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Starting cattle farmer keeps an eye on the future
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
WASHINGTON — For Olivia Pacha, farming more than a full-time job.
The fresh-out-of-college 23-year-old punches the clock every business day at Premier 1 Supplies, where she’s an assistant livestock manager, before heading down the road to manage her own cow herd. Spread out across several acres of pasture and thick timber, the hours can vary wildly from one day to the next.
“It eventually does wear on you, that you just want to go home and relax, or go to bed, and you still have more chores to do,” Pacha said. “But I really don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have livestock to take care of. And if I’m going to be raising livestock, I need to raise them the best I can … I promised them, when I bought them, that they would be taken care of.”
Ahead of her graduation, Pacha — a Coppock native — started reaching out to farmers near her hometown, asking about any potentially available grazing land. When she found some for rent within minutes of her soon-to-be employer and less than a mile from her house, she jumped at the chance.
Now in her second year raising cattle on the land, Pacha’s built up a 36-head herd, and manages a handful of sheep and goats on the side.
“It’s just what I love to do,” she said. “I have job satisfaction every single day. I make the decisions and I live with those decisions … and I get to work with animals.”
For reasons Pacha can’t quite explain, she said she felt more present while working with her livestock. She said she found the time grounding, offering an escape from the countless other worries of farm management.
“When you have a full-time job and you’re trying to (farm), you just have a to-do list. And you’re trying to check things off, and the faster you do things, the faster you can get to sleep, have dinner,” she said. “Your mind is just going all day, with all the decisions you have to make … and there’s just something about those few tame animals. You can just stop, you’re minds not wandering.”
Some day, she hopes to farm full-time on her own ground. Pacha said she tentatively planned to take over her father’s operation when he retires, and hopefully expand it in her own time.
That won’t be easy. While she greatly appreciates the help and loaned equipment from her family, the young farmer faces a cattle industry with a shrinking number of family producers, constantly tight margins and a growing price tag on land.
“It’s a totally different game of getting that ground to actually cash flow … I don’t think I could farm the way my dad does and make a living,” she said. “It’s just constantly evolving. Trying new things, experimenting. And that’s why it’s nice to have an off-the-farm job, for sort of a safety net when your experiments go wrong.”
Asked about what that evolution might look like, Pacha said she expects younger growers will have to get creative, experimenting with each enterprise they undertake.
“Year-round grazing is my goal,” she said, citing one ambitious effort to cut costs as she gets more experienced. “I think, also, a lot of people talk about, after COVID, having great concern for where their food comes from. I haven’t capitalized on this, but people want locker beef rather than just going to the grocery store.”
Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com
