farm into a
business and ask them to think about
what it would cost to bring someone
in to do the work [their on-farm heir
is doing],” she said.
That is a good way to get into the
discussion about how to value sweat
equity. Farming today is an expensive
business to enter because of the
capital needed. If the goal is to keep
a farm as a going concern, the person
taking it over needs it to be a sound
financial proposition.
“I’ve seen where there’s a son and
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 87

the next generation
“If people fail to plan
in an appropriate
manner, there may
be off-farm children
coming into the scenario
not sure how that farm
work is valued or what
would be reciprocal.
You don’t want to have
the kids fighting it out
when you are gone.”
— Melissa burken mommsen
daughter-in-law working the farm,
but they have no future secured because
they have to go so deep into
debt to buy out other family members,”
Burken Mommsen said. “If
people fail to plan in an appropriate
manner, there may be off-farm children
coming into the scenario not
sure how that farm work is valued
or what would be reciprocal. You
don’t want to have the kids fighting
it out when you are gone.”
In the three years that Calla
Parochetti has been working on
estate planning with clients, she has
learned a lot about farm machinery,
old family guns, and the like.
“It’s really neat to hear about family
connections to land and how far
back it goes,” said Parochetti, who
is an associate at Schoenthaler, Bartelt,
Kahler & Reicks in Maquoketa.
She finds that getting to know clients
is important in the early stages
of succession planning.
“In that first meeting, I get an idea
of the goals and values they have
and learn about their farm and its
history,” she said. “That gives me
an idea about what path to take.”
Both lawyers say it’s important
for them to work as part of a team
with a client’s accountant, financial
adviser, and banker to stay in communication
about a plan.
People thinking about how
succession will work have many
considerations. Will they continue
farming with an on-farm heir for
a number of years? What do they
need financially for retirement?
Is renting the ground to a family
member a good fit? Do they want
their farm to go to a relative, an
outside family who wants to farm
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88 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

the next generation
charitable donation?
A lawyer can go through the tax
benefits of different options regarding
all those scenarios.
For the initial meeting, it is helpful
to bring the following information:
n A list of assets and how they are
held
n An idea of how you want to leave
the property to heirs. For example,
will each child receive equal shares,
or will children who do the farming
receive more? Will any of them have
the option of an outright purchase
from other heirs, and if so, will there
be a discount? Are there non-farm
assets or other investments that will
be used as compensation?
n Who do you want to handle your
affairs when you are gone? Who will
have power of attorney?
“Every family is different,” Burken
Mommsen said. “As I work with
them and learn about them, the questions
they have often lead to where
the plan needs to go.”
She and Parochetti said it’s helpful
for their clients to take the planning
one topic at a time. At the end of one
meeting, they address what they are
going to discuss at the next meeting.
Succession planning can be done
at any stage, and it can be revisited
and revised, as is suggested every five
years or so. As kids get older, a focus
might be to make sure enough money
is available to finish off their college
education.
“You want it to evolve as your life
evolves,” Parochetti said.
Both lawyers stressed the importance
of preparing a will.
“Everyone should have a will,
especially if it is a blended family,”
Parochetti advised. “The end result is
that it’s important to know what the
goals and values are.”
If a person dies without a will, the
state decides how property will be
divided. That can be a big source of
hurt during the probate process if a
family is expecting a certain outcome,
she said.
“Farming is a way of life,” Burken
Mommsen said, and many of her
clients are focused on the day-today
activities rather than long-term
planning. But talking about a plan
with a team of advisers and then
communicating it to family will make
transition easier.
“Communication is absolutely the
key to heading off issues down the
road; that’s so important,” Burken
Mommsen said.
“At the end, there will be peace of
mind,” she added. “It’s amazing how
easy and even enjoyable the process
can be.” n
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 89

the next generation
History, years of experience
shape advice from professionals
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / trevis mayfield
Roger
Hill
DeWitt
Roger Hill has years
of experience in both
farming and banking.
The DeWitt Bank &
Trust Co. officer still
lives on the farm
passed down through
several generations.
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
Roger Hill lives outside
DeWitt on a 160-acre farm
that has been in his family
since 1850.
“My father sold a lot of
cattle and hogs,” said Hill, 70, who
now raises purebred, grass-fed Angus
cattle on the property. He’s also in his
46th year as a trust officer at DeWitt
Bank & Trust Co., a career that has
spanned many ups and downs in the
farm industry.
He can refer to his own family’s
history for context on just how rough
things can get.
“In 1933, my grandfather had to
sell all the cows and take out a loan
to keep going,” Hill said, adding that
his ancestors had toughed it out and
stayed in business. He’s happy that
he has continued a farming operation
on the land, as it was important to his
Steve Powell, president and chief executive of
Powell Financial Group and Maquoketa Financial Group
family; but he has seen many stories
not end as well because of a lack of
succession planning.
“You can’t start planning anytime
too soon,” he said. “I’ve seen people
build up a huge estate and then they
don’t have a plan. It’s money well
spent, because if you don’t have a
plan, the probate court will, and it
might not be what you expected.”
Bankers and financial advisers are
among the people who should be on
a succession planning team, experts
agree. They should be well versed in
tax implications and estate planning
tools, such as asset protection.
The best use of land and other
assets of a farm differs depending on
the situation – whether on-farm heirs
will continue the operation, whether
it will be rented out, or whether
owners will choose another option.
For example, while most farm ground
stays in a family, a landowner with no
relatives to name as heirs might direct
proceeds from the sale of their holdings
to go to charitable organizations.
Such was the case with Donna
Helble, Hill noted. Helble, a longtime
professor at Winona State University
who died March 13, made arrangements
to auction 381 acres of farm
ground she owned in Clinton and
Scott counties. More than $4.7 million
in proceeds from the June 16 auction,
90 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

the next generation
which was conducted by Peoples
Company, went to several organizations,
including Central Community
Education Foundation for the Helen
Jeanne Helble Endowment Fund.
It was a great way to pass the value
of land on to education, said Doug Yegge,
the broker with Peoples Company’s
DeWitt office, which ran the auction.
“It was a terrific way to sell it,” he
said. “There were a number of people
who wanted it. It was a tribute to the
way Donna lived her life.”
“This is one creative way to continue
a legacy,” Hill agreed.
Whatever the plan for a farmer’s
legacy, it pays to think about how to
structure future transactions to get the
most financial benefit, experts say.
Land is generally the center of
value for farm families, said Steve
Powell, president and chief executive
of Powell Financial Group and
Dean Engel, executive vice president and
senior trust officer for Maquoketa State Bank/
Ohnward Financial Advisor Services
Maquoketa Financial Group. The goal
often is to preserve that value while
addressing tax implications.
Minimizing the cost of transfer is
always a priority, said Powell, who
has been in the business more than 44
years. That means looking at different
options.
The tax rate currently is 40 percent
for estates in excess of $5.49 million –
a big factor in structuring a succession
plan. Among the tools people have to
work with are cash, personal assets,
and insurance policies, Powell said.
For example, he has worked with
a family where the on-farm son is
the beneficiary of a life insurance
policy that would allow him to buy
the farm from his sister, who is an
off-farm heir. It turned out to be the
most cost-efficient way for everyone
involved.
Besides urging people to seek out
the advice of professionals, including
lawyers, accountants, bankers and
financial advisers, Powell also stresses
that people should keep good books
and records. It saves a lot of time
when developing a plan.
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the next generation
“That makes the
work you have to do so
much easier,” he said.
That’s advice Dean
Engel, executive vice
president and senior
trust officer for Maquoketa
State Bank/Ohnward
Financial Advisor
Services, also shares
with his clients.
“Everyone should
have an estate plan to
assure their property
is distributed as they
wish,” Engel said. “It
helps to have information
easily accessible.”
Among the steps he
suggests people take
is to identify all their
assets, liabilities and
market values. Do not
undervalue things.
Identify how property
is titled – Is it a sole
ownership, joint with
rights of survivorship,
tenants-in-common?
It’s also important to
verify beneficiaries of
retirement plans and
life insurance policies,
primary and contingent,
as well as identify
any and all unique
assets such as oil and
mineral rights, he said.
“Whether you choose
to have a will or a trust,
it’s important to update
it every several years,”
Engel added. “These
steps can save a lot of
time and heartache.” n
Setting goals,
taking action
Firsthand stories, expert advice
make publication a great tool
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
Doug Yegge has
a philosophy
for how he
thinks about a
family farm.
“Some people think it’s a
piece of land; I think it’s the
people,” said Yegge, who has
sold farmland throughout
the Midwest for some 40
years.
“Things change over the
years – commodity prices,
interest rates, economics, political
climate, how agriculture
is viewed – but people
always make a living off of
their land, in many different
ways,” said Yegge, the broker
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 93

the next generation
at Peoples Company DeWitt office.
The Clive, Iowa-based company specializes
in land brokerage, management,
investing and appraisals.
Whether a person is a hands-on
farmer or a landowner whose stewardship
guides the agricultural legacy
of a piece of ground, it boils down to
making decisions.
“A farm is absolutely a business,”
said Alan McNeil, a sales associate in
the DeWitt office. “It must be passed
on as such.”
That is part of what inspired Steve
Bruere, the president of Peoples
Company, to spearhead a “white
paper” about succession planning
that was easy-to-understand and also
a tool people could use for their own
process.
“When you think about farmers
and farmland, very rarely do we
get a call from a farmer who says, ‘I
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / contributed
Peoples Company team members pictured include Alan McNeil, Doug Yegge, Steve Bruere, Jared
Chambers, Shelby Spratte and Kyle Walker.
want to sell my land,’” he observed.
“Usually what drives our business is
a death. I see it time and time again.
There are times when parents put
a plan in place for family. Without
a plan, I see great farm families get
destroyed. There are arguments over
intentions and what’s fair.”
Peoples partnered with the Practical
Farmers of Iowa to produce the 36-
page piece, which includes narrative
stories from farmers and academic,
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94 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

the next generation
financial and legal experts.
The book, which was released
in March, is full of tips and resources
that help to guide the
succession-planning process.
The guide – “Your Farmland
and the Future: Setting
Goals, Taking Action” – was
authored by Teresa Opheim,
senior fellow with Practical
Farmers of Iowa and editor of
the book “The Future of Family
Farms: Practical Farmers’
Legacy Letter Project” (University
of Iowa Press 2016).
To download a copy, visit
peoplescompany.com/company/farm-succession-planning.
For a copy of the guide,
contact Peoples Company,
info@PeoplesCompany.com
or (855) 800-5263.
Bruere grew up on a farm
in Warren County and is an
off-farm heir of the family
farm that his parents and
older brother run. He understands
firsthand what the future
holds for him and others
of his generation.
“This is a topic near and
dear to me,” he said. He sees
the struggle it is for young
farmers to build capital and
acquire machinery. He’s also
seen those same farmers
struggle when a parent or
other relative dies and ownership
of the land becomes complicated
and/or expensive.
“If there’s not a plan in
place, people’s lives can get
turned upside down real
quick,” he said.
“Using conservative estimates,
nearly 50 percent of
Iowa farmland could transfer
in some form or fashion over
the next 20 years,” Bruere
wrote in the white paper’s introduction.
With that in mind,
he and others on the publication
team talked about what
topics would be important to
include and how to make the
information accessible.
“Previous things written
about this topic are very technical
and academic. We were
trying to get people to read
this,” he said of the decision
to include many first-person
stories.
“We’re hoping this white
paper serves as a wake-up
call for those who need it, and
a reminder for those in the
process to commit to seeing it
through.” n
“If there’s
not a plan
in place,
people’s
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 95

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global
perspective
Traveling the world for Merck, local woman
remains rooted in family farm
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
Growing up on a Bellevue cattle farm,
Laurie Hueneke Martens was always
fascinated by animal science.
“When other kids were out playing,
I was in an exploratory vet school class,
performing an ultrasound on my New Zealand
show rabbit or castrating a pet cat,” she said.
Today she is executive director for global
public policy and government relations for
Merck & Co. Inc., a global firm headquartered
in Kenilworth, New Jersey, and doing business
in more than 140 countries. She develops domestic
and international policy to give market
access to Merck’s animal health products and
to support market access for livestock, poultry,
and companion animals that use them.
The high-level executive job often requires
global travel and regular trips to Washington,
D.C., and New Jersey, but her home base is
about as far from corporate America as you can
get.
Hueneke Martens lives with her husband,
Jody, and their 5-year-old daughter, Mckenna,
just outside St. Donatus on a farm overlooking
rolling hills, lush fields, and timber just a
stone’s throw from the Mississippi River. She
and Jody own and operate Martens Angus
Farms, which markets breeding bulls and heifers
to commercial and purebred producers.
With a young child, a family business, and a
demanding corporate job, she juggles a lot of
responsibilities and spends quite a bit of time
on airplanes and working from American Airlines’
business lounges across the globe.
“I’ve got more wings than I have roots,” she
said.
Take her schedule in June. She started off in
Brussels, Belgium, leading a week-long workshop
to grow her Europe public policy team;
stopped in Cambridge (north of London) for
a conference; spent another week at corporate
offices in New Jersey; worked from home for a
week; and then was off to Washington, D.C., to
work on issues important to the animal health
industry in trade agreements.
She is home most weekends, and she works
from home one week a month.
How she came to have a job that combines
animal science and policy has been years in the
making.
David Acker met Hueneke Martens in the
late 1990s, when she was a freshman animal
science and pre-veterinary major at Iowa State
University, and he was director of the international
agriculture program. Inspired by an
exchange student from Thailand whom her
98 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

Laurie Hueneke Martens and her daughter,
Mckenna, survey their herd on Martens Angus
Farm. Laurie helps husband Jody Martens with the
operation when she is not travelling the globe for
her animal health-related job with Merck & Co. Inc.
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke Taylor
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 99

Global perspective
“It gave me a
flavor, not just
for agriculture,
but also for world
events that were
impacting the
global economy.”
— laurie hueneke martens
family had hosted, Hueneke Martens decided
to visit that country the summer before
her sophomore year.
“Laurie was from a small town and hadn’t
traveled [outside the U.S.] ,” said Acker,
now ISU’s associate dean of academic and
global programs and the chair in global
agriculture. “She jumped into this trip with
enthusiasm, not really knowing what she
was getting into. She worked on pig and
duck farms. That experience really got her
attention and got her thinking about agriculture
as more of a global enterprise.”
“I remember it was very hot, and I was in
flip-flops with scorpions living next door,”
Hueneke Martens said, adding that her
visit coincided with the tail end of the 1998
Asian economic crisis that had originated in
Thailand.
“It was my first time being exposed to
severe poverty,” she said. “It was intense.”
After that trip, Hueneke Martens “got on
the radar” and moved into leadership roles
on campus, Acker said. She co-chaired Iowa
State’s National Ag Week activities as a
member of the Ag Student Council.
“After Thailand, she was ready for more.
She asked ‘What’s next?’” Acker said.
“What I liked about her was she was so
gung-ho about it. She would say, ‘This is
what I saw that was different, and isn’t that
interesting?’ She was soaking it all in with
no judgment.”
The next summer she went to the American
Farm School in an impoverished and
underdeveloped part of northern Greece,
Acker said.
It was toward the end of the war in
Kosovo, and anti-American sentiment was
high in some parts of Europe. She and other
students could not go far without an escort.
“It gave me a flavor, not just for agriculture,
but also for world events that were impacting
the global economy,” Hueneke said.
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Global perspective
An internship with the
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Foreign Agricultural
Service put everything
together for her: agriculture,
advocacy, and using science
to set standards for trade
and production. She had
found her calling.
Hueneke Martens opted
out of the pre-vet program
and graduated with degrees
in animal science and
international agriculture.
A full-ride scholarship to
Oklahoma State University
led her to a master’s degree
in international agriculture
trade and development.
She honed her skills at a
variety of jobs that, Acker
believes, set her up perfectly
for her current position.
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke Taylor
McKenna and dad, Jody, go for an ATV ride on their property near St. Donatus.
“It is like the perfect
storm,” he said. “It’s the
convergence of someone
who has developed international
knowledge, the science
knowledge of animals,
and the policy dimension.
I know one or two people
who are good at one or two
of those things. But if you
bring the three together, it’s
a very unique skill set.”
Merck noticed that too,
and Hueneke Martens was
tapped for a global public
policy team being developed
by the biopharmaceutical
company with more
than 10,000 employees.
Merck develops prescription
medicines, vaccines, biologic
therapies, and animal health
products.
In 2014, Jeff May, director
of global public policy for
Merck’s human and animal
divisions, was putting
together a team. He received
Hueneke Martens’ résumé
through a recruiting firm. At
the time, she was director of
international trade policy,
sanitary and technical issues
for the National Pork Producers
Council.
“I liked the experience
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 103

Global perspective
she had on animal health
issues while at the pork
producers,” he said, noting
that the job had given her
good exposure working at
a major trade association in
Washington, D.C.
“To get a person who
understands the policies of
governments around the
world was important and
not easy to get,” said Richard
DeLuca Jr., executive
vice president of Merck &
Co. and president of Merck
Animal Health. That was
a priority for the animal
health team.
“Laurie was our centerpiece
for that,” said DeLuca,
adding that he values
Hueneke Martens’ work
with him in such industry associations
as the U.S.-based
Animal Health Institute, and
the global HealthforAnimals
organization.
He and May also liked her
private company experience,
which included a stint as
a biologics specialist with
Medtronic Inc., a Minneapolis-based
global leader in
medical technology, where
she developed and implemented
global sourcing
strategies for pork and beef
products to be made into
heart valves.
As part of Merck’s global
policy team, Hueneke
Martens focuses on the many
laws, regulations and policies
connected to developing
vaccines and medicines for
animals, May said.
“We need to address these
and make sure they are scientifically
based,” he said.
Hueneke Martens spends
weeks abroad and in Washington,
D.C., engaging with
government officials and
other stakeholders – such
as veterinary and producer
trade groups and even other
companies
– to discuss
legislative and regulatory
policies regarding animal
health. Much of the team’s
focus is on Europe and the
U.S., although emerging
markets such as Brazil are
growing in importance.
Building trust and relationships
is key to her job, as is
persistence.
“Policies
do not change
overnight,” May said, noting
that Hueneke Martens has
the ability to keep pushing
and not be discouraged,
which her associates notice.
“The first thing they
remark on is her positive energy,”
May said, adding that
she exhibits an infectious
“can-do” attitude.
“I think part of what
comes through is her love of
animals and animal health
as a vocation,” he said. “It’s
very genuine with her. In
her heart, what she wants to
see is policy affected in ways
that will help animals.”
104 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

Ensure your farm’s
viability
next generation.
for the
The places she goes...
Jackson County native Laurie Hueneke Martens,
who trots the globe for Merck & Co. Inc. when
she’s not tending to her family farm outside of
St. Donatus, travels to countries ranging from
South Africa and Japan to Brussels and Brazil as
she works to develop domestic and international
policy related to animal health. Top left: Standing
in Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Ave. in
Washington D.C. Bottom left: At the Westminster
Bridge in London. Center: In front of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Above: The plaza in
front of the European Union Parliament in
Brussels. The parliament is the equivalent to the
U.S. House of Representatives.
#whatittakes
Profitability and Sustainability
As a global company, Merck
employs people around
the world who travel for
their jobs. Hueneke Martens
is just one example of that.
“We look for the best talent
we can get, and we make
accommodations,” DeLuca
said. “The fact that she
travels extensively around
the world and balances what
we need – nothing ever
doesn’t get done – and can
work on the family farm
with her husband and child
is amazing.”
At home on the farm,
Laurie dons jeans and work
boots and chats easily about
the flowers and plants she
tends to as part of the home’s
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 105

Global perspective
In 2014, Hueneke Martens
received the Superior
Achievement Award for
Early or Mid-Career Alumni
from Iowa State University,
which honors an alumnus
of the College of Agriculture
and Life Sciences under 40
years old who has excelled
in a profession and provides
outstanding leadership and
involvement in community.
landscape. The site where she and Jody built
their house is a farm they bought from Laurie’s
family.
“It is special to be here and to be able to raise
Mckenna here,” Laurie said.
She and Jody appreciate the idyllic setting
and being able to work at something they love
after both have lived in much bigger cities. In
2011, they returned from Washington, D.C.,
and got back into farming, growing their herd
to more than 100 and still expanding, while
also farming and grazing more than 500 acres.
Jody had worked for years in banking as an
agriculture lender, a job he left when Laurie
started with Merck. It was a decision that gave
him more time to devote to the cattle business
and to be able to care for their daughter
during the times when Laurie is traveling. He
and Laurie both appreciate that he is able to
take Mckenna to school and other activities,
although their lives are hectic.
“There’s no routine to this family,” Jody said,
adding that it requires a balancing act by all of
them.
“We know this is a great opportunity,” he
said of Laurie’s job. “And I get more time to
work here at the farm. We have a lot of respect
for each other. We have to make decisions on
how we are going to spend our time.”
Laurie recalled meeting Jody through 4-H
when she was 9. They were friends for years,
bonding over a shared passion for agriculture.
A short trip on the road from their house
to the barns shows that Mckenna shares their
love of the farm and livestock. She climbs up
on the fence and talks to the animals, while
Laurie and Jody keep a watchful eye on her.
They talk about their plans for growing
the business and how glad they are to live in
eastern Iowa and farm, while Laurie works for
Merck.
It’s an arrangement that Laurie values
greatly.
“It helps when you don’t have to do it
all yourself,” she said. “We are good
partners.” n
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106 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

getting
involved
FSA office offers opportunity
for local decision-making
If you have
any questions,
please contact
your local
FSA Office.
Cedar County
205 W. South St.,
Ste 3, Tipton, IA
52772
(563) 886-6061
Clinton County
1212 17th Ave.,
DeWitt, IA 52742.
(563) 659-3456
By Adrienna Olson
Farm Service Agency
Jackson County Executive Director
adrienna.olson@ia.usda.gov
eastern Iowa farmer
Each county Farm Service Agency (FSA)
office has a local County Committee
made up of three to 11 elected members
who are local producers.
Jackson County is divided into three
Local Administrative Areas (LAA), each represented
by area producers living in the LAA.
The townships of Brandon, Butler, Farmers
Creek, Monmouth, Otter Creek and South Fork
make-up LAA 1, which is represented by Ann
Bowman. The townships of Fairfield, Jackson,
Maquoketa, Perry, Prairie Springs and Richland
make-up LAA 2, which is represented by
Tom Stewart. The townships of Tete Des Morts,
Bellevue, Washington, Van Buren, Iowan and
Union make-up LAA3, which is represented by
Jim Taplin.
Each member serves a three-year term and
can serve up to three consecutive terms. Onethird
of these positions are up for election each
year. This year’s election is taking place in
LAA3. Nominations were to be turned into the
Jackson County FSA office by Aug. 1. Ballots
will be sent out to producers living in the LAA 3
area starting Nov. 6 and must be returned to the
Jackson County FSA office by Dec. 4.
What does the County Committee do?
Each month the County Committee meets
for their regularly scheduled meetings, and in
Jackson County that is typically the third Thursday
of each month starting at 8:30 a.m. County
Committees operate under official regulations
for federal farm programs. Committee members
apply their judgment, experience and knowledge
to make local decisions regarding:
n Producer appeals
n Commodity price support loans and payments
n Conservation Programs
n Employing the County Executive Director
n Incentive, indemnity and disaster payments
for commodities
n Other farm disaster assistance
Who is eligible to run for the County Committee?
To be eligible to run for a County Committee
position a person must be of the legal voting
age, live in the LAA holding an election, and
participate or cooperate in a program administered
by the FSA. Also, a person must not have
been removed or disqualified from prior FSA
County Committee membership or alternate
membership or FSA employment. A person
must not have been removed for cause from any
public office or have been convicted of fraud,
larceny, embezzlement or any other felony.
Lastly a person must not have been dishonorably
discharged from any branch of the armed
services.
Why get involved?
County Committees are a critical component
of the day-to-day operations of the FSA and allow
for input and local administration of federal
farm programs. County Committee members
are accountable to the Secretary of Agriculture
and are responsible for the fair and equitable
administration of FSA farm programs. If elected,
you become part of the local decision making
that helps deliver many FSA programs.
The USDA encourages all eligible producers
to vote or hold office as a County Committee
member, including beginning, established,
women, African-American, American Indian or
Alaska Native, Hispanic, Asian American, Native
Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander producers
with small or large farming operations.
For more information regarding FSA County
Committees, visit www.fsa.usda.gov/elections
or visit your local FSA office.
USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer,
and lender.
Dubuque County
210 Bierman Road,
Epworth, IA 52045.
(563) 876-3328
Jackson County
601 E Platt St.,
Maquoketa, IA
52060.
(563) 652-3237
Jones County
300 Chamber Dr.,
Anamosa, IA
52205.
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108 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

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fitness & Farming
Family, Fitness and
Farming
Functional training helps Charlotte farmers
stay in shape for the demands of the job
Eastern Iowa Farmer Photo / Brooke Taylor
Paul and Rochelle Callender do their nightly chores, which include carrying a hay bale and buckets of water on their farm in Charlotte.
BY erica barker
eastern iowa farmer
Paul and Rochelle Callender
of Charlotte operate
a corn and soybean farm
and raise recreational
cattle and poultry.
It’s a demanding job physically –
any farmer can relate to the stamina
and strength needed to grow
crops and tend livestock. Regular
workouts are part of this couple’s
strategy for staying healthy and
ready for work.
When I think of the Callenders,
three words come to mind – family,
fitness and farming.
Family is always the first priority,
of course. They are the parents
of four grown children who all
were involved in FFA. They have
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 111

fitness & Farming
Squat
Stand with feet shoulder-width
apart. Sit back like you are
sitting in an imaginary chair,
lowering your thighs so they
are as parallel to the floor as
possible with your knees over
your ankles. Press your weight
into your heels and push to
bring yourself back to the
starting position.
Lunge
Start in a standing position with
shoulders back and relaxed
and chin up. Step forward with
one leg, lowering hips until
both knees are bent to about
a 90-degree angle. Keep your
front knee directly above your
ankle. Push back up to starting
position.
daughters Amanda, 28,
Leanne, 26, and Samantha,
22, and a son, Kyle, 24. They
are proud grandparents to
Aleena, 6, Kinley, 3, Ryleigh,
eight months, and are blessed
with a fourth grandchild on
the way.
Paul grew up on a farm,
so it is in his blood. He has a
plant soil science degree from
Southern Illinois University;
however, what his degree
did not prepare him for was
the physical toll that farming
would take on his body.
Fitness is an integral part
of farming as the body can
be used as a “machine” to do
the work, such as carrying
5-gallon buckets of water
and slinging 50 lb. bags of
feed. Farming has physical
challenges no matter if it is
manual labor or machine
operation: Repetitive movements
such as bending and
lifting, pushing/pulling,
rotating and looking over
shoulders while operating a
farm vehicle, sitting in weird
positions, climbing in and out
of a tractor/combine will all
work the muscles, affecting
the spine and joints.
So what do they do to keep
farm fit?
Outside of the physical
work they do on the farm,
they take a strength class at
the YMCA (Les Mills Bodypump),
a cardio class (Les
Mills RPM, indoor cycling),
swim, lift weights, and, of
course, playing with the
grandchildren can always be
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112 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

fitness & Farming
counted as exercise.
“I can’t afford to get out of
shape.” Paul tells me. “I’m a
fit fat man.” He always jokes.
Truth be told, he is an extremely
strong burly man that
I bet could give Dwayne “The
Rock” Johnson a run for his
money. Rochelle is incredibly
strong as well both inside and
out. I had the opportunity
to personally train her, and
I think she even surprised
herself. They both know that
they need to work out to stay
fit to farm and keep free of
injury because their livelihood
depends on it.
The importance of exercise
was amplified when the
Tuesday morning following
Rochelle’s mother passing,
she, Paul and Samantha
showed up to my RPM class at
5 a.m. I really wasn’t expecting
them to be back so soon to
be honest.
“We just had to come back,
it is such a stress reliever,”
Paul said.
As a personal trainer, it is
my job to be sure that clients
like the Callenders understand
the importance of functional
training and how every one of
us can benefit from it.
Functional training exercises
allow an individual to
perform daily activities more
easily and without injury.
There are seven essential functional
movements of the body
that everyone should incorporate
in their workouts.
For the Callender family,
hinge
Start in a standing position
with feet shoulder-width apart,
toes pointed forward or slightly
outward. Shift your weight
to your heels and push your
hips back and hinge forward
at the hips, bending forward
until your torso is midway
between vertical and parallel
to the floor. Return to standing
position.
rotate
Begin with the resistance band
under one foot and step back as
far as you can with the opposite
foot into a lunge. Extend your
arms in front of you, arms parallel
to the floor at shoulder height.
Keeping your hips square to the
front and your abdominals engaged,
rotate the upper torso from side
to side. Avoid swinging the arms
through the shoulder joint by
keeping your arms extended and
fixed at the midline of the body.
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 113

fitness & Farming
push
In a lunge position and
a resistance band under
the back foot, begin with
the elbows pulled back at
shoulder height. Push your
arms forward parallel to the
floor and return to starting
position. This move can
also be done with the band
anchored to a fixed object
behind you.
Pull
Start with the resistance band
under one or both feet with your
hands down by your sides. Pull
elbows up and out with your
wrists at your chest. Lower
slowly down to the starting
position.
Source: Erica Barker and
American Council on Exercise
and anyone who farms, these
are my suggested exercises
to help keep the body in top
shape for the duties of the
farm. The possibilities are endless
but here are a few basics
to get you started.
1. Squat – We all have to
squat to sit down, stand up,
bend and pick something off
the floor. Ever hear of “use
your legs, not your back?”
This movement can be progressed
by going from supported
to unsupported, small
to big range of motion or by
adding external resistance
such as dumbbells or barbells
(or even a heavy bag of feed).
2. Lunge – This exercise
is a great way to strengthen
the muscles of the legs and
glutes. It transfers strength to
walking, running, climbing
up steps, kneeling or picking
something off the floor.
3. Hinge – Known as a
“deadlift” in the weight room,
this movement strengthens
the posterior chain (low
back, glutes and hamstrings)
however it can be done in any
environment by using any
type of external resistance or
bodyweight. We cannot pick
anything off of the floor without
a hinge type movement.
4. Push – A simple upper
body movement that strengthens
the muscles of the chest
and shoulders. Anyone with
reduced mobility might have
difficulties with this at first so
I suggest using a resistance
band chest press either standing
or in a seated position.
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114 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

fitness & Farming
5. Pull – The resistance
band pull is a
great antagonist to the
push exercise. It can
be performed standing
or seated.
6. Rotate – A
standing resistance band
rotation is effective in
developing both rotational
strength and balance.
Like the resistance band
push and pull, it can be
performed from a seated
position if necessary.
7. Walk – The ability to
walk is such a fundamental
part of our lives and must
continue to be to keep
our joints loose and our
legs and hips strong. For
people who need advanced
training ideas, try adding
Part of the
Callenders’ chores include
feeding their geese.
external weight such as
dumbbells, gallons of water,
weight plates, sandbags
etc.
The Callenders spend a
good amount of their free
time on their fitness, and
the more I get to know
them, their reasons are
crystal clear. Simply put,
without family and fitness,
you really can’t have the
farm. n
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As a farmer, I
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What happened when the
farmer crossed a chili pepper,
a shovel and a terrier?
He got a hot-diggity-dog!
Did you hear about
the wooden tractor ?
It had wooden wheels, wooden engine,
wooden transmission
and wooden work.
A farmer tried to save money by
building a pig-powered tractor.
He had to get rid of it though.
Every time he turned a corner,
the tires squealed.
What do you call
a pig thief?
A ham-burglar.
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 115

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Dad
Herb Carlson was a
blessing and a curse
Herb and Bernice Carlson are shown in what were their last years on the farm east of Andrew. With them is Jigger, the dog who chased birds flying overhead.
BY lowell carlson
eastern iowa farmer
Herb Carlson was a
blessing; he was
a curse! Because
of him, I’ve had
cranky farrowing
sows bite my knee cap, highstrung
mama cows come for me
while trying to help their calves,
one even through the open door
of a pickup truck. Because of him
I’ve had near misses with bales
falling from the peak of a barn
because of hair-trigger hayforks.
Herb Carlson introduced me to
the world of work among men,
bought me my first pair of leather
work gloves and real work shoes,
and trusted me not to kill that first
pig he showed me how to castrate.
He did not wear his heart on his
sleeve, and he didn’t suffer a fool
gladly, but sometimes this spontaneous
trickster mystified me. Like
the time I thought I killed him
with an ear of corn to the back of
his head.
I raised runt pigs with ground
118 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

oats and skim milk from the cream
separator until they were big
enough to compete. Then it was
keeping the bigger pigs at bay
while they got their share on the
feeding floor.
A wild pitch with a weighty ear
of corn meant for a bully pig hit
dad instead as he climbed over
the fence. Down he went in the
cobs, motionless. I thought I’d
killed him, and I was frantically
shaking him for signs of life.
Gradually a grin went across
his mouth and his eyes opened.
Then I wished I had hit him
harder with the ear.
Dad made me want to
at least try college after I
scooped oats under a tin
roof and in the stifling dust from
the elevator on breathless July days.
Stuffing straw bales up to the joists in
the horse barn sealed the deal. I’d at
least try a quarter at Iowa State, even
though I knew I was really going to
homestead in British Columbia.
As
it turned out, there
was a girl on the farm over the hill
east of us who would make Canada
seem like a dumb idea. She ended up
throwing bales to me off the wagon
Lowell and Brenda Carlson
have been married 46 years and live on the
home farm east of Andrew. He is a retired
newspaper editor, and Brenda retired after
a career as a lab technologist with Jackson
County Regional Health Center.
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 119

herself some years later as we farmed the
place the year both dad and mom were too
ill to manage.
Dad trusted me to use the chain saw, a
hard-starting, dead-horse-heavy McCulloch,
and then a lighter but also finicky
Homelite. When I finally dropped a tree
without hanging it up in another in the
woodlot, I had to have him see it. I was so
proud.
Dad stood there briefly at the base of
the ironwood, then looked at me and said,
“Never linger at the stump,” and walked
away to continue dragging brush. That
was it.
My father was a first generation American.
His Swedish immigrant parents had
six children, five who survived, on a clay
ridge farm with a long lane out to the
gravel road in a neighborhood that came
to be known as Cod Fish Hollow. My dad’s
family ate a lot of cod fish and potatoes,
and we grew up thinking the rancid smell
of dried fish and the wood boxes they
came in was normal.
We never had “the talk” about the facts
of life, which was just as well since there
was little to imagine after being around
livestock for 20 years. I just didn’t know
who bit who first when it came to people.
When I was dating in high school the stiffest
warning he gave was to say, “Nothing
good happens after midnight.”
He did have some thoughts about
marriage. We were filling hog feeders and
wading through mud and manure in June,
not long after Brenda and I got engaged.
I handed him the bushel basket to wait
for him to scoop it full, and out of the blue
dad said: “The best thing you can do for
your kids is to love their mother. Also, if
you want to eat well, never ask your wife
how much she spends for groceries.”
No segue, nothing. Boom, there it was,
one of life’s great secrets, there in the
middle of squealing pigs, clanging feeder
lids, the smell and heat. And you had to
be there or you would have missed it. Dad
probably read all that somewhere; he was
always reading after supper.
I was all about blowing this popsicle
stand, seeing the world, at least this country.
I had a used 1958 Volkswagen Beetle,
bought with cows I’d sold to Dad. When
“The best
thing you can
do for your
kids is to love
their mother.
Also, if you
want to eat
well, never
ask your wife
how much she
spends for
groceries.”
— herb carlson
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120 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

I was packed for a trip to Wyoming
and about to pick up a buddy to head
out West, Dad, again out of the blue,
observed: “You know, we’re all like
geese. We fly back to the pond we’re
hatched on.”
He was right. Years later Brenda and
I eventually flew back to the pond we
were hatched on, and a quarter century
and three children later this farm is
still a welcome sight when you come
over the hill.
Herb and Bernice Carlson farmed
here when every neighbor pretty
much did the same thing. Mom had
a flock of hens, and egg money ran
the household, bought school clothes,
and paid for groceries. She saw to
that. The 195-acre farm was just about
average when I was in grade school
but already it was changing.
Every new John Deere or Farmall
tractor introduced was bigger, with
more options becoming standard
equipment. Implements were getting
wider, faster, and more expensive.
Neighbors had four-row equipment,
and what rent ground was available
was now pursued with climbing prices.
Get bigger or get out was a real thing.
Herb Carlson flourished on committees
and served on the last Jackson
County school board as well as
a regional farm cooperative, Jackson
County Farm Bureau, church and fire
district boards.
Before a stroke and cancer ended it
all, Dad told me that once he stopped
farming he wasn’t a farmer anymore,
“But your mother will always have
her kitchen.” That was a comfort for
both of us.
Even that fell through when mom
was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
He was a lost soul without her for a
long time. His sister, a woman with
great compassion and a heart of gold,
gave him a home until he got some of
his old self back.
Dad found love and companionship
again, though, when a widow, actual
neighbors to the folks back in their early
farming years, called him out of the
blue. He had someone to live for again.
I farmed, but never became a
farmer. I was so depressed when I
discovered the only way I could make
a living was to type words, but gradually
the skills Herb Carlson taught me
came in handy.
Cleaning hog houses with a scoop
shovel every Saturday taught me
things like breaking big jobs down
into manageable segments, overlooking
objectionable minor aspects for the
larger goal. Even hitting Dad in the
back of the head with that ear of corn
was a lesson. It taught me not everything
is as it seems.
Every father is larger than life for
his son, I am sure. Herb Carlson
wasn’t rich or particularly powerful in
community affairs. He saw a way to
be a part of the community, and that
was his contribution.
You hope you’re the hero of your
own story, but that is for others to
say in the end. His cryptic sayings
and a few personal effects are what
I have left of Herb Carlson. They are
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Land values move in ‘right direction’
BY nancy mayfield
eastern iowa farmer
After a three-year
downward slide in
ground prices across
the state, cropland
values in east-central
Iowa crept up 1.1 percent between
September 2016 and March 2017.
The increase was small, but it
was a move in the right direction, a
local Realtor said.
“What I’ve seen is that the land
market cycles like everything else,”
said Chuck Schwager, owner of
East Iowa Realty in Maquoketa.
The past decade has had some
notable peaks and valleys, said
Schwager, who is a member of the
Iowa Chapter of Realtors Land
Institute, which comprises Realtors
PAGE 125
East Central
Iowa
Northeast
Area
(incl. Dubuque Co.)
non-tillable
PASTURE
Sept. ’16 – $2,709
March ’17 – $2,684
average farmland value
HIGH
quality cropland
Sept. ’16 – $9,486
March ’17 – $9,568
Sept. ’16 – $8,830
March ’17 – $8,997
East Central Iowa
Timber
Sept. ’16 – $2,165
March ’17 – $2,173
The twice-annual survey by the Iowa Chapter
of Realtors Land Institute breaks land into three
quality categories – high, medium and low, as
well as non-tillable pasture, and timber.
The survey, conducted in March and September
since 1978, asks participants for their
opinions about the current status of Iowa’s farmland
market and to estimate the average value of
farmland. The estimates are for bare, unimproved
land with a sale price on a cash basis.
medium
quality cropland
Sept. ’16 – $6,904
March ’17 – $7,026
Sept. ’16 – $6,575
March ’17 – $6,834
non-tillable
PASTURE
Sept. ’16 – $2,646
March ’17 – $2,723
LOW
quality cropland
Sept. ’16 – $4,253
March ’17 – $4285
northeast area
Sept. ’16 – $4,193
March ’17 – $4,278
Timber
Sept. ’16 – $2,432
March ’17 – $2,498
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fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 123

By Kristine A. Tidgren
Staff Attorney
Center for Agricultural Law & Taxation
Iowa State University
eastern Iowa farmer
Nearly half of Iowa’s crop
ground is farmed pursuant
to a cash rent or crop share
lease. Whether verbal or
written, formal or informal,
these leases are governed by specific provisions
of Iowa law. This article addresses
some frequent questions that arise regarding
Iowa farm leases and the law. This article
is intended for educational purposes only.
Parties seeking legal advice should consult
trusted legal counsel.
My tenant has been farming my ground
for eight years. We’ve never written anything
down. We’ve always just agreed to a
fixed price per acre. Do I have an enforceable
lease with my tenant?
Yes. Although a written lease is preferable,
verbal leases are enforceable contracts.
Generally, however, such contracts can be
proven for only a one-year period. This
is because the statute of frauds bars the
admission of evidence required to prove the
existence of an oral farm lease beyond a oneyear
term.
My tenant just completed harvesting his
corn and I would like to enter the property
to complete fall tillage. My current tenant
will not be farming the ground next year.
Is this acceptable?
You need to check your lease. Under Iowa
Code § 562.5A, if you do not have a written
agreement granting you, as the landlord, the
right to the corn stover or stalks, your tenant
owns that part of the crop. If you destroy
Iowa law spells out
lease provisions,
whether verbal
or written
the stalks without a written agreement, you
could be required to reimburse your tenant
for the market value of the stalks.
I have been cash renting ground from
my landlord for the past two years. I have
been paying $300 per acre and would like
to lower the price. It’s now Sept. 15. Because
my two-year written lease will expire
on March 1, 2018, can I just walk away if
my landlord refuses to renegotiate?
Unless you served statutory notice of
termination on your landlord on or before
Sept. 1, 2017, your lease has automatically
renewed for another year under the same
terms and conditions as those in your
two-year lease. This means you are legally
obligated to rent your landlord’s ground
for the 2018 crop year at a price of $300 per
acre. If you walk away from that obligation,
your landlord could sue you for breach of
contract. With that said, many landlords are
open to working with their tenants to come
up with a price that the tenants can afford.
If your landlord agrees to a change in terms,
you must sign a written agreement setting
forth those new terms.
How is it that my lease can automatically
renew for another year? It specifically
states that it will expire on its own terms
on March 1, 2018, and that my landlord and
I both agree to waive any statutory notice
requirements.
Iowa Code § 562.6 generally provides
that Iowa leases for a farm tenancy automatically
renew for another year under the
same terms and conditions as the original
lease unless either party provides written
termination notice, in the specific manner
About
CALT:
n The Center for
Agricultural Law and
Taxation (CALT) at
Iowa State University
was created in
2006.
It provides timely,
critically objective
information to
producers,
professionals and
agribusinesses
concerning the
application of
important
developments in
agricultural law and
taxation (federal and
state legal opinions
of relevance, as well
as critical legislative
developments) and
is a primary source
of professional
educational training
in agricultural law
and taxation.
Contact CALT:
Iowa State
University
2321 N. Loop,
Suite 200
Ames, IA 50010
Phone:
(515) 294-5217
Fax: (515) 294-0700
www.calt.iastate.edu
124 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2017

tidgren
continued from page 124
directed by statute, on or before Sept.
1. This provision, which is unique to
Iowa, applies equally to oral leases or
written leases. It also applies equally
to one-year leases or multi-year leases.
Regardless of the length of the term
of the original lease, the auto-renewal
provision extends the existing lease
for just one additional year. However,
a lease continues to yearly auto-renew
under the statute, unless either
party issues a notice of termination. In
other words, without statutory notice,
an automatically renewed lease will
renew again. Although the auto-renewal
statute sometimes impairs
contractual terms agreed upon by the
parties, the Iowa Supreme Court has
ruled that it is constitutional. Because
this provision is strictly enforced, it is
important that all farm landlords and
tenants understand the auto-renewal
requirements.
How do I serve statutory termination
notice to prevent my farm lease
from auto-renewing?
Iowa Code § 562.7 provides three
alternative methods for serving statutory
termination notice. Any of the
following are acceptable:
n Delivery of the notice, on or
before Sept. 1, with acceptance of
service to be signed by the party to
the lease or a successor of the party.
n Serving the notice, on or
before Sept. 1, personally, or if
personal service has been tried and
cannot be achieved, by publication,
on the same conditions, and in the
same manner as is provided for the
service of process in a lawsuit.
n Mailing notice before Sept. 1
by certified mail to the last known
mailing address.
The most common—and usually
the most efficient—way to serve
statutory notice is option three:
mailing the notice by certified mail
before Sept. 1. Under this method, the
service is completed “when the notice
is enclosed in a sealed envelope, with
the proper postage on the envelope,
addressed to the party or a successor
of the party at the last known mailing
address and deposited in a mail
receptacle provided by the United
States postal service.”
I realize now that the statute requires
termination notice to be sent
via certified mail, but I mailed statutory
termination notice to my tenant
on Aug. 25 via regular mail, before I
read this article. It is now Sept. 13. Is
my termination notice valid if I can
prove that my tenant read the notice?
No. The courts construe the notice
statute requirements very strictly.
Notice will not be sufficient if the
notice was sent via regular, instead
of certified, mail, even if the other
party admits that they received and
read the notice prior to September
1. Unless your tenant will agree to a
termination, he is now entitled to rent
your ground for another crop year
under the same terms and conditions
that governed this year’s lease.
I understand that Iowa has an
auto-renewal provision for farm
leases, but isn’t there an exception
for smaller parcels of ground?
Since 2013, the auto-renewal statute
applies to all farm tenancies of crop
ground, regardless of the size of the
parcel. In other words, a landlord
seeking to terminate a lease for a fiveacre
parcel of cropland must send termination
notice in the same manner
as a landlord seeking to terminate a
lease for a 500-acre parcel of cropland.
The only size exception remaining
in the statute is for farm tenancies
less than 40 acres where an animal
feeding operation is the primary
use. In other words, statutory notice
provisions do not apply to a lease for
a small feedlot. They likely do apply,
however, to a lease for a small parcel
of pasture ground.
For more information on the legal
requirements of Iowa farmland leases,
please read Iowa Farm Leases: A Legal
Review available at www.calt.iastate.
edu/article/iowa-farm-leases-legal-review.
n
land value
continued from page 123
who specialize in farm and land
sales, management, development
and appraisal. The organization
releases a land value report twice a
year, in March and September.
The results of the survey released
in March show that the
price per acre for the highest quality
tillable land in east-central Iowa
(which includes Cedar, Clinton,
Jackson and Jones counties, among
others) was $9,568. In September
2013, that price hit a high of
$11,700, moving upward from
$6,604 in September 2010.
As goes the price of grain, so
goes the price of land, Schwager
said, noting that from September
2010 to September 2013, corn was
at record prices.
“It was just crazy,” he said. “We
saw farmland values increase
almost 60 percent over a three-year
period. We came out of that knowing
there had to be a correction.”
Land prices have been coming
down ever since, but they appear
to be leveling off.
Statewide, tillable cropland
values increased 0.9 percent,
according to the March report. The
nine Iowa crop-reporting districts
showed a mix of increases and
decreases in value. The districts
varied from a 3.2 percent increase
in the Northwest district to a 3
percent decrease in the Southwest
district since September.
“We’ve been flat for the most
part,” Schwager said before predicting,
“We won’t see the bottom
fall out, and we won’t surge ahead.
“The history of farmland sales
is that it is always a good, sustainable
investment.”
Factors contributing to farmland
values increasing are good yields
in 2016, limited amount of land
on the market, strong demand for
corn and soybeans, lack of alternative
investment, cash on hand, and
low interest rates. n
fall 2017 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 125

A day of chores wore out Josh Lippens and blue
heeler pup Chloe before supper. Josh is the son
of Jamie and Amy Lippens north of DeWitt.
Fair time is the rare
time to see a clean
hog. Curtis Hartung
of Preston hoses
down two of the hogs
he showed in July at
the Jackson County
Fair in Maquoketa.
Mike Trenkamp parks a
tractor at Clover Ridge
Place one evening in
early August.

With the
American flag
fluttering behind
him, Bill Hayes
rides an old
tractor up the hill
in Maquoketa.
Brent Mottet of
Bellevue moves
a bale of hay
on an alpaca
farm south of
LaMotte.
(Above) Robert Lemmer and Mark Leonard of
Monticello shoot the breeze on a cool, misty
morning at Highway 64 Auctions in Baldwin. The
two farmers joked that their wives kicked them
out of the house for the day, so they scanned the
auction for machinery and equipment to take home.
(Left) Chris McCulloh of Delmar shows off one
of the 31 piglets he helped to deliver in July at
the Clinton County Fair. On the opening day of
the fair, two farrowing sows from Independence
gave fairgoers a show and helped to christen the
fairgrounds’ new Swine Barn.

(Above) Liam McGarry of rural
DeWitt hangs on the door of
the barn owned by his son,
Leo. McGarry entertained barn
enthusiasts during the annual
barn tour held earlier this year.
(Right) Emma Thomas jumps
across the hay bales at the
John Thomas farm near
Camanche.

(Top to bottom)
Gus Hughes uses an Allis-Chalmers dated from the 1950s
to mow the lawn on a hot July afternoon in Monticello.
Rozzlyn and Cambrie Schwager of rural LaMotte giggle
together on a warm summer day as they chase each
other with a garden hose.
Waylon Lynch hops down after fueling up the big
machine, a.k.a. the John Deere S660 combine,
used on the Lynch farm west of Cascade.

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