Editor’s note: This is Part V of a five-part solutions journalism series exploring the future of farming in north central Ohio. Part I published on Jan. 31. Part II published on Feb. 1. Part III published on Feb. 2. Part IV published on Feb. 3.
While the average age of farmers in Ohio is increasing, there are aspirational young farmers in Knox and Ashland Counties who intend to continue the family farming tradition.
Others are supporting the agriculture industry in less overt ways.
Some are improving the health of farm animals as a vet technicians, while others strengthen seed systems to meet future challenges. The region is also home to several soon-to-be agriculture teachers who intend to improve understanding of the industry for generations to come.
Agriculture is one of Ohio’s leading industries and employers, but farmers are only a small part of that involvement.
“We all have to eat,” East Knox high school agriculture teacher Tom Holton said.
Holton has been teaching agriculture for 40 years and his students have gone on to a myriad of agriculture-related careers, including agriculture educators like himself.
By looking closely at jobs across sectors, more are linked to and contribute to the success of agriculture than initially meets the eye, Holton said.
Ashland City Schools horticulture teacher Tod Fox agrees. While many of his students do not necessarily plan to become full-time farmers, they will still be supporting agriculture in their desired professions.
The next generation is expanding the breadth of the farming tradition, pursuing careers both on and off the farm that support the industry at large.
Animal health
Mount Vernon City Schools alum Anna Patterson plans to spend her career supporting the agriculture industry locally by treating livestock.
Patterson, a freshman at Penn Foster, is studying to be a veterinary technician, specifically for large animals such as the farm animals she grew up around and has shown through her involvement with 4-H since age 9.
“I always have loved working with animals,” Patterson said. “That’s been my favorite thing.”
Patterson started studying ag business at The Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster last fall. But she transferred over the winter holiday to Penn Foster — an online program — after realizing her passion for agriculture stemmed from hands-on work.
“I like to work, so, you know, being in the classroom five days a week was not my cup of tea,” Patterson explained.
Patterson also works three jobs, at a bowling alley, sporting goods shop and at Keplinger Farms in Springfield, Ohio, which provides pigs for the show pig industry.
While Patterson does not plan to work on a traditional farm, her goal to work in agriculture — and to contribute to her hometown agriculture community — has never waned.
“My hope is that people realize that there is something at home to do,” Patterson said. “You don’t need to move somewhere else to get a job. You can help in your community and help it grow.”
Up-and-coming mixed animal veterinarian Taylor Pfeifer, a 2016 Centerburg graduate, will focus on preventative medicine.
A self-described horse girl, Pfeifer said her love for animals stems from both childhood horseback riding and her mother’s work as a veterinarian technician.
Pfeifer said she hopes to ensure the vitality of the agriculture industry by raising awareness of threats, “whether that be keeping their pets healthy so their pets don’t spread diseases to the food chain, or ways that they can use preventatives on their hobby farms so that parasites and that kind of stuff don’t get into our food chain or hurt the soils.”
One of Pfeifer’s favorite parts of her agriculture education at Centerburg was helping inform those younger than her about the industry.
Pfeifer said she plans to also volunteer her time to speak to younger generations about agriculture.
Artificial Insemination
Howard native Cheyenne Anders works on two dairy farms, Alden Farms in Danville and Springhill Dairy in Big Prairie, but she intends to eventually pursue a degree to help elevate the quality of livestock in the area.
“My main goal is to be some sort of technician when it comes to AI,” Anders said. “My dream is to work for Select Sires.”
Select Sires is a global A.I. cooperative based in Plain City, Ohio.
“The quality of animals is changing,” Anders said. “There’s more effort being put into the breeding of animals in this area, at least in the beef and dairy part because I’ve experienced both.”
Anders said she hopes to contribute to that continued growth.
Education
East Knox’s long-time agriculture teacher Tom Holton has instructed several of the agriculture teachers now serving students across Knox County, including Danville’s Rebecca McCarty and Fredericktown’s Debra Burden.
One of Holton’s more recent students, Brooklyn Cunningham, an East Knox 2020 graduate, plans to continue the trend but as an extension educator for 4-H.
Cunningham’s goal is to work locally, for Knox County’s extension office and as a junior fair board coordinator. Cunningham was drawn to extension education specifically because programming can be shaped to meet community needs, she said.
Her FFA teacher and 4-H educators encouraged her to step out of her comfort zone, specifically to take on leadership roles and learn about new aspects of agriculture, which she said is something she plans to emulate through her own teaching one day.
Fredericktown senior Andrea Smith also intends to become an agriculture educator. Smith remembers the moment she decided to pursue agriculture education.
“It was my junior year of high school and I was in Ms. Burden’s class,” she said about her agriculture teacher Debra Burden. “And I was like, ‘This is what I want to do one day.’”
Smith will also be studying animal science in college and plans to have a farm.
Smith did not grow up on a family farm but gained hands-on experience by helping out at the dairy farm down the road and participating in 4-H — exposure she hopes to provide to her students with her own farm one day.
“I want to have enough heads (of cattle) to satisfy my chapter’s needs as well as my own, to sell them,” Smith said.
Through her future work as an educator, Smith’s goal is to show students they can be involved with and learn about agriculture regardless of their backgrounds.
The agriculture educator pipeline is not exclusive to Knox County.
After serving as a student aid for her FFA advisor, Ashland Career Center senior Olivia Cunningham fell in love with agriculture, and specifically agriculture education.
Cunningham is committed to Wilmington College and plans to major in agriculture education, with a focus in animal science. Her goal is to become an agriculture teacher, ideally somewhere close to home.
Cunningham regularly helps out on her uncle’s farm in Shiloh, Ohio, and while she will not be the one to take it over, she plans to advocate for small farms like her uncle’s.
Seed
Anthony Gilmore, an East Knox 2019 graduate, was not involved with agriculture growing up. He was not a “farm kid.” Instead, his family owns a campground.
“But I knew after my freshman year, I really wanted to do something ag-related, just because I love the people there,” Gilmore said of his FFA program. “I loved what we were covering. It was just something different, something new every day.”
Gilmore did environmental natural resources, agronomy, soils, forestry, among other contests during his FFA days. When he was college-bound, he knew he wanted to pursue an agriculture career but had no clue what aspect to focus on.
He landed on studying ag-business at Wilmington College because of the degree’s broad application possibilities and eventually set his sights on seed sales.
“I just really love the sales side of it, working with people as well as working with the product,” Gilmore said.
Refining practices and increasing profitability through seed systems intrigued another 2019 graduate, Sean Magers, who also plans to work in production.
Magers graduated from The Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute last spring and is now at OSU’s main campus in Columbus pursing a bachelor’s degree in sustainable plant systems.
While Magers wants to go into the seed industry, he also plans to continue his family’s farm legacy. Magers grew up on his family’s farm, working with beef cattle and growing corn, soybeans and hay to feed livestock.
He recounted memories of riding along with his father in tractors growing up, sometimes taking a pillow with him so he could fall asleep but still ride along.
In December, with the assistance of the Farm Service Agency, Magers bought a 123-acre farm beside his parent’s farm, land that sat idle after his great aunt and uncle died.
While Magers has concerns for the future of farming — ensuring return on inputs, fluctuating prices — he said that comes with the lifestyle he has chosen.
“It’s more like a lifestyle than it is a job,” Magers said about farming. “And, you’re pretty much on your own. You have your own hours you work. You’re your own boss. You’re not answering to anybody.
“You’re just out there doing what you love and that’s probably the best part about it.”
Support Services
Steven Tumbleson, a 2021 Fredericktown graduate, runs a small business called Landgraph company, where he does equipment mobile welding and fabrications. He also works in service trucking.
Tumbleson intends to focus on agriculture equipment in the future and is pursuing an applied science degree and technician certification through the John Deere Tech Associates Degree Program at Owens Community College. The degree requires both coursework and hands-on work at a dealership.
“In the ag field, there’s a big need for ag mechanics to fix the equipment because it’s their livelihood,” Tumbleson explained. “Every minute that piece of equipment sits broken down it’s costing them time and money.
“It could be detrimental if a piece of equipment is broken down long enough and they can’t either harvest crops or get the crops in the ground due to weather.”
When Trumbleson graduates in 2023, he plans to work at Ag Pro in Mount Vernon — also with a goal of having his own farm one day.
Tumbleson did not grow up on a family farm operation but has regularly helped out at his grandfather’s and neighbors’ farms.
“I’ve always wanted to pursue agriculture,” he said. “I have pictures of it, riding with farmers that we live by and we’re good friends with. I used to ride with them, harvesting and planting, the whole process, and I just absolutely fell in love with it.”
Tumbleson said going straight into farming after high school was not feasible for him, given that he did not have land to inherit or the financial stability to buy land right out of school.
“But I knew that going through this, with most people having John Deere farm equipment, it would get my foot in agriculture,” he said, “and then maybe start a footstep into going to my bigger dream of farming eventually.”
Henry Bacsi, a 2018 Ashland High School graduate, works at Ashland Crop Service, where he alternates between spraying fields and trucking grain.
Previously, Bacsi worked at the meatpacking company E.R. Boliantz, a sector of the industry he became interested in through his agriculture education.
“Growing up, my dad was a deputy sheriff of Ashland County, so I always wanted to be a cop to be just like him,” Bacsi explained. “But in high school, I joined FFA and fell in love with agriculture and knew instantly that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
Freshman year of high school his friends were involved with meat judging, so he decided to participate as well. Bacsi then went on to win meat judging career development events for FFA.
Now with the crop service, Bacsi says each workday looks different. If it’s spring or early summer, he’ll be in the sprayer from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Other days he’s trucking, hauling grain and fertilizer for customers.
“As of right now, I’ll be doing this for a while longer,” Bacsi said, “but hopefully within the next, I’ll give myself 15 years, I’ll have some cattle and possibly some land of my own.”
Production, coupled with off-farm work
Shelby Dugan, an East Knox 2020 graduate, was born and raised on a farm with beef cattle and crops.
“My dad and my mom’s side both have farming backgrounds,” Dugan said.
Dugan has decided to follow in her parent’s footsteps and become a producer. But she knew she’d have to also have an off-farm job, which is how her parents have been able to keep the farm in operation.
Dugan is pursing a business and marketing degree through Ohio University online, so she is still able to farm every day.
“I’ll use that (degree) for farming, to figure out ways to improve what we’re doing, bring it into how the new world’s working in agriculture and be able to continue to do it,” Dugan said.
While family succession of farmland may not be as common as it once was in Ohio, succession remains in the family for some, such as Dugan and Joshua Stimmell, a 2018 Hillsdale High School grad.
Stimmell runs a farm in Mifflin Township, alongside his brother and uncle, that has been in the family since the 1960s. The farm has cattle, hay and row crops.
Stimmell also works at a John Deere dealership in Wooster to supplement his income.
“If I could ever get to the point where I could full-time farm, I would definitely full-time farm,” Stimmell said.
Regardless of whether he gets to eventually farm full-time, Stimmell does not intend for the farm legacy to end with him.
“I’m hoping once I have kids, and I have three other siblings, I hope they have kids and hopefully we can keep passing it down, generation to generation,” he said.
In Knox County, a Centerburg student intends to continue his family’s farm legacy as well. Junior Ethen Kent is the fifth generation of his family’s operation, which is primarily corn and soybeans, with about 15 head of cattle.
“I’ve been involved for pretty much as long as I can remember,” Kent said.
In addition to Kent’s plan to continue to work on his family’s farm, he is considering getting a degree in agronomy, welding or meat science.
“I’d like to (farm) full-time, but with urban sprawl it is getting harder and harder to be able to do that,” Kent said, adding that he intends to develop alongside technology and start more test plots.
Kent is drawn to the unpredictability of the industry.
“I like trying to get the best yields,” he said. “It’s fun watching the yield monitor go up and see what you can do by changing some things. You don’t know whether it’s going to work or not for four months.
“You take a chance, and see what happens.”
While concerns about the future of farming among youth, educators and established farmers vary in north central Ohio, many settle on a common belief: It is the nature of farmers and those involved with agriculture to be optimistic and adaptable.
