Released: February 16, 2005

Ehmkes Honored by Kansas Farmer, K-State

DIGHTON, Kan. – Vance and Louise Ehmke, self-proclaimed “niche farmers” in Dighton, Kan., are being honored as a 2004 Kansas Master Farmer and a Master Farm Homemaker.

The award program honors agricultural leadership, environmental stewardship and community service and is sponsored by Kansas State University Research and Extension and Kansas Farmer Magazine. The Ehmkes and five other Kansas couples who are receiving the awards this year will be honored at a banquet March 11 at the Manhattan Holiday Inn.

Vance is a fourth generation Kansas farmer. He grew up in the home in which the couple now lives, but left to study math and physics at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kan. He transferred to K-State to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in animal science and journalism, but not before he had become smitten with Louise Carlson, an education major at Bethany from San Jose, Calif.

With college degrees in hand, Vance accepted an editorial position with Progressive Farmer magazine and the couple moved to Birmingham, Ala.

“I enjoyed the writing, but found myself increasingly interested in the progressive farming methods that I was writing about,” Vance said.

In 1975, with his parents aging and slowing down, the couple sold their home and moved back to the Kansas farm Vance’s family homesteaded in 1886.

“We used the proceeds from the sale of our house – $5,000 – to bankroll our first year on the farm,” Vance said. “We knew it would be difficult to support our family on 480 acres.”

“Taking over a farm isn’t easy. We learned by doing, but we also learned by watching others and listening,” said Vance, who continued to bring ideas home from writing assignments for farming magazines such as Farm Journal and Top Producer and put the words to work.

“My dad, A.W. (August Walter), was an excellent role model. He retired his disc long before no-till, practiced crop rotation and was among the first in the county to plant milo,” he said.

The Ehmkes make an effort to keep current, through Extension and K-State short courses, reading, and an ongoing curiosity about agriculture and the world. They participated in a U.S. State Department and Agency for International Development Wheat Growing Project in Northwest Africa and came home with a new appreciation for how good bread can be.

“The Moroccans are an excellent market for Kansas grains – they love bread,” Vance said.

Both have been active in agricultural organizations: Vance is past president of the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers and a founding member of the Kansas Wheat Seminar Group. He also has been called upon to testify on farm policy before U.S. Senate and House agriculture committees and International Trade Commission hearings.

Louise has crisscrossed the state and traveled to explore potential markets in China with the Kansas Agriculture and Rural Leadership (KARL) program. She also organized the effort to get a combine cab for Agriland at the Kansas State Fair and enlisted the help of her family to videotape three hours from such a cab to simulate the farm experience for fair visitors.

As an active member of the Kansas Wheathearts, Louise also suggested the idea for the Kansas Festival of Breads Contest.

The couple shares farm management responsibilities, and Vance is quick to credit Louise’s resourcefulness: “I’m not sure exactly what Louise is supposed to be doing, but you do know that if she’s gone a day or two, absolutely nothing gets done.”

While the couple relies on each other – two heads are better than one, they say – they also have worked hard to assemble a board of directors with agricultural expertise.

“Farmers have to believe there is a tomorrow and work toward it, but we can’t be experts in everything,” Ehmke said.

A willingness to try something new, including crop rotation and value-added crops has paid off, said Vance, who described the family’s let’s-see-if-this-works recipe: Be willing to take a risk, be practical and work hard.

“The neighbors think Vance can grow milo out of a rock, but the family is working right there with him,” said Louise, who noted that she and the children have hand-rogued fields to increase the quality of their yields.

Sometimes, no matter what you do, it doesn’t work. That’s when you have to move on to the next idea, Ehmke said.

The couple has expanded the home farm from 480 acres to an operation that includes nearly 7,000 acres, a combination of land they own and rent, and a certified seed business.

Twenty-one hundred acres are planted to wheat. On average, about 600 are planted to grain sorghum, 700 to triticale and 300 to rye. About 600 acres are used for pasture and grass and 2,500 to fallow. They farm land in both Scott and Lane Counties in the Walnut Creek Extension District, and practice crop rotation, grazing land management and conservation.

To lessen their dependence on government payments, the couple has slowly moved away from production of basic commodities and toward “niche” or specialty value-added crops.

Getting to know their consumers is part of the process, said Vance, who has moved from wheat and grain sorghum production to the production of certified seed wheat. The couple also is producing triticale as seed and has added seed rye and blends of winter and spring grains grown largely for forage in the central and southern High Plains.

While a good part of their farm production is sold directly to farmers and seed dealers in Kansas and surrounding states, one of the Ehmkes next projects is developing a market for triticale as an alternative feed grain in the High Plains swine industry, which is evolving.

Higher profits in “niche” markets allow the Ehmkes to make a living from a smaller acreage. Such a strategy also makes room for one or more of the couple’s four children to return to the farm.

Son Cole is an assessment specialist with the Ag Innovation and Commercialization Center at Purdue University. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business and economics at Bethany College, and a master’s degree in agriculture as a Fulbright Scholar to the University of Sidney in Australia. Cole’s wife, Mariah (Tanner) Ehmke, a K-State graduate, is working toward a Ph.D. in agricultural economics at Purdue. The couple met in 4-H.

Son Tanner earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture at K-State and is working as an agricultural journalist for the Dow Jones News Wire covering the Chicago Board of Trade and completing a master’s degree thesis on the relationship between agricultural policy and the media.

Son Layton recently completed a bachelor’s degree in journalism at K-State and is working as a writer with the Peninsula Clarion in Kenai, Alaska.

Daughter Marit, a freshman in high school, is active in sports, school and community activities and a volunteer with the Helping Hands Community Service Project. She also has followed in her brothers’ footsteps as a member of the Eager Beaver 4-H Club.

“We’re leaving the door open for our children. I hadn’t planned to return to the farm, but Louise and I certainly are glad that we did. Farming is a good living – and a good life.” Ehmke said.

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K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.

Story by:
Nancy Peterson
nancyp@oznet.ksu.edu
K-State Research& Extension News