Lindsay Greiner prepares for 45th harvest season

KEOTA — Family farmers are often farmers for life. Corn and soy producers do their best to maximize the efficiency of their operations, and in doing so clear a path for the next generation, who will do the same.

Lindsay Greiner is no exception. A fourth generation farmer himself, he manages around 700 acres of corn and soybeans in Keota, sharing equipment with and time with his eldest son on his own land.

Greiner will harvest his 45th crop this year. While agriculture as a practice stretches back further than written history, it’s hardly a stagnant line of work, and Greiner said a lot had changed in his time.

Conservation practices are a visible example.

“When I started, we were turning the ground black,” he said. “With chemicals, we were using maybe as much as a gallon per acre. Now we’re using ounces per acre. We’re no-tilling, we’re not disturbing the soil.”

Greiner said he expected that trend to continue. While some practices seem unfeasible now, he’s been in the industry long enough to see things go from unusual to standard practice in farmers’ eyes.

“(Cover crops) are a practice that’s kind of comparable to no-till 35 years ago,” he said. “People were starting to no-till, and there were a few progressive, very conservation-minded farmers doing no-till, and other farmers were a little reluctant because they hadn’t figured out how to make it work … I think that’s where we’re at with cover crops now, I think use of cover crops is going to expand over time, but it’s going to take time.”

While family farms remain somewhat prevalent, Greiner said ag operations were certainly more consolidated than in his early years.

“Back when I started there might be three or four farms on every square mile, and they all had livestock … over the last 45 years, farms have gotten bigger,” he said. “You might have a big farm, but there’s maybe four families making a living off of that farm, sharing in the equipment and expenses and everything, and then they also have to share in the income.”

It’s a trend some have lamented as farming workforces are condensed, and land is converted for specialty products like mead and organic produce. Greiner, however, said the need for industrial-scale farming was here to stay.

“The fact is, you hear people talk about organic, it’s good, and it is, there’s nothing wrong with it, but the other side is, people have to eat,” he said. “Most people are really concerned about a couple things, they want good, healthy, affordable food, and that’s what modern agriculture provides. If you want something specialty like organic or outside-fed, you’re going to pay more for it, and honestly, not everyone can afford that.”

Greiner also credited consolidation trends to the rising costs of equipment.

“When I started in 1978, you could buy a brand-new 150 horsepower tractor for probably around $30,000, brand-new,” he said. “Today, my guess is, it would cost you around $250,000.”

Much of that price growth is due to technology, which has also evolved rapidly with the rise of automation, yield monitors and self-driving equipment.

“Tractors were basic then, we have technology now,” Greiner said. “We have the GPS that turns the implement on and off, it steers the tractor, it maps the field. We went from 45 years ago with no technology to now, it’s almost a necessity … it’s been a gradual evolution.”

Hardly a digital native, Greiner said it could be hard to keep up as the tech gets younger and he gets older.

“For someone my age, it’s almost too sophisticated … to me, it’s like running a space shuttle,” he said. “We’re using it twice a year, so for me — and young people probably wouldn’t say this — but I have to re-familiarize myself with it every year to know which key to push on the touch pad.”

Greiner is not an early adopter, but he’s not a Luddite either. He prefers to let the tech prove it’s not a fad, and then pick it up if it seems worth it.

“I wouldn’t say any of it’s something I can’t wrap my head around,” he said. “I like things that make us more efficient or save us money. Autosteer, believe it or not, does save us money because you eliminate skips and overlaps so you save fuel. Swath control is when you get to the end and it shuts the planter off, and that saves us money because we’re not over-applying … I wouldn’t invest in technology that I can’t wrap my head around. It would be a complete waste of money.”

Farming offers little spare time. Between the high-maintenance planting season and all-hands-on-deck harvest season, Greiner spends much of August preparing his equipment for the weeks of harvest to come.

Even in his limited extra time, he remains involved in soy production. Greiner is a board member of the Washington-Keokuk County Corn and Soy Producers Association, as well as member of the United Soybean Soybean Board, where he’s one of four Iowa farmers overseeing use of the national group’s checkoff funds.

Greiner said it was important for him to put his experience to use at that level.

“It’s important that farmers have a say in how their checkoff levels are being spent,” he said. “I enjoyed it, and I thought it was important. You get a little more information that maybe you don’t always get as a regular farmer … on export information, the latest research that’s being done. And then you take that information and try to make good decisions.”

With 45 years soon to be in the rear view, Greiner said he was proud of his time in ag, which he said was “what he was put on this earth to do.” While he’s tried his hand at other professions in his off-farm time (selling life insurance at night, auctioneering on weekends, selling John Deere equipment for two years while he didn’t have livestock) nothing’s ever called to him in the same way.

“All of those different experiences just reinforced that I was really meant to be a farmer,” he said. “When I was doing the other jobs, I wished I was on the farm. I like watching things grow, and I like to harvest them when they’re done growing. There’s a lot of satisfaction in growing things … seeing your work actually paid off.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com