Our Farmer of the Month for August is coming to us from Idlewood Farms right outside of Kiel. Congratulations to Tom Mueller! Currently, they’re milking 90 cows and running about 550 acres of land.
Mueller and his wife Marie are the fourth generation on her side of the family to run the farm. Tom explained that he started playing a big role in the dairy when he and Marie were only dating. Back then, Tom farmed alongside his dad, but ended up having a barn fire, which left them with the decision to either rebuild or move on, and they decided to close that chapter of their lives.
After that, Marie’s father Richard gave him the chance to join the farm and the rest is history. “We were dating at the time and I was helping out. None of his children wanted anything to do with farming, so he gave me the opportunity,” Tom said.
One issue Tom makes a priority is trying to get kids involved in agriculture, or at least trying to get them to understand a little bit more about the industry. For example, he gets companies to donate seeds, and then he plants and harvests about a seven and a half-acre area of soybeans, corn, or winter wheat for the Kiel FFA Chapter. He said he can’t remember how long he’s been doing it for, but he still does it so the members can see how the crop grows and learn more about bushels per acre. Since the seed is donated, the money made off harvesting goes to benefit the FFA program.
Tom doesn’t stop there, at Idlewood Farms they also host a career day for seventh and eighth graders in Kiel’s Junior FFA program to show them what the life of a farmer looks like. “They just want to see what we do and how a cow gets milked,” Tom said. “They want to feed calves. Some of them have never been on a farm before.”
The career event he hosts has proved to be beneficial for the farm because they’ve had kids come to the farm and then end up working there all through high school and eventually joining a career in agriculture. He wanted the kids to walk away with a good work ethic, having pride in what they’ve done, and knowing that you don’t have to specifically milk cows to be in the industry, there are plenty of other positions as well. Tom said that he’s had kids work for him in the past that now own their own farms and some that went into other sides of the industry. Either way, it’s pretty cool to see.
Even with the optimism and interest he sees in some of the FFA members, he’s a little unsure about the future. “Small farms are getting rare. Small farms like me are going to the bigger ones. With the pricing of everything, it’s a little tougher than it was years ago. There’s more competition out there for land. Land’s a big issue,” Tom said. “You know, I like the smaller farms. My grandson is out here every weekend helping me. He’s only 14-years-old and he loves it. He would love to take this over. Is it going to be possible for him to take it over and stay in it? It’s hard to say.”
Mueller mentioned that one way to make that dream more of a reality is to change with the times. He said you have to be opened to new things and new ideas, you can’t simply sit back and do everything the way it used to be done. Times are changing and farmers have to adapt. “Everybody has a different opinion on farming, everybody farms a little different too,” he said. “You have to experience it and then form your own opinion.” That’s why he suggests that younger people interested in farming start off by working on a couple of different farms to learn how other people run their operation. As he said, everybody has an opinion and everyone does things differently.
Although the future of small dairy farms may be uncertain, he’s holding strong. “Once it’s in your blood, it stays in your blood. There are challenges in everything. There are challenges in the factory too, you know, you have to deal with a lot of stuff there too. You just have to take it day by day,” he said.
You can listen back to the full interview with our Farmer of the Month right here!
