The Independent-News, Volume 93, Number 41, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 7 March 1968 — Page 13

HIE INDEPENDENT NEWS — M\RCH 7. 1968

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MANAGE SOMEONE ELSE’S FARM:

“I was born on a farm, and I wouldn't trade farming for any job in the world.” Not every farm boy is so lucky. For many, the ‘‘home farm” these days is just a place to visit, not a place to live and earn a living. The mathematics are harsh, but simple. Ten years ago, there were 4.7 million farms; today, 3.2 million; by 1980, only about 1.5 million. What can a "displaced” fann boy do if he wants to stay on the farm? He could manage someone else’s farm — as an individual. or as an employee of a professional farm management service. "Professional management of farm land will continue to increase,” says Ray M. Carmichael, Farm Manager from Springfield, Illinois. "With good farm land selling from SBO9 to SI,OOO per acre, farm owners have a large investment and often turn to a professional farm manager to help them obtain satisfactory return.” "More than in the past, ranch land is controlled by absentee owners who hire managers,” adds (’. H. Seufferle, Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture, University of Nevada. But there aren’t enough good farm managers to go around. "We could place a larger number on the farm if we had the graduates,” laments L. R. Crane, Chairman of the Division of Agriculture at the two-year Agricultural and Technical College in Morrisville, New York. "Fifty percent or more of our graduates in animal husbandry and agronomy go on to a four-year college, and then into other occupations. Others return to their home farms.” "The alert land owners are well aware of the situation, and they’re bidding for graduates of schools like ours.” declares Howard Sidney. Chairman of the Division of Agriculture at the Agricultural and Technical College in Cobleskill, New York. Some of the bidders are corporations. For example, agribusiness firms that sell feed, or produce corn and peas, are hunting for managers to handle farms that support research or produce crops and livestock. Carroll V. Hess, Dean of the College of Agriculture at Kansas State University, agrees. "I expect to see some growth in large corporate-owned land, especially in the cash crop farming areas,” he says. Why manage someone else’s land? It keeps the farm boy on the farm, of course. Besides that, it gives . . . Management experience. "I have full responsibility for all farm ojx*rations,” says Bob Austin, ranch superintendent for Florsheim Farms at Patterson, California. "1 do all the hiring and firing, all the buying and selling My job is strictly management.” Paui MacDonald, manager of Hillside Farm in Cranston, Rhode Island, adds that his responsibility for maintaining health of a large dairy herd, and for managing field crop production, offers important management experience for him. Someday, jx^rhaps, Bob and Paul — and others like them will l>e able to apply their management experience on farms of their own. Paul Lasher of Fort Plain, New York, has been able to. He worked for Jim Irish, Jr., at Kinderhook, New ork, after graduating from Cobleskill Agricultural and lerhnical College, and lx* fore taking over his own farm "While working for Mr Irish, 1 gained imj>ortant experience in most phases of dairy cattle management, including rearing, replacing, feeding, and maintaining herd health.” Chance to operate a bigger farm. "Younger farmers away of getting into farming on a bigger scale than they would lx- able to do with their own limited capital resources,” Hewitt said.

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by Richard E. Geyer f y) - Personal satisfaction. Charles Dyer is fann manager for the Orange County, California, Industrial Farm. "We have men from all walks of life, young and old, rich and poor. Most of these inmates come to our facility with no agricultural background. It's amazing how interested they become in livestock,” Dyer says. "Seeing how animals can help in rehabilitating these inmates, and knowing that I have helped to rehabilitate a few of these men so they can lead a normal life, is very satisfying.” Os course, there are problems in managing someone else’s farm. Richard H. Merritt, Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Science, Rutgers University in New Jersey, sums up the major reasons most Rutgers agricultural graduates reject offers to manage l farms; "They can usually get much higher starting salaries from agribusinesses. They don’t often have an opportunity to share in the farm’s profits and capital gains. And the job may really be that of a hired hand, rather than a manager.” Some landowners do offer low salaries, such as the one in Texas who tried to get a Texas A&M University graduate recently for S2OO a month. He didn’t get any takers, but soon came back offering $450 plus generous fringe benefits, and got an audience. There are some signs that landowners are beginning to recognize the value of good compensation for a qualified manager. Some managers start at $5,000 to $6,000 a year or more with ample fringe benefits and, for some, potential earnings are quite high. But Dean Hess is pessimistic. "We hear lip service given to the idea of higher salaries for farm managers, but it never seems to materialize.” "Absentee landowners feel that they take all the risk of poor decisions made by the manager, and this is part of the justification they offer for low starting salaries,” Dean Hess continued. "It is true that the manager has a chance to make some decision errors without suffering the financial consequences absorbed by an owner.” Some inexperienced owners interfere with good management, however. For example, one bought an expensive tractor—"because 1 got a good buy” — just to do a small clearing job that could have been contracted cheaply (he sold the tractor later when his manager protested). How does a young man get ready to be a farm manager? These days, he probably should plan on at least several years of college preparation. Bob Austin graduated from the two-year curriculum in horticulture at Modesto Junior College in Modesto, California. "Modesto was very convenient and reasonable,” says Bob. who lived on a farm nearby. Charles Dyer was married when he enrolled in animal husbandry at Mt. San Antonio College, a junior college at Walnut, California. "I had to get as much schooling as possible within a short period,” he said, explaining why he enrolled in a twoyear program. New two-year training programs in agriculture are showing up in nearly all states. Some are especially designed for students who plan to manage a farm. "We expect some of our graduates to be employed on farms owned by non-relatives, and we are developing our programs accordingly,” says Bruce B. Bishop, Director of Student Personnel at the two-year Catawba Valley Technical Institute, Hickory, North Carolina. Starting salaries for farm managers and assistant managers in the Hickory area now range from SBS per week with housing to slls per week without living facilities, Bishop reports. For some young persons, four years of college or more, may be best. However, less than 10 percent of all B.S. graduates from Land-Grant agricultural colleges in 1966 went into farming or professional farm management. Most of these probably returned to their own home farm. “In spite of an increase in demand for farm managers, I don’t expect an increase in demand for farm managers, I don’t expect any substantial growth in employment of either four-year graduates — or two-year graduates — in these positions,” Dean Hess says. "The reason is that I don’t sense any real interest on the part of today’s students. If they take such positions, it’s a second choice to farming on their own. And they look on it as something to occupy their time until they can manage their own farm.” "But if this diwsn’t happen, they may l>e forced to take another job, and start at the bottom of the professional ladder again. This is especially serious for the young man with a family.” But for the person who wants to give it a try, the chances of being able to manage someone else’s farm look good. row gra

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Service News CAMP ZAMA JAP\N lANTNCi Army Privat. Fir-t Cla - Mi< ha< l W Pearish I! 1 . n of Mrs. Pmum.t D. Bussie, 602 Van Buran St.. Walkerton. Ind. was a guest at the Kifth Annual I SO Gold Plate Pinner held Ceb. 8 in Tokyo, Japan. He is assigmxl to the 4th IMtalmn of th- 12th Infantry near Long Binh. Vietnam.