Farm Futures

By Susan Lampert Smith '82

Even as the number of farms keeps dropping, a few young Wisconsin grads have found a way to make a career out of the life they love.

It's tough to make a go of it in farming these days. Wisconsin has lost more than 23,000 farms since 1975. In the Badger state and nationwide, the average age of the farmer is creeping past sixty. And a UW-Madison study found that more than half of the farmers polled in Wisconsin earned the majority of their income from off-farm jobs.

Are UW-Madison's agriculture students still going into the field? And if so, are they making it work?

Recent placement statistics for the 457 students who graduated from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) in 2001 show that only two of the 277 students who responded to the survey have job titles that sound as though they're working on farms - one as a farm owner, and the other as a dairy herd manager. Both were dairy science graduates; no graduates in traditional farm majors such as agronomy or animal science showed job titles that reflect farming.

But those statistics can be misleading. The college surveys students three months after graduation, and many young farmers spend a few years collecting a regular paycheck before they can afford to make a down payment on a farm.

And many individuals who are planning to become farmers may not enroll as full-time students at UW-Madison, choosing instead to enroll in the Farm and Industry course. This short course, which began in 1886, today has an enrollment of about 115 people during a seventeen-week semester that runs from mid-November through late March.

"That's where most of your farmers are," says Rick Daluge, director of the short course and an assistant dean of CALS. Daluge estimates that the short course has about five thousand living alumni.

But even those farmers face changing times.

"One of the issues is that the number of farms keeps dropping, dropping, dropping," Daluge says. "We have a lot of people, even in the short course, who don't have a farm to go back to."

Some aspiring farmers work as herdsmen or hired help on larger farms; others labor in some aspect of the dairy or farming industry. "There has been huge growth in the number of off-farm jobs that involve technical experience," says Lou Armentano, chair of UW-Madison's Dairy Science Department.

But Wisconsin does have some young grads who are determined to make a living in traditional farming. They're succeeding by turning contemporary trends to their advantage - using everything from Global Positioning Systems to a taste for gourmet cheese to beat the odds.

It's one thing to be born to dairy farming, and quite another to seek out a lifestyle that involves a huge capital investment, long hours, and low prices.

Mike Van Schyndle '97 has heard it all from those who think he's crazy to pursue a career that hundreds of others abandon each year. It's not like he doesn't know another life. He grew up in Green Bay, where his father owns a plumbing company and his mother is also successful in business.

"Most people ask me why I didn't go into business with my dad - it's half the hours and twice the money," Van Schyndle says. "I've worked summers for my dad, and it's not what I like."

What Van Schyndle, twenty-seven, does like is farming. He got a taste of it growing up, working for his maternal grandfather and uncle, who run a dairy farm east of Green Bay near Luxemburg. He studied agriculture at UW-Madison, and spent summers working for several successful dairy operations.

Right out of school, he went to work as a herdsman for Lloyd '80 and Daphne '81 Holterman, who own a large dairy farm near Watertown. He helped manage as the milking herd grew from two hundred to four hundred, and then he returned to Green Bay to sell bull semen.

"When I graduated, it was my goal to have my own herd within five years," says Van Schyndle, who married Jill Zimmerman '99 in 2000. Today the couple lives near Lone Rock, where Mike is herdsman for the Kinyon farm and Jill is an agriculture teacher at Richland Center High School. As herdsman, Van Schyndle is in charge of the day-to-day management of the cattle.

The two own about a half dozen registered Holsteins, and are buying other cows from the Kinyon herd. They hope to partner with the Kinyons in the near future, but are putting purchasing cattle ahead of real estate or equipment. "We didn't have a farm to take over," Van Schyndle says of the couple's slow move into dairying. But he says he thinks he's had advantages by working for others first.

"I've worked for a number of very successful dairy farmers," he says. "It opens your eyes to new ways of doing things, instead of just doing everything the way your dad or grandpa did it."

It's also given him faith that there is a future in dairy farming - something that even people who come from dairy farms don't always believe.

"I know people whose parents told them not to go into farming because there's no money," he says. "But I believe there's still a good living to be made in dairy farming."

While he was a student living in the Alpha Gamma Rho house on Lake Mendota, Craig Carncross '99 saw his fellow ag majors heading out in their best suits for interviews with agribusiness giants such as Monsanto and John Deere.

"Those companies have a lot of money to lure you," says Carncross, who earned his degree in dairy science. "A lot of people tried to sway me in that direction, telling me I should work [in industry] for a few years. But that never appealed to me.

"I knew all along I was going to end up here."

"Here" is a picture-postcard farm tucked into the hills of southern Columbia County. Corn, soybeans, and alfalfa cover the rolling hills, and beyond the Wisconsin River, the blue-green forest of the Baraboo Hills beckons. Black-and-white cattle graze in a pasture above the house. And inside the tidy red barn, the milking herd of about fifty registered Holsteins rest like princesses on piles of the cleanest straw.

"I've always had a dream of having a well-bred herd of cows, with a good reputation, and having a farm that was a show place," Carncross says. "I realized that it's hard to find the money to get there on your own."

And so he came home to his dad's farm to find his dream. His father, Gordon '70, MS'71, graduated with degrees in dairy science and came home to farm with his father, Warren. The farm's name, Wargo Acres, comes from their first names.

"When my dad came home from school, he made some big changes," Craig says. Gordon got rid of the pigs, and, more importantly, upgraded the herd so it now includes only registered Holsteins. Today, in addition to selling milk, the Carncross family sells young stock, earning a good price for each heifer based on genetics and a reputation for quality.

The Carncrosses recently joined a new group of dairy farmers that has purchased a cheese plant and started Chippewa Valley Cheese. The group markets its own premium cheeses, with the goal of paying the fifty member-farmers a price of $15 per hundred pounds of milk. With traditional plants paying as little as $9 in recent years, the price sounded good.

But the Carncrosses had to make some changes. Customer surveys showed that buyers would pay a higher price for cheese from animals that hadn't been injected with bovine growth hormone (BGH) and hadn't been fed animal by-products such as bone meal. So they made a decision to stop those practices to qualify for the higher-priced milk.

"It was like jumping in the deep end without knowing how to swim," Craig says of tailoring their farming to meet customer demand. But if the changes lead to higher profits, he thinks that someday the decision may prove as important a milestone as his dad's decision to go with registered Holsteins.

"My dad has spent his life laying the foundation, and I just want to help build it up," Craig says.

Tammy Voegeli '98 always knew she wanted to work with her parents, Debbie and Louis, to continue building one of the state's premier Brown Swiss dairy herds. But she also wanted a chance "to spread my wings," so when she graduated, she took a job working for Semex USA, which sells bull semen for the more common Holstein breed of cattle.

"I don't regret the opportunity," says Voegeli, twenty-six. "It gave me a chance to learn about a different breed. I had to ask a lot of questions to learn what customers wanted."

She also learned to prove herself. "Because I'm a female," she says, some farmers "thought I didn't know diddley squat."

It was good practice for what she does today. With Brown Swiss breeding stock in short supply, buyers come to the Voegeli farm west of Columbus from several states away to buy young cattle. Tammy helps with the farm's breeding and selling decisions.

"Sometimes they'll ask, 'Who's in charge?' and when I say, 'I am,' they're surprised," she says. "And if they don't come back - hey, it's their loss."

Voegeli and her parents run a 250-acre farm, and milk seventy of the farm's two hundred head of cattle. She's a fifth-generation Brown Swiss breeder; her ancestors came from Switzerland and settled near New Glarus, where the monumental barn on the home farm is a landmark along Highway 69. Her grandfather, John, established her family's Columbia County farm in 1950.

Voegeli especially enjoys encouraging youngsters who are interested in the breed - she's been known to give good deals to kids looking for Brown Swiss calves to raise as 4-H projects. "If we don't get them interested, where will we be in the future?" she asks. "I started going to [cattle] shows by myself when I was twelve years old."

Despite the daily milking chores, Voegeli says her parents have been great about holding down the farm so that she can represent the family at cattle shows and events such as the National Brown Swiss Convention. Her younger brother helps on the farm when he's not driving a semi, but Tammy and her parents handle the milking and other day-to-day chores.

"We don't have any hired labor," she says. "It's definitely a family operation."

After working in industry, Tammy appreciates the chance to make her own decisions. "I love being my own boss," she says. She also treasures her dairy farm childhood, which involved hard work, but no boredom. "I wouldn't trade growing up on a farm for a million dollars," she said. "You learn responsibility, troubleshooting, problem solving. We're very fortunate to have the lifestyle we do."

Dan Kleiber '95 followed his father, Bernard '70 MS'72, and mother, Nancy '71, to UW-Madison, and to a career as a cash grain farmer. But he didn't want to do it in his father's shadow.

"If I were to go back and farm with Dad, I would always be 'Bernie's boy,' " says Dan, whose parents still raise soybeans and corn in the Whitewater area. "We get along real well, but I would have felt subordinate to him."

Instead, Kleiber and his spouse, Catherine Haning Kleiber '95, made their way to farming with a steely-eyed plan. Dan told his professors and anyone else who would listen how he intended to work just long enough to buy his own farm. Nearly everyone told him it couldn't be done - land and equipment were too expensive for people who weren't inheriting a farm. But Dan's parents encouraged the young couple.

"When we wanted to go into farming, we heard 'You can't do it,' " recalls Nancy. "And my father-in-law says he heard the same thing, too."

Dan and Catherine ignored the skeptics.

Catherine graduated with a zoology degree on a Saturday in May 1995, Dan with an agronomy degree on Sunday, and they married Sunday afternoon.

By Tuesday, they were at their new jobs, living as frugally as possible to save up for their down payment. By spring of the next year, they had it in hand, and began looking for their farm with the dispassion of accountants.

"There are a lot of farms for sale, but not many good farms for sale," says Dan. "They're not even listed. The neighbor buys them before they go on the market."

Armed with soil maps and spreadsheets, they evaluated what was available. If the yields they could expect from the soil types didn't result in a positive cash flow, Catherine says, they didn't even bother looking at the farm.

They finally found the land they were looking for along the flood plain of the Crawfish River in northern Jefferson County near Watertown. Today, they own 230 acres of rich bottomland and rent 270 more from the neighbors. They raise soybeans and corn and are involved in a group trying to build a soybean processing plant. This year, the Wisconsin Soybean Association named them the state's Dupont Young Leaders.

They've instituted a ridge-till system that plants soybeans on high mounds, a method that cuts down on soil erosion and pesticide use. "Mostly we do it because it's cheaper and we can get by with less equipment," says Dan. Farther along the field, Catherine points out where burning the fence rows is encouraging prairie plants such as big bluestem and coneflower to reclaim their corner of the earth.

Dan has no regrets about turning his back on a regular paycheck to go into farming. "I got the better end of the deal," says Dan, who keeps up with college friends. "Anytime they come out here to visit, I can take off and spend time with them. I'm my own boss, and I set my own schedule."

Once the crops are in, summers are devoted to gardening and improving the farm. Catherine has also been active on the issue of electrical pollution, better known as "stray voltage." She says that rogue electricity on the farm made her ill until she learned to solve the problem. Her Web site, electricalpollution.com, has more information.

This wasn't the life Catherine was born to. She was raised in Madison and on the East Coast as the daughter of two physicians who assumed she would follow them into medical school. But she always wanted to be a farmer.

"I love combining," she says, referring to harvesting beans and corn with a rig that's the size of giant dump truck. "Dan's mother says that city girls make the best farm wives."

Melissa Goldade Sprecher '95 was raised in farming - and had no intention of coming back. But like Catherine Kleiber, she finds herself "driving a big mean machine" as she helps her spouse, Marty, during the hectic fall harvest season.

Sprecher grew up in Viroqua, where her family managed the Vernon County Farm. As a girl, she was responsible for the cattle, and enjoyed raising animals for 4-H projects. But she didn't envision life as a farmer.

"I had decided my life goal was to go to Spain after I graduated and live there for five years," Sprecher says. She majored in dairy science and agricultural journalism with an international marketing focus, hoping to land a job overseas. But her father had heart surgery during her senior year in college, and Sprecher realized that her own heart lay closer to home.

She did marketing for an agriculture nutrition company before meeting Marty. In short order, they bought a farm near Lone Rock in Richland County and got very busy.

The Sprecher farm demonstrates another tenet of today's young farmer: trying new things to find a mix that works. They raise soybeans, oats, and corn on their 374 acres, and they also have a custom combining business, which brings the total acreage they cover to 2,800 as they do the fieldwork for other farmers. It's a high-tech form of agriculture. They use GPS (Global Positioning System) information to create maps of crop yields, fertility, and other information for their customers.

They also raise Jersey steers for beef, and sell meat and sweet corn at farmers' markets in Oregon and Waunakee. And most importantly, they're raising Marty's children: Brady, eleven, and Sidney, nine. The Sprecher children help with chores, and in the summer, they're responsible for picking sweet corn and leaving it at the end of the driveway for customers who deposit money in an "honesty jar." Their earnings go to support their 4-H projects, such as raising lambs and showing horses.

"There's never a dull moment," says Sprecher, who also teaches Spanish, does marketing work, and hosted a picnic for 175 members of the Wisconsin Agricultural and Life Sciences Alumni Association during Farm Progress Days in July.

Rick Daluge, assistant dean of CALS, attended the picnic. He says that young farmers such as Melissa Sprecher give him faith that young people won't abandon farm life.

Susan Lampert Smith '82 writes for the Wisconsin State Journal. She and her spouse, fellow CALS graduate Matthew Smith '77, own an asparagus farm near Blue Mounds. Susan also teaches in Life Sciences Communications, and enjoyed catching up with former students Dan Kleiber and Tammy Voegeli.