EIF-B_Where We Come From

WHERE WE COME FROM
school,” said Ryan. “At
that point, my dad was still
actively farming, but he had
a massive heart attack a year
or so later and decided it was
time to scale back. At that
point, Cory and I had a choice
to make. Give it up or try and
make it farming. We decided
to try.”
Both Ryan and Cory attended
college, driving back and
forth at night and on the weekends
to get crops planted and
harvested. When he graduated,
Ryan took over full time and
Cory worked as a teacher.
Eventually, the Krukow
brothers started expanding by
picking up more rented ground
from retiring farmers in the
area, a point of pride for Mitch.
“I think the proudest thing
I can say about my family,
my boys, and my grandsons,
EASTERN IOWA FARMER PHOTO / TREVIS MAYFIELD
Ryan Krukow drives a tractor at the family farm. His ancestors came
from Germany, from which many people migrated to Eastern Iowa in
the mid-1800s.
is that we have never had to
solicit to rent anyone’s farm.
Farmers come to us and ask
if we would like to rent their
farm when they retire,” said
Mitch. “I take that as a wonderful
compliment.”
Abe Krukow, along with
his brother Lane and cousin
Carver, is following in his
family’s footsteps, renting his
own ground in high school,
and harvesting his first crop
this fall.
“Now that I am making decisions
about my own ground,
I can see how my dad looks
at things,” said Abe. “I didn’t
really realize how each part of
the process fit into the whole,
or how little things like trimming
fence lines impacted the
big picture, but now I understand
that a lot more.”
A junior now, Abe will graduate
high school in two years
and plans to expand both his
crops and cow-calf pairs, so
he can farm full-time like his
dad. He wants to see the tradition
of the Krukow brothers
continue and hopes to raise his
own children on the farm.
“I want to see all of us get
married and have kids of our
own that want to farm,” Abe
said. “I think as my dad gets
out of it, my brothers and I
will take on a bigger role, and
eventually when it is our turn
to retire, our kids have enough
knowledge to take it over from
us.” n
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