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EASTERN IOWA FARMER PHOTOS / BRITTANY NOPAR<br />
(Above left) The livestock are gone, but the sign for Pork and Behn Farms remains. (Above<br />
right) A downpour of corn shoots into the grain cart.<br />
‘If you love what<br />
you’re doing,<br />
it’s not<br />
work’<br />
Age doesn’t stop these octogenarian<br />
farmers from tending their fields<br />
BY BRITTANY NOPAR<br />
EASTERN IOWA FARMER<br />
One day this past November<br />
was like most fall days for<br />
Caroline Behn, 88, a native<br />
of Preston. At barely fivefeet<br />
tall, she sits on two telephone<br />
books and two pillows to see over<br />
the steering wheel of her Chevy Silverado<br />
as she drives to the family farm.<br />
“I can’t believe I’m still doing this,”<br />
Behn said, not long after arriving at the<br />
farm, as she was driving a John Deere<br />
9360R 4WD tractor, pulling a Brent Avalanche<br />
1196 grain cart, driving over the<br />
uneven, newly-tiled farmland and trying<br />
to catch up with her son’s combine.<br />
“I said way back when I was in my<br />
70s, ‘I want to do this ’til I’m 80.’ Now<br />
that I’m in my 80s...why not do it ’til I’m<br />
90?”<br />
Behn is not the only octogenarian who<br />
is still farming. And she certainly is not<br />
the only one who wants to keep going.<br />
Many aging farmers continue working<br />
on the farm late into life, according to<br />
Peter Martin, a professor at Iowa State<br />
University in the Department of Human<br />
Development and Family Studies.<br />
“There is a legacy aspect we find in<br />
farmers,” he said. “We know about family<br />
farms, and century farms are popping<br />
up all over Iowa.”<br />
Roy Schnoor of Maquoketa has lived<br />
12 EASTERN IOWA FARMER | SPRING 2024 eifarmer.com
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