“That is all I wanted to do was come back,” he said. I started running the tractor and grain cart when I was 9.
“This has always been what I’ve wanted to do. “I didn’t know anything different,” said Colby Harner. Doug slowly built up his own operation around Kenny's farm. When Doug married his wife, Tawnya, her father, Kenny Sibils, hired him to work on the farm. He worked chopping silage and doing custom harvest and other jobs. But when Colby got out of high school in the 1980s, economic times were hard on the farm. His father, Doug, grew up on a small farm near Sylvia. Harner, however, a fifth-generation farmer, never considered another occupation. “It is hard to get enough to feed all the families that would be involved in some of these bigger farms,” said Harner. For some, it is because the farm can’t support another family. Harner said some of the people he went to college with grew up on the farm but didn't return after college. Kansas has been losing farms since the 1930s. had more than 4 million farms, with Kansas representing 130,500 of them, according to historical censuses. Soon, the number of farms will drop below 2 million - a number not seen since before the Civil War. The same trend spreads across the United States. Yet, of those farmers, only 18,821 are below the age of 44 - or 20.5 percent, according to the latest Census of Agriculture. In all, Kansas farms support 91,656 operators, a number that reflects the multigenerational families making a living on the farm. Kansas has about 62,000 farms, with about 32,000 where the operator considers farming his or her principal occupation. With the average age of the Kansas farmer nearing 60, Harner is a minority on the Kansas landscape. “If we could just get a couple more years of decent crops or income - get some payments made - we wouldn’t be in too bad of shape,” he said.
“This will cycle and get better,” he said with the optimism of a veteran farmer as he sat in his family’s home near the Reno County town of Partridge. Don’t make long-term investments in a short-term income. They instilled in him a work ethic, along with other standards to live by:īeing conservative isn’t bad. Both his dad, Doug, and grandfather, Kenny Sibils, have seen the ups and downs of the farm economy. It might sound discouraging - especially for young farmers, most with less equity and experience trying to get a foothold in a career where the majority in the profession are turning gray. Last fall, the Federal Reserve reported that farmers are borrowing more to pay bills, repayment rates are plunging, and the number of bankers requesting additional collateral is the highest in 25 years. Last May, the Kansas Farm Management Service reported that net farm income in 2015 hit a 30-year low - reaching a level not seen since the 1980s farm crisis. He enjoys the work of raising crops and cattle, then reaping the harvest of his labor.īut right now, eking out a living on the farm is even harder - especially for the young operator.Īfter several years of record-high prices across the Farm Belt, a glut of grain from last year’s bumper harvests has caused commodity prices to collapse, sending producers into a farm crisis not seen since the 1980s. It’s why he followed in their footsteps and became a farmer. One attribute that Colby Harner inherited from his father and grandfather is hard work.
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