2024 Indiana Master Farmers Keith and Darla Schoettmer start each day at 6:30 a.m. sharp with devotions alongside their employees-turned-family. The group kick-starts each morning with those prayers before talking through the plans for the day.

“We care about our employees a lot more than them just being here,” Keith says. “We want to give them something a bit more — something to have. And they don’t have to participate in that, but as far as I know, we’ve never had employees who didn’t want to participate.”

A lifelong career in the hog industry has shown the Schoettmers that faith is integral to their farm. Keith adds, “You better have faith if you’re going to do this for a living.”

Laying the foundation

Keith and Darla’s open-door policy and listening ears have helped them provide a space for employees to feel comfortable. They want their employees to feel like they can share about anything; they don’t need to leave their lives behind at the barn door.

“Life’s messy, and everybody needs someone to listen,” Keith says. “We can be that person to come and talk to, and we try to make ourselves very approachable.”

The Schoettmers also implement the We Care principles established by the National Pork Board, carrying out practices that emphasize the value they place on food safety, animal well-being, people, community outreach, and protection of the environment and public health. Those principles guide how Keith and Darla care for their livestock, treat their employees and conduct themselves as respectable farmers.

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“It’s the right thing to do,” Keith adds. “It’s that simple — the We Care principles are the right thing to do.”

Part of upholding those principles is opening their farm to visitors to help outsiders better understand farming. Keith says they want to show they are open to having those difficult conversations.

“We’re getting in front of people and saying, ‘Look, I’m a human being,’” Keith says. “We’re saying, ‘This is my family, and this is what we do. And there’s a whole bunch of us just like me out here who are trying our hardest, raising a safe, nutritious product. And this is how we’re doing it.’”

Natural leaders

Sharing that message has taken Keith and Darla to many places. Keith represented the National Pork Board in 2015 as the first America’s Pig Farmer of the Year. Through that position, he traveled the country, telling his story and sharing what his family does to provide a high-quality product.

The Schoettmers have hosted hundreds of visitors on their farm through school tours. Keith has worked with college kids at Ivy Tech, serving as a guest speaker to share more about his operation and give students the chance to visit. Through this exposure, visitors could see that their picture of a hog farm may be vastly different from reality.

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“People come to a hog farm, and they have the perception that they’re just going to be wallowing in manure,” Keith adds. “And they come out and they see buildings that are washed clean, so that’s probably the No. 1 comment — ‘I was surprised how clean it was.’”

ON THE TRAILS: Off the farm, Keith and Darla enjoy taking their horses on camping trips and trail rides all around the country.

While Keith and Darla’s commitment to the pork industry has helped to clear up some of those misconceptions and put a face on the American hog farmer, they also work to serve a variety of other groups and organizations to do their part in giving back to the community.

Both Keith and Darla are involved with the Boy Scouts, with Keith having served as Scoutmaster and Darla previously serving as Den Mother. The pair also started Venture Crew 007, which takes co-ed scouts ages 14 to 21 on high adventure trips.

“We’re keeping the legacy of camping in tents alive because nobody does that anymore,” Darla says. “And I grew up doing that all the time, so I like the scouting program. It’s founded on God. And that has been a huge part of my life and my identity.”

Leaving a legacy

The Schoettmers are involved with their church, and they brought up their children in the 4-H community. Additionally, they regularly donate pork to people for weddings and other local activities.

Keith explains that he has resisted running for some positions such as 4-H council or the fair board.

“I have to ask myself, ‘Can I do a good, effective job at it?’” Keith says. “The second question I ask is, ‘Can I do it better than the person that’s already there?’ And if the answer to that is probably not, then I don’t have any incentive to challenge them or run against them.”

Keith and Darla do not want to be remembered for any of their material possessions; rather, they want to leave a legacy in the way they treat others. They’ve never been driven to be a “mega producer,” and they don’t believe their success is defined by the number of pigs they raise.

“We give our legacy of caring about people and treating them properly,” Keith adds. “Those are the things that we want to leave behind.”

Part of their legacy will come in the form of a foundation they’ve created so they continue to give back to future generations.

Built from humble beginnings

The farm that Keith and Darla run today was once a dream they thought was not in the cards. Sitting at Dan Mattingly’s kitchen table after walking through his farm that was for sale, the young couple looked at their savings and felt their hope disappear.

“We said, ‘We’re sorry, this looks like a great opportunity, but we can’t do it,’” Keith remembers. “We just did not have the financial resources. So, we shook hands and thought, ‘Well, this was nice, but it’s not going to happen.’ ”

As Keith and Darla headed back to their car, Mattingly ran outside exclaiming, “Come back in here! You’re going to buy my farm.” He worked with the Schoettmers to sort out the details and create a plan.

That was almost 40 years ago, and the Schoettmers now sit down at that same kitchen table every day. They have grown the original 450-sow operation into an 1,100-sow operation with 23,000 head finished per year. They also have updated some of the original buildings and built new ones.

Managing their current operation followed a series of farming jobs that Keith held from high school through college and into his 20s. The pair spent some time at a hog operation in Illinois before deciding to head back to Indiana.

Today, they have eight full-time employees, several of whom have been there for almost 30 years. The Schoettmers’ focus on treating their employees like family and caring for them outside of the workplace has built a foundation of trust and respect that keeps the farm running smoothly.

To match growing sustainability efforts, Keith tries to “use less to make more.” One practice he has adopted is cutting back on electricity by switching to complete LED lighting and away from heat mats to heat lamps with reduced-wattage bulbs. He has also worked on becoming more efficient with feed, which is all mixed on-site. Additionally, he uses 100% of the manure at the farm.

Keith shares that they would not have landed at this point if it were not for Mattingly’s faith in them, adding, “We found someone who believed in us after meeting with us for two hours. And he gave us a path to get started.”

Keith and Darla Schoettmer at a glance

Age: 65 (Keith)
Location: Tipton, Tipton County
Beginning: After graduating from Purdue, Keith headed to Illinois to work with Ivan Miller and Sons, who raised purebred Durocs. In the late 1980s, he and Darla soon felt the tug to return to Indiana, so they found Dan Mattingly’s 450-head sow farm for sale in Tipton. Mattingly worked with the pair to ensure they would be able to buy his farm.
Farm today: Keith and Darla run a farrow-to-finish operation with 1,100 sows and 23,000 head finished each year. They spent most of the early 1990s completing renovations and building new hog barns that are still in use today.
Family: Their children are Benjamin Schoettmer and wife Tawny, Kristin Flora, Kelli Sears and husband Thomas, and Jason Schoettmer and wife Hannah. They have 17 grandchildren.
Employees: Full-time employees include JL Wampner, Harold Grimes, Adam Wyrick, Ramon Olivera, Michael McNabb, Shane Sexton, Brandon Lantz and Amber Cunningham.
Leadership: Keith has been involved in national, state and local pork organizations, serving on the Indiana Pork Producers Association board in the 1990s and early 2000s (president in 2001), and serving as chairman of the Midwest Pork Conference from 2001 to 2013. He and Darla are involved with their church, with Keith serving seven years as an elder. Both have been active with the Boy Scouts; Keith served as Scoutmaster and Darla served as Den Mother. The pair now take scouts on high adventure trips through the Venture Crew 007 group they started.
Notable: In 2015, Keith served as the first America’s Pig Farmer of the Year. He spent the year traveling the country, sharing about the pork industry and his experiences.