Growth industry: Landowners turn to custom farmers

Free-lance farming is one way for growers to keep working the land.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dick Kraus couldn't shake the itch to farm, so he moved home to Wisconsin and started picking up jobs farming for others.
Eight years later, he has a fleet of tractors, trucks, planters and field choppers. Kraus is what's called a custom farmer -- someone who gets paid per acre to plant corn, make hay or harvest wheat.
"It's kind of specializing the market," Kraus said.
Custom operators say demand for their services is growing because there are more landowners who know nothing about farming but are buying farmland as an investment.
"Most of them have inherited the land or made investments and bought it," said Kent Pickard, who runs a custom farming business and does some of his own farming in Wilmington, Ohio.
It's also cheaper and faster for some farmers to hire a custom farmer with bigger equipment, rather than spending $100,000 on a new combine.
"They can put their money back into cows or land instead of equipment," Kraus said. "It's also a quality of life issue. Instead of never getting a day off, they can go fishing now."
Dealing with costs
The demand for custom farming also is growing because it's harder to find and hire people willing to work long hours for just a few busy weeks, said Tim Baker, operations manager for U.S. Custom Harvesters.
Most of those in the harvesters association are full-time operators who travel with a crew of combines over hundreds of miles from field to field during harvest seasons.
Kraus, who lives near Elkhart Lake, Wis., hires about 45 temporary workers to help with fall harvests. "In the beginning, we took every job we could. Now we're a little more cautious," he said.
But custom farming isn't without costs and risks.
Land owners pay for seed, pesticides and other supplies. Custom farmers still have to cover the cost of their equipment, insurance, workers compensation and fuel.
"One of the pitfalls right now is these skyrocketing fuel costs," Baker said. "If you're not careful, you can give it all away in fuel costs."
Many farmers have added fuel surcharges to their contracts with land owners, said Baker, whose organization based in Hutchinson, Kan., represents grain, cotton and forage harvesters.
Other setbacks include the growing size and efficiency of grain harvesting machines in recent years, reducing the need for harvesters, and more farmland being taken out of production for conservation reasons.
"You don't need a harvester for a field that's growing grass," Baker said.
Growing business
Nonetheless, Woody Martin, of Shippensburg, Pa., said his business has grown by about 25 percent over the past two years. He now has about 200 customers.
It's easier and cheaper for farmers to hire him to haul manure or mow hay instead of trying to hire full-time help, he said. But it takes a lot of planning and bank loans to make money at custom farming because the returns are small.
"But that's agriculture," Martin said. "You earn every dime."
Pickard does a little bit of everything on his southwest Ohio farm, growing vegetables, raising beef cattle, and selling firewood along with custom farming about 600 acres.
"The custom operation is one of our tools for survival," he said. "We can't live without the cash flow."
The work does bring its share of headaches, especially when some land owners want to make all the decisions.
Pickard said he once farmed land owned by someone from out-of-state. "It took me two years to realize he had no clue," he said.
Another time he decided not to follow one of his customer's suggestions to divide a 26-acre field into three different crops.
"Oh, he was mad," Pickard said. "But after he got ticked off, I made him money."