This is the first in an occasional series on the future of agriculture in Washtenaw County. In this issue, we meet two younger farmers from heritage farm families who are updating traditional commodity operations with twenty-first-century techniques.
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“Agriculture in Washtenaw County is a dying industry,” a regional loan manager declared last fall. “Condos,” he said, “will be the final harvest.”
The comment was provocative, but the assumption is nothing new. Back in 1979, the Ann Arbor Observer quoted a Washtenaw County planning report predicting that, if recent trends continued, there would be no more farming in the county by 2000.
For a while it looked as if the report might be right. Between 1987 and 2002, the county lost 14 percent of its farm acreage, and agricultural sales dropped by 28 percent. But then, thanks to a confluence of market, political, and social forces, the decline reversed. According to the 2012 USDA Census of Agriculture (the most recent available), from 2007 to 2012, farmland in the county increased 2 percent, and farm sales grew by 20 percent, to $88 million.
Farmland near cities is still growing homes and condos–Pittsfield and York near Saline and Scio near Dexter come to mind. And high land prices are a huge barrier for farmers, especially as the economy rebounds. But agriculture is still very much with us. These days, it seems like every other restaurant is advertising its local produce. Though Lansing has cut back on agricultural services, farmland preservation programs continue to reap popular and political support. Most of all, local farmers have responded to the challenges with new thinking and new approaches to secure a future for agriculture in Washtenaw County.
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John Broesamle, thirty-seven, moved from Chelsea to just south of Saline in 2005, when he purchased property adjacent to the family farmstead, Lutzview Farm, then run by his uncle, Bill Lutz. The fifth generation of his family on Lutzview, Broesamle initially worked both at his own farm and at Lutzview, eventually combining the neighboring operations when his uncle passed away. Lutzview is a diverse, midsized operation, with livestock (dairy cows, beef cattle, hogs, and sheep); an apple orchard; and 300 acres of commodity crops. (Commodity crops–around here, typically corn, wheat, and soybeans–are sold to wholesale buyers, as opposed to specialty vendors or directly to the public.)
Lutzview is an example of what farmers refer to as “ag of the middle,” between big, 1,000-plus-acre operations and small farms of less than fifty acres. Nationally, the number of small and midsize farms is decreasing, and large farms are increasing. Locally, though, we’re seeing an unusual trend–a growing dichotomy at either end of the size spectrum. The number of small farms here increased 66 percent between 1997 and 2012 to 684; and they now make up more than half of the farms in the county. The number of large farms increased 17 percent in the same time frame to thirty-four. The only category that declined in the time period was midsized farms, which shrank 12 percent, to 518.
Ag of the middle faces special challenges. Since his uncle’s passing in 2011, Broesamle has been introducing new tools in order to increase efficiency. But like most local farms, Lutzview is too small to take advantage of some of the latest and greatest technologies, which are geared toward mega-farms.
To illustrate the difference, Broesamle pulls out marketing materials for a $17,000 precision planter that claims to increase harvests by three and one-third bushels per acre. According to the manufacturer, that will allow it to pay for itself in one year.
Not in Washtenaw County, with its particular type of commodity crops and average farm size of just 138 acres. Broesamle runs some quick numbers. “It would take about thirteen years for the average farm [here] to pay off this technology investment.” Even for Lutzview, which is more than twice as big as the county average, a precision planter doesn’t make financial sense.
Instead, Broesamle has put money into what he calls “the oldest technology”: soil health. In his early years at Lutzview, he and his uncle used composite soil sampling to monitor twenty- to forty-acre swaths of land at a time and applied dry fertilizer on top of the soil nearly uniformly. Now Broesamle is monitoring five-acre swaths and is applying fertilizer on a “nutrient replacement” basis in the furrows when the plants need it most. Broesamle is hoping to realize some cost savings through reduced fertilizer use and resultant decreased crop damage.
This kind of smart management not only cuts costs, but also reduces fertilizer runoff into the River Raisin and Lake Erie. (Excess nutrients fed an algae bloom last summer so bad that Toledo had to cut off its municipal water supply.) Even on a few hundred acres, it will pay for itself. Similarly, with the help of the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, Broesamle is transitioning some of his acreage to “no-till” planting, which helps preserve nutrient-rich topsoil.
Greater efficiency and a diversity of products aren’t the only tricks Broesamle has up his sleeve. He’s also looking for opportunities to directly market his products, including selling apples at farmers markets, hosting u-pick events at the farm, and selling his meats directly to consumers or restaurants.
Broesamle is not alone in the move to direct sales. Michigan is a national leader in local food sales, trailing only California, New York, and Pennsylvania, with $59 million in gross direct farm-to-consumer sales in 2012. Washtenaw County has eighteen USDA-registered farmers markets. Farm stands and u-pick operations dot the summer landscape. Many farms now offer their products direct to consumers through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscriptions. Local farm foodstuffs are big sellers at area retailers and restaurants.
As financial services officer at GreenStone Farm Credit Services, Mike Niesyto has noticed new approaches like Broe-samle’s among traditional commodity crop growers. “Some clients are now organic or non-GMO. They are seeking out those niche market opportunities,” Niesyto says. Still, as in most industries, it’s a dance between changing market dynamics and old standbys, and most commodity farmers are sticking with the latter.
Corn, soybeans, and wheat remain the top crops in Washtenaw, covering about 72 percent of the total farm acreage in the county. Because cool and rainy 2014 was a boom year for all three, prices will likely be depressed for the next few years (grains and beans store well, so the market is amply supplied). This may inspire farmers to consider other crops.
“Conventional corn will gross about $665 an acre here,” says Niesyto. Organic corn brings at least double the price per bushel, but “farmers have to balance that with lower yields.” Looking ahead, Niesyto says, producers are “hesitant, but confident that they will weather the storm.”
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If farm tech has its limits for ag of the middle, it’s a different story for dairy. Horning Farms in southwest Freedom Township, dates to 1877. One of Washtenaw’s largest dairy operations, it’s a hardworking beauty on a rise above Pleasant Lake. Each of the many buildings has a utilitarian purpose, from the red hip-roofed barn, to the high-tech milking parlor, to the massive building where most of the adult dairy cows live. It is remarkably tidy. Not a single piece of straw seems out of place.
“That’s something that my grandpa has instilled in us–to keep a clean environment,” Katelyn Horning explains. “He’s always encouraging us: Good isn’t good enough. We need to be the best in things like that.”
At a few weeks shy of twenty-three, Katelyn Horning is a lot like the farm–serious, purposeful, and continuing the tradition started five generations back by her German forebears. After graduating last year from Michigan State with a dual major in animal science and agribusiness management, she came back to work for the family enterprise, jointly owned and operated by her father, Jeff Horning, and grandfather, Earl Horning. It was Earl Horning who transitioned from a general, diversified farm to a specialty dairy farm in the mid-1960s, and he still works here every day. All told, roughly a dozen people, including family members, are on the payroll.
Horning Farms is at once both old-fashioned and high tech. The old-fashioned side is expressed in its traditional family structure and no-nonsense business approach. They milk roughly 360 cows and move the raw product the same day to the Kroger dairy plant in Livonia, with no processing on site and no direct sales. All of their milk is marketed through the Michigan Milk Producers Association, a ninety-nine-year-old co-op that serves some 2,000 dairy farm families in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
The high-tech part of the operation is most obvious in the milking parlor. Each cow is assigned a number, stamped on its ear tag, and wears a Radio Frequency ID chip that hangs from a lanyard around its neck like an electronic cowbell. As a cow enters, it triggers a sensor in the gate that relays the cow’s number to the farm’s computers. The computers are linked to the ProVantage Integrated Management System; after a worker hooks it up, the system milks the cow, measures her output as it flows into a 7,000-gallon stainless steel holding tank, and automatically detaches when the milk stops flowing. Each cow averages ten to eleven gallons per day.
Every adult cow is digitally tracked (calves, born about one per day, are tracked “old school” on a whiteboard). With a total herd of about 410 animals, computerized systems further help farmers keep tabs on things like pregnancy due dates and whether a cow is being treated with antibiotics (if so, her milk is kept separate and never used for human consumption).
For all the high-tech gear, there’s a down-to-earth concern for animal well-being. Horning says the cows all have different personalities–shy, nosy, friendly or occasionally mean. She recognizes many of them (and says that one of their longtime workers “knows them all, every individual”), and a few have names. Most of the milking herd live in a massive barn whose curtained sides can be lowered in winter or raised in summer to create a breezy open-air structure. Giant fans and a sprinkler system also tamp down temperatures. “We do whatever we can to keep the cows most comfortable here.”
None of this is cheap. Even smaller items, like the $50 RFID tags, add up when multiplied by 410 cows. (And these are mid-level models–pricier ones track the cow’s health status and estrus cycles.) Building and outfitting a milking parlor can run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Such costs present high hurdles, particularly for newcomers, says Horning. “It’s really hard to just go out and say, ‘I’m going to be a farmer.’ You need a lot of money or a really big loan.”
Horning’s cows are not treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone. “We don’t use it, and we haven’t for a long time. In Michigan, we got away from that because the processors said, ‘We would like milk that is from cows that haven’t been treated with artificial growth hormones.'”
Genetically modified (GMO) crops are another story. “It’s something that the vast majority of farmers use. It has different traits. A few years ago, we had a bad drought. Our [GMO] corn did OK.” In that case, she believes, the modified crop “saved our business.” Later, she reiterates that they believe GMO crops are safe because they’ve been using them for a long time. “We wouldn’t think twice about it if it wasn’t for what’s going on with the public.”
They farm 750 acres–mainly corn, alfalfa for hay, and a little bit of wheat straw for bedding. It’s “just enough to cover what the cows need to eat,” says Horning. “Everything we grow here will eventually be fed to the cows.” Last year dairy reaped record prices. “Milk was worth a lot of money, more than we’ve ever seen.” So they plowed the profits back into the business, replacing their twenty-year-old corn planter with a new John Deere model. Not only will it double their planting speed, the new machine “will be more accurate. It’s bigger and better, and it has GPS.”
From this young farmer’s perspective, Washtenaw is kind of a mixed bag. “We can grow crops well here.” But, she says, “It’s not the best area [for animal operations] because we are so close to the population, and it’s difficult to get farmland–and maybe the neighbors are not so understanding about having a farm as neighbors.”
But for many, farming is more than a business–it’s a heritage. “A lot of the dairy farmers that I know are doing this because their families started it a hundred years ago, and it’s something they want to continue,” Horning says.
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Dealing with the industry from a financing perspective, GreenStone’s Mike Niesyto sees a more pragmatic side of agriculture–and he’s bullish on local farming. “Agriculture is a stable, strong industry in Washtenaw County,” he says. “Our clients are in a strong financial position after a couple of years of record high cash crops. GreenStone is investing in Washtenaw County.”
Niesyto points to the Great Recession as a major contributor to the resurgence, albeit modest, of local agriculture. In the wake of the housing crisis, “some developers folded, and farmers were able to buy back land for agriculture.” And other farms have sold their development rights in order to maintain the agricultural legacy of their property. Washtenaw County now has six publicly funded land preservation programs as well as four nonprofit land conservancies. (Katelyn Horning just bought some protected land.)
“Purchasing development rights is buffering the urban sprawl,” Niesyto says. “Farmers want their land in agriculture for a long time, so it’s a win-win because it puts cash in their pocket right now.”
For now, Washtenaw’s agricultural industry is holding its own in the face of changing market dynamics through smart and innovative approaches. Those 1970s projections–which foresaw the demise of farming, but not the end of landline telephones and daily newspapers–are a reminder to take predictions with a grain of salt. Since everyone eats, and you can’t eat condos, agriculture is not an industry that gets to die. If the market demands it, and smart development plans and policies leave room for agriculture along with the housing and business developments, in another hundred years we’ll still be able to boast of strong farms, a robust food system, and a bucolic landscape.
Deep Roots
Farming defined Washtenaw County long before its founding in 1825: for 1,000 years before white settlement, Native Americans farmed the Huron River floodplains. The Pottawatomie raised corn at what is now the southeastern end of Dexter-Huron Metropark–traces of their long planting hillocks were still evident as late as the Civil War.
European and American settlers vastly expanded the land under cultivation, draining swamps, clearing forests, and plowing up prairies. By 1901, Washtenaw’s population of 47,761 included 3,469 farmers, working spreads that averaged 108 acres. Turn-of-the-twentieth-century farm surveys list a prodigious yield of row crops, produced with nothing more than draft animals and hand labor: 1.2 million bushels of wheat; 1.6 million bushels of shelled corn; and close to 1.1 million bushels of oats. In 1900, more than 81,000 sheep called Washtenaw home, along with 13,000 “milch cows” and 10,000 hogs. The dairy business was thriving, and by 1903 five creameries operating in the county churned out more than a million pounds of butter a year, with a market value of $237,135 (about $6.9 million in today’s dollars). On just over 6,000 acres, orchards across the county produced thousands of bushels of apples, peaches, pears, plums, and cherries.
Today, there are only about 1,200 farmers in the county, and half of them hold down outside jobs. The sheep population continues its long decline–it peaked in the 1870s–but the 2012 census of agriculture still found roughly 9,600 sheep and lambs, along with 10,000 cattle, 5,800 laying hens, 4,700 hogs, and a dairy industry producing about $8 million worth of cow’s milk. And today’s mechanized and computer-mapped fields yield an even-more-prodigious output of commodity crops: Looking at just the top three crops, county farmers produced market values of $46.5 million on 105,561 acres. That works out to about 3.4 million bushels of corn, 1.1 million bushels of soy, and 1 million bushels of wheat.
–M.A. Engle
