Who's minding the farm?

For Kansas farmer John Roy, there’s nothing like bringing in a crop.

“It’s a huge, huge joy,” Roy said. “Because when you know that it goes into the food-supply chain and people are able to eat and enjoy life not just in America but across the world, you can actually see that what you’re doing has made a difference.” 

Roy and other Legatus members whose business is agriculture clearly draw great satisfaction from their work. But they also acknowledge its challenges as they deal with the uncertainties of weather, commodity prices, an ever-changing economy, government regulations, and farming’s environmental impact. 

Like Roy, who belongs to the Wichita Chapter, Craig Buescher of the Lincoln Chapter in Nebraska and Charles Crave of the Madison Chapter in Wisconsin were raised by farming parents. All chose the field as their life’s work with eyes wide open, each going well beyond the family farm to carve out his own path in the world of agriculture.

DRAWN TO THE LAND

For example, as a boy, Roy loved working on the farm, but he followed his parents’ advice and took a job with agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere after graduating from Wichita State University’s W. Frank Barton School of Business. At the same time, he developed his interest in farming by staying engaged in production agriculture, buying farm ground, and keeping abreast of developments in the field. By the time he retired from Deere, he had in place a mid-sized corn-and-soybean operation that he continues to run, even doing his own planting and harvesting. 

Similarly, Buescher worked for a swine-testing station after graduation from the University of Nebraska, where he studied animal science, and later took a job at a meat-animal research center. But when an opportunity arose to go into farming for himself, he began raising hogs and cattle, and growing corn, soybeans, and wheat. In 2015, he took a position as director of development for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska Foundation and began renting his farm to a former hired man, an arrangement that has continued since Buescher retired from the foundation in 2020. 

Crave, on the other hand, started dairy farming with his brother, George, in 1978, after completing the University of Wisconsin Farm and Industry Short Course. With the help of David Wieckert, a dairy science professor who agreed to join the pair as an investor and partner, they grew their operation to 1,000 acres and 600 cows, eventually bringing on board two more Crave brothers – Tom and Mark. In 2001, these four sons of dairy farmer Robert Crave founded Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese, which makes hand-crafted fresh mozzarella, mascarpone, string, and other cheeses and now counts 13 family members among its 90 employees. 

NOT YOUR GRANDPA’S FARM

As farmers in 2024, Roy, Buescher, and Crave have had to face challenges their forebears never knew. For one, the market in which they operate is no longer mostly regional but global. As Roy said, “What happens in South America matters, what happens in Ukraine matters, what happens in China matters to the value of the products I produce. It’s very frustrating at times to have a good business plan in place . . . and something changes overnight.” 

Roy said his job is to use quality seed, get good advice from agronomists on fertilization, herbicides, and irrigation, and pray for rain every year. “The only thing I can do is grow the best I can to be profitable and make the best choices on the farm equipment I buy,” he pointed out. 

An added stress for him, however, is government regulation, which he said has grossly overburdened production agriculture. “Many regulations are ambiguous and not needed, and many are not based on fact or science,” Roy said. This places an enormous weight and financial risk on the agricultural communities and the customer alike. “Government-imposed regulations just never seem to end. Even future proposed regulations pose havoc, causing uncertainty in the marketplace,” he noted.

Buescher’s biggest challenge has been working through fluctuating commodity prices and dealing with cash-flow issues when prices are cycling down. However, he also has struggled with the imposition of government regulations that he said seem not to apply common sense, such as those prohibiting the drainage of standing water from land. 

“As you know, when you have a large rain, some of the land is going to be under water for three to four days,” explained Buescher. “Not allowing farmers to drain it is stifling their chance to make a living.” 

When left to work their land, farmers, he likes to say, are the best environmentalists because they know if they don’t take care of the land, it won’t take care of them. “We do what’s best for the land,” Buescher affirmed. “We do what we can to make it better for the next generation and to provide food for the country.”

SUSTAINABLE FARMING

Indeed, Crave’s family operation offers a model of this in its proactive efforts to promote sustainability and green energy. 

In 2007, Crave Brothers began using a pair of 750,000-gallon anerobic manure digesters, which process manure from their 3,500-head herd. This makes methane, which is used to power a generator that produces enough electricity to power the farm, cheese plant, and more than 300 area homes. The digesters also create a high-nitrogen fertilizer that is spread on 2,500 acres of croplands and odorless organic matter used for bedding in the cow barns. 

Crave, along with Roy and Buescher, also employs no-till farming, a method that unlocks a host of environmental and ecological benefits. As indicated by its name, with no-till, the land is not turned over, and the crops are rotated yearly. This helps control water runoff and erosion, improves moisture retention, and provides some weed control.

No-till also reduces the number of trips that need to be made over the field, saving time, equipment wear, and fuel.

Roy has used the no-till and tillage methods and believes there are good reasons for employing both, but he said the no-till system has exceeded his expectations of land conservation and lowered his production costs. 

Buescher started using no-till in 1979, two years after he began farming. “I tried it on small acreages and eventually did it on all my crops.” 

When it comes to the conflict over use of Genetically Modified Organism seeds, seeds, Crave, Roy, and Buescher weigh in on the side of those who support their use. Roy said GMOs are the result of something that has occurred in nature for centuries, but which may take centuries to accomplish naturally. The GMO or gene-editing process, he explained, simply speeds things up in a controlled environment to get specific genetics into a seed and manage certain challenges in the field. 

“The world would be a very hungry place,” he said, “without the great advancements made in seed genetics and technology.”

SEED AND THE SOWERS: LIVING FAITH ON THE FARM

Craig Buescher knows that without his Catholic faith the tough times in farming would have been even more daunting.

He remembers especially the 1980s when the agricultural economy was particularly challenging because of commodity prices, inflation, and other factors. “If we didn’t have our faith to fall back on and realize God was going to look after us, it would have been a lot harder,” he said. 

John Roy said his Catholic faith is reflected in the way he does business, which he learned at an early age by watching how his father conducted himself in a community that was more Protestant than Catholic. 

“It really resonates with people, and they know you’re a Catholic,” Roy said, adding that his father’s number-one lesson was “Make sure the transaction or deal is always fair to both parties. If it isn’t, don’t do the deal.” Roy’s father also told him: “Don’t thump your Bible, just practice your faith and share your faith that way.”

Like Roy, Charles Crave said he doesn’t aggressively preach his Catholic faith but likes to think he is well-known as a Catholic farmer and cheese company owner. At work, he feels called to be a servant. When people ask him what his role is on the farm, he often replies: “I do the crud that no one else wants to do.” For instance, he said, he will help with bookkeeping, or any cropping or dairy chore needed to complete the day. At 68, he said, “I still come in by 7 a.m. five or six days a week to help with whatever needs to be done.”

Among his heroes, he added, is his patron, St. Charles Borromeo, who came from a wealthy family and took on the life of a servant to serve the Church.