Getting a Life, Off the Farm

I was talking with a high school friend of mine recently, who's also started ranching with his family. We quickly agreed on one thing – there aren't too many of us farming in Lane County who were born after The Beatles broke up. 

With the average age of U.S. farmers steadily climbing towards 60, that creates a particularly interesting problem for those of us in the young-farmer category: How do we network with our peers when there are so few of us? And with rural communities shrinking, how do we establish a life off the farm?

Last week I attended the Young Farmer Program at the annual Top Producer Seminar in Chicago where they held discussions on subjects ranging from managing family feuds, to how to talk about succession planning in the family. It was an excellent experience where I got to meet a number of other producers from across the country who have also recently decided to come back to the farm.  

While I was there, I sat in on one discussion led by Lon Frahm of Colby, Kansas, on how to cultivate life outside of work and off the farm.

Lon – a fellow K-Stater and ag econ alum from western Kansas – had some very illuminating things to say, but Lon's no ordinary farmer. He's grown the size of his family's farm in northwest Kansas considerably over the last few years and has redefined what it means to belong to a community.

As Lon sees it, being self-employed gives you the opportunity to determine your own balance point. Lon has a long history of serving on countless boards throughout Kansas while he continues to volunteer in his local community.

On the farm, finding balance means defining the expectations of everyone involved, using goals to establish priority, and everyone being strongly committed to the mission, vision and values of the farm.

Off the farm, it means everyone establishing their own lives and serving the various communities one may belong to – local or not. Serving is also a duty we all share, he says. Quoting his grandmother, Lon says, "Service is the rent we pay for the space we occupy while on earth."

Without finding our roles off the farm, it's easy to lose your sense of individuality. Or even worse, your sanity.

As the joke goes about the farm wife who eventually loses her mind and ends up in the mental ward, her husband says, "I don't know what could have gotten into her – she hadn't been off the farm in 18 years!"