Every seven years, the Agriculture Department publishes a census of farms and farming. The next one is due in 2009. Along with the current numbers, for things such as farms in total, numbers by size in acres, crops by type, animals, woodlands, pasturelands, fallow-lands, etc., is a comparison with the previous census seven years earlier.
There is something almost biblical in the spacing of reports by seven years, bringing to mind plagues of locusts, and drought from the Old Testament. But it does paint a picture of change.
Some of those changes are puzzling: Between 1997 and 2002, for instance, the number of farms increased from 1,202 to 1,325, according to the census. In the same period, the number of acres in farms dropped from 189,423 to 175,259, and the average size of a farm dropped from 158 acres to 132, while market values of those farms almost doubled. Those facts are not hard to fathom. Change can be seen from the side of the road, just by driving around the county.
The 2002 census records a drop in land enrolled in conservation reserve or wetland reserve programs. And, although no figures were recorded in earlier years, the census of 2002 began tracking the number of farms and acres devoted to organically raised crops and the farms and acres enrolled in federal or other crop insurance programs.
What the 2009 census will show by numbers and comparison will paint yet another picture of farming in Washtenaw County. The obvious -- heavier traffic on the roads, urbanized areas crowding their operations and new neighbors complaining about things from "smells" to "noise" -- are common to them all. But there are other factors that only farmers know about and understand.
Horning Farms
Freedom Township
Taking care of his herd takes up a large part of Jeff Horning's day, especially when freezing temperatures ice up water troughs and the cattle need more food to stay warm.
"There is a huge variety of things that have to happen when you have livestock," Horning said. "It's a lot of work, and it's challenging. They can't tell you what they need."
Jeff and his father, Earl, operate a dairy farm that milks 300 Holsteins year-round, averaging 80 gallons per cow per day. They also farm about 500 acres, mostly grain and hay for feed.
"This year, we grew all we needed for feed," he said.
His father, Earl, is their neighbor, living on the other side of Pleasant Lake Road in Freedom Township. Horning's farm is a centennial farm, with 125 years in the family.
The farm is on a hill overlooking Pleasant Lake on Pleasant Lake Road. As you pull in the driveway, the first thing you see is the house, with the swing set in back. There is a message on the back door, visible from the driveway, that bids friends welcome.
Horning is driving a huge green tractor carrying a load of hay to the cattle.
"They came in 1872, and purchased 80 acres. It was all survival back then. They grew crops, and raised cows and chickens," Horning said.
Though the farms are larger and more specialized nowadays, one thing remains the same:
"Some years are better than others," Horning said. "Milk is worth a lot more than in other years."
A good year is when the price of milk outpaces the cost of feed, which Horning said is going up enormously. The cattle are fed grain, hay and a supplemental mixture that contains all of the nutrients they need in every bite.
Another item that is going up is the cost of fuel.
Horning depends on milk trucks to take his product to be pasteurized. He is paid $11 per 100 pounds of milk, which is about 11.5 gallons.
"Most years, we make a profit," Horning said. "And you can't be in business if you don't break even."
"It's frustrating," he said, adding that stores sell milk for between $2 and $3 a gallon, while he is paid about $1 per gallon. "But we have to sell. We can't store it," he said.
Horning, whose farm is small compared to others in the area, considers himself a price-taker, not a price-maker.
"There are a lot of other costs going into (putting the milk on the shelves)," he said. "They pasteurize it."
Their milk mostly appears at Kroger stores, but unless the farm is a big producer and can name its terms, the business that buys the milk or other farm products puts its own name on the label.
Horning said that there are some farms that retail their own product.
"We've had some thoughts about doing our own retail," said Horning, who has a business degree from Michigan State University. "That's another aspect of business. But if there was so much money in it, everybody would be doing it."
Horning and his wife, Lynda, have three children, Katelyn, Natalie and Mason. All three are involved in 4-H, which Horning said he enjoyed doing when he was young.
"I would like it if they continued the tradition of farming. We'll see," he says.
-- By Alana West
DuRussel's Potato Farms
Manchester
Bud DuRussel sits at a desk in the back office of DuRussel's Potato Farms, answering the phone, verifying prices and scheduling deliveries, not exactly the duties people associate with farming.
Bud, 83, still comes to work every day to talk to his son Howard, or brother, Don and his sons Mike and Pat, or his niece Diane, because they're a family and they run this business together.
"It's the only thing I ever did," says Bud, who grew up on a farm in Sterling Heights where his father raised potatoes and specialized in hothouse rhubarb, which they picked in the winter and shipped to Boston and New York City.
"When (my brother Don and I) came here, (farmland) was $6,000 an acre. Now it sells for $50,000 an acre."
That was about 50 years ago.
"We only had 134 acres then," Bud said.
Now they farm 2,000 acres, grossing close to $3 million last year on the sale of produce.
"Last year was our best year," Howard DuRussel says. "We had a big crop of potatoes, and the price was up. It worked out good."
He said that in other parts of the country, crops had been destroyed by poor weather and people had bought their potatoes.
"We hate to see some people lose so you can profit. We've had bad years too," Howard says. "They say that every 10 years you need to plan for a bad year. Some people don't plan. They spend, spend, spend."
Bud said the family has seen hailstorms and spring floods that ruined an entire crop of potatoes. Mike and Howard remembers potato beetles 4 inches deep in the fields after a spray.
The sign for the DuRussel Potato Farm just off Pleasant Lake Road tells you that you have arrived, but you have to drive down the road a few miles before you get there. There are buildings all around, but the farm office is obvious because of the boot tracks in the snow, and the pickup trucks surrounding it.
During the summer the farm employs 120 people, including migrant workers who are housed at the farm and work from June to October. In the winter, 12 employees stay on and sort and bag potatoes for transport to local markets or other states.
Expenses in farming are high, Mike DuRussel said, with $200,000 spent on boxes to transport produce, $200,000 on chemicals for the field, another $200,000 for seed, and close to $1 million on wages.
Mike was recently named to the National Policy Board for Migrant Health, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He meets with the board, and travels to other parts of the country that employ migrant workers, such as Texas and California.
Spinach is a new crop the DuRussels are growing. They began planting a few acres of it three years ago. Last year, they grew 1,000 tons of spinach, and this year, they are planning to grow 2,000 tons. They send it to Campbell's for its V-8 Juice.
Along with 10 varieties of potatoes, they grow many other vegetable crops, such as peppers, cilantro, parsley, dill, sweet corn, cucumbers, mustard, collard and turnip greens and arugula.
They plant radishes every two days during the summer, so that there is a fresh crop every three weeks.
Sweet corn was down last year, so they might rest that crop and plant field corn instead. The ethanol market also is on the horizon.
"Our business is very competitive," Bud DuRussel said.
He said organic farms may be trying to stop using chemicals, but "then you read that another chemical has been cleared for organic farming."
While they don't use many chemicals, Bud says the reason they use them is because of the consumer.
"In the past, when people came upon a worm in their apple, they ate around it. Now, they're pretty fancy. Nobody would buy an apple with a worm in it," he said.
It's all part of change. And so far, Bud and the boys are keeping up with it.
--By Alana West
Breuninger Dairy Farm
Scio Township
Fourth-generation dairyman Bruce Breuninger doesn't want to be seen as a pessimist. What Breuninger really is, is a realist. Looking out over the more than 600 acres of the farm his great-great-grandfather Michael founded in 1909 after immigrating from Germany, Breuninger sees change and potential -- some good, some just differentare .
The Breuninger dairy farm, at Marshall and Parker roads in Scio Township, is still part of a farm area. There is change on the horizon to the north and east, but for now, with the exception of the bridge work on Parker Road, life is fairly stable.
Bruce and Jennie Breuninger and their four children, Sarah, Amanda, Ethan and Ezekial, live in a ranch-style home close to the dairy barns on the same property where Bruce grew up. Jennie was not a farm girl, something she says is probably an advantage since it's all new and different, and you learn as you go.
Because more of Breuninger's neighbors in the area were not farm-raised, it becomes a delicate dance to maintain a balance between what the farm needs and is used to and what the new folks in town expect or are unfamiliar with.
One example is the calves living in their individual little houses with fenced in yards near the big milking barn. They are not "veal," as many folks driving by or new to the neighborhood believe. They are simply young cows -- too young to milk, needing special feeds and a place of their own. Eventually, they will become part of the herd of more than 200 milkers. But, until then, they have their own space to grow.
Rules of the road are another area needing patience -- and civility, especially when the non-farm folks don't know the rules. It's a fact of farming that equipment, crops and fertilizer have to move from one place to another. It's also a fact, that this can't always be done "cross country." Originally, the roads were there for the convenience of the farmers. When you farm more than 600 acres, you need to transport things and there is no racing gear on a tractor.
Breuninger believes his was nearly the last Future Farmers of America group at Dexter High School. Two friends from his class and FFA chapter are Kevin Wing and Howard Sias, who both farm in the Dexter area.
4-H was a big part of growing up for Bruce, as it is for his kids. Raising animals, vegetables, woodworking, various crafts and skills for both boys and girls -- farm children or not -- provide a different kind of outlet and for some, the foundation for a life's work.
In the past few years, Breuninger has been able to increase the size of the milking herd, build a new milking parlor and improve the efficiency of the operation. He has hired five full-time workers to help with milking 205 cows twice a day -- 5 a.m. and 3 p.m. -- and caring for the needs of a total of 400, counting the young stock.
Keeping up on improved operational methods via trade literature, Ag information; exchanges of information with other dairymen, keeps Breuninger current and able to continue increasing efficiency.
Caring for the cows is important. It's no joke that contented, happy cows give more milk. At the Breuninger's they sleep on rubber mattresses and their feed is adjusted to each individual animal with the aim of increased milk production. Some of the cows have names, having been 4-H projects. And one, says Jennie, recognizes Bruce when he comes into the barn and seeks his attention.
Currently, the milking herd produces about 10 gallons of milk, per cow, per day, or about an average of 1,600 gallons.
Jennie, who is active in soil conservation and environmental organizations, bristles at the folks who say that farm operations pollute the soil.
"We live here," she says, "Our children and our pets live here. Why would we do anything to jeopardize that?"
Looked at objectively, the soil is the foundation of any farm operation. It supports everything that provides a livelihood.
The growth of housing and business in the area is, of course, one unknown on the horizon. Will there continue to be profitable farm or dairy operations? Like Pfizer and Ford Motor Co. closings, the closing of a farm, whether the property goes for development or conservation projects, also impacts business around it.
If there aren't enough farms, what is the need for implement sales businesses, large animal vets, feed sales, equipment repair, or -- in the case of the Breuninger operation, the last on the route from Jackson to Detroit for the milk hauler who picks up their product -- if there is nothing to pick up elsewhere, will that driver want to make a pickup at their place?
In three years, the Breuninger dairy farm will qualify as a Centennial Farm -- one that has been in continuous operation by one family for a century. Now in his mid-40s, Breuninger expects to be a working dairyman well into the second century of the farm. Whether his and Jennie's children continue to the end, or nearly so of that, remains to be seen.
Bruce didn't decide to partner with his father, Robert, in the dairy operation until he was in his 20s. He says he will let his own sons, and perhaps even daughters, make their own decisions. A lot can happen in the meantime; much of it out of their control.
They say an optimist sees a glass as "half-full;" a pessimist sees a glass as "half-empty." Realists such as Bruce Breuninger see simply half a glass; and for now, that's good enough. Oh, and "make that milk," please.
--By Elaine Owsley
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