Steffen Farm Forward Focused

You may find Ben Steffen flying his airplane from the farm in Humboldt, Neb. to one of his Nebraska Rural Radio Association board meetings or even taking a friend to the Mayo clinic.  You may also find him with his wife Paula Sue, going over the farm numbers and what cover crop seeds to plant when and where.  And, you may even see them using a tractor and roller crimper to push down a beautiful stand of rye after planting the next cash crop.

You’ll also find Steffen taking a moment to share about the history of their family dairy before the industry continued to consolidate and leave so many behind. Rest assured, nearly all the time, you will find him deeply considering the future of agriculture and how we can learn from the past, step up, and lead a better future. 

“I grew up on the dairy farm near Humboldt that my parents – Richard and Sue – started in the 1950s.  Dad was a WWII vet and he met mom when they were both attending the University of Nebraska,” Steffen began.  “Mom’s degree was in home economics and dad got an ag degree focusing on dairy and poultry.  They literally borrowed the down payment to buy our farm out here and started milking cows and raising a family.  I am the youngest of four children, I have an older brother and two sisters.”

“We milked cows until 2022,” he went on.  “We had 170 milk cows at that time and decided to get out of the business.  It was hard.  We employed three full-time people and often had one to four high school kids working for us depending on the season.  We are so proud that we were able to work with all those great employees, employees we really consider lifelong friends. They will always remember what milk production looks like and that means a lot to us.  I miss the opportunities the dairy brought.  Communities suffer when those things have to end and there simply aren’t as many chances for kids to have those valuable first working opportunities.”

“Watching the dairy business go from a family-oriented business and gradually turn into a corporate, multi-state enterprise, has been painful to watch,” he said, continuing to reflect on the impact of consolidated agriculture on the local community.  “I am proud of the fact that we bought more scoop shovels than just about anyone and wore them out on the dairy.  I know the hardware guy misses our purchase of those scoop shovels.  At the local implement dealer, I think we had a stall with our name on it where they used to work on manure spreaders and skid loaders that we used and wore out.” 

While Steffen laments the end of the dairy years, he is both a realist and optimist about forging ahead on the farm.  One way the family has always stayed in business is by changing, “My dad was one of the early adopters of minimum tillage and no-till practices.  My Grandfather, Halley Fishwood, worked for the soil conservation service as an engineer and helped put in a lot of the terraces in Richardson County.”

Time savings and soil savings made sense and economic cents too when it came to making changes in their farming practices, “With the dairy there was simply not a lot of time for field work, and we wanted to conserve the soil and the moisture.  My parents also planted trees all their lives and we are still reaping the benefits of those efforts.”

Changes lead to new open doors, and while the dairy cows may be gone, the desire to work hard and recognize what may be a better way fuels Ben, his wife Paula Sue, and his sister Sarah Pineda who all farm together today, “Paula Sue went to the College of St. Mary and got a business degree.  She loves being outdoors.  Her favorite thing in the world is swathing hay, but she also loves numbers and the data part of agriculture.  She did the record keeping for the dairy and does the crop agronomy and crop scouting.  She also runs the combine partly because she is harvesting the data.  We are full partners working side by side every day.”

“Paula Sue and I were just talking the other day about how hard our parents worked.  My dad milked cows until he was 82 and mom cooked for us until the end of her life at 92. They were wonderful partners and mentors. Today, we’re not as active in the same ways as they were,” Steffen went on.  “But there’s a constant press on agriculture by technology and the urgency and pace of it all can be relentless.”

Technology is meaningless without actual crop production, Steffen pointed out.  That’s why they are constantly looking at ways to produce their crops in a way that hearkens back to the conservation mindset of their ancestors, “Today we are raising corn, beans, wheat, and hay.  We started with cover crops during the dairy years in fields where we had chopped corn for silage.  The ground was bare, and we wanted the soil covered.  Then we got into a CSP (Conservation Stewardship Program) contract and that really jump started our cover crop acres.  Now nearly all our ground gets a cover crop –everything from cereal rye, oats, winter peas, hairy vetch to clovers, Sudan grass, Sunn hemp, Mung beans, and canola – you name it!”

“This year we purchased a roller because the rainy season caused some of the rye to grow up to five or six-feet tall.  We have planted into the rye in the past, but we thought rolling it down would give us better light penetration,” Steffen explained.  “It is amazing when you have that material on the ground from previous years and you’re even able to plant sooner sometimes because it can speed up your ability to get into the field.”

“We also had a field that we planted to winter peas, clover, and hairy vetch.  We wanted to plant that field later to corn.  That vetch and the winter peas just went nuts!  It was beautiful.  When I went to plant corn, it was knee deep or more and full of birds, butterflies, and all sorts of beneficial insects.  The soil was so crumbly and full of very, very, fine roots and was not like planting into a tight mass at all.  The soil just rolled back in over the seed. It’s the best stand of corn we have,” he pointed out. 

Steffen said the benefits are numerous when implementing cover crops into a farming system, “The first things you notice are the water infiltration and the elimination of soil erosion.  There is no soil leaving this farm.  Worked ground will not soak in those large rainfalls we have.  With these cover crop practices, we are allowing water to infiltrate more quickly and keeping the soil cooler during the season.” 

“One thing this type of farming does is add another layer of management,” Steffen admitted, but noted it’s all worth it. “From the complexities of getting the cover crops planted to when to plant and how to get everything harvested does require a mindset of flexibility and curiosity as well as an openness to a challenge.  But farmers are nothing if they aren’t innovative.  We have patterns that we have relied on, yes, but we can be innovative when we see opportunities.  If we see an economic advantage and long-term advantages to the practices, we will adopt them more widely.”

There is a lot of room for extra enterprises to arise in the countryside that help support the management of these complex systems, Steffen said, “One of the challenges in agriculture today is bringing young people in because it is so investment intensive.  But the opportunity around cover crops is huge – from offering custom services to farmers who have existing land base but don’t have time to manage cover crops to bringing livestock in to graze.” 

It’s clear Steffen is passionate about bringing his soil to life and rural communities too.  He is active in a delegation working with the University of Nebraska – Lincoln lobbying in D.C. for agricultural research that is relevant and helps the industry move forward, “A big thing for us is community – we have a shop where we like to have a jug of iced tea ready and a grill that’s ready to entertain.  People are so interesting and the most valuable relationships to me are the ones that have taken time to develop.  They just get more and more interesting and valuable over time.”

In closing, he said, it’s all about remembering the center of agriculture and making sure people have the chance to use their gifts fully, “We need young people to bring new management skills, new vigor, and strategies forward.  We are an aging population and that is such a crying need.”