BOUTON, Iowa – An Iowa couple has made a success out of farming but they aren’t encouraging the next generation.
Stephanie and Mike Hansen raised three children, built a farm about three times the size of the local average and filled their ample home with antiques celebrating regional heritage and agriculture.
“Farming is a great life. But there are barriers to entry in ag and the lifestyle offered by a career and job working for other folks might be better,” said Stephanie, whose farm is about a half hour’s drive from Des Moines.
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The Bouton, Iowa, couple has worked hard to earn a comfortable living from agriculture. They have been farming on their own since 1979 but each year brings risks and challenges to their business.
Their son, Jeremy, would like to farm and might someday. He has an engineering job with a major farm equipment company, which offers more long-term opportunity than farming, say his parents.
“And you get to have a life that isn’t all about the crop,” said Mike.
Like most of the farmers in Iowa and the northern Midwest, the Hansens get their best returns from growing corn and beans.
Mike said he prefers to keep it simple, with steady seeding and fertilization rates and the latest in genetics to solve weed, disease and insect problems.
He believes seeding and application timing on the farm’s 1,800 acres will produce a better margin for his farm as opposed to variable applications of nutrients or seeding rates.
“Mother Nature gives us 98 percent of the yield. Why spend hard on the other two percent,” he said.
In peak seasons, the couple gets help from their son on weekends and from retired, local farmers. Custom application is handled by a local farmer co-op, while the Hansens combine their own crops.
Half of their crops are hauled to the elevators in the fall and placed in storage for sale throughout the year. The remainder is kept in bins on the farm, with limited amounts pre-sold or hedged.
The couple started out with 240 acres of land and his father’s farm equipment and infrastructure.
It was still possible to do it without a lot of family support, said Stephanie. “It helped in those days, but it didn’t take that much of a push. Today you couldn’t start out so easily. The land and machinery are too expensive and the (margins) aren’t high enough.”
For many years, the couple relied on cash flow from Mike’s trucking and Stephanie’s jobs to add to the family’s income.
“Now I just drive a little in the winter … and move some snow for the (local municipal highway department.) It provides me with some variety in life,” he said.
Stephanie said the cost of being self-employed is another issue that makes farming a tough business.
“With (U.S.) health insurance getting out of sight, it’s benefits that are just one more thing to keep people working in a job,” she said, citing a recent 18 percent increase in the couple’s private health insurance costs.
The price of insurance now tops $1,000 per month for many farm couples in a large group plan provided by the American Farm Bureau.
Stephanie said health insurance is a big issue for farmers and other self-employed people in their agricultural community.
“It’s just one more thing to keep you from wanting your kids to work for themselves. At one time, it was affordable,” she said.
In the 30 years the Hansens have farmed, the cost of being in business has gone up, with high land prices pushing acres out of the grasp of new farmers.
Despite some levelling off in the past 18 months, farmable acres in the United States sell for about $5,700 ($5,500 Cdn).
Mike hopes to rent or buy more land in the future.
“If some comes up and it’s not too much, we might try to get (Jeremy’s) name on a little of it. But it would have to pay,” he said.
Rentals in the area range from $207 to $360 per acre, with 60 percent of the couple’s land rented from local retirees, former farming families and urban investors.
“At $300 or $350, it no longer pays to do it. And we won’t take on land at that kind of rate. At those prices, you do better to scrape together a down payment and buy some,” he said.
Farmers looking to pass on their operations to the next generation use income from land that is paid off to leverage the purchase of new acres at prices too high to turn a profit.
Stephanie said once a farmer is established, a farming life offers flexibility and a good income.
“It’s a great lifestyle, provided you make it far enough along to enjoy it. But it takes a lot of years, sacrifice, work (and) some luck to get that far.”
