ARCHIVE :: FEBRUARY 2003 :: ECONOMICS

Against
The Grain
An Iowa Teen Dreams
Of Farming. His Father—
A Farmer—Wonders Why

By JONATHAN EIG
STAFF REPORTER OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Rich and Shelly Docekal are wondering where they went wrong in raising their 17-year-old son. His trouble isn’t drugs or gangs. It’s a rural temptation: He wants to be a farmer.

“I almost feel sorry for him,” says Rich Docekal, 49, who farms about 900 acres of soybeans and corn in La Porte, Iowa. “This is what he wants to do. But it’s just not possible.”

PHOTO: BUCK MILLER

‘I already know how to be a farmer,’ says Joe Docekal, ‘and I know I like it’

Down on the farm, times are so hard that a desire to raise crops is viewed as a sign of misguided youth. At Union High School in La Porte City, half the students have grown up on farms. Yet a recent survey showed that of the 97 Union High seniors this year, only one wants to be a farmer: Joe Docekal.

His reasoning is simple. Farming is what his father, grandfather and great-grandfather did. It is what he knows. “As soon as you get into high school they start bugging you: ‘What are you going to do?’” says Joe. “Well, I already know how to be a farmer and I know I like it.”

Size Matters

 Back when his father graduated from high school, almost every kid wanted to be a farmer. But today, corn sells for about $2.50 a bushel—a good 50 cents less than when the elder Mr. Docekal started. Increased production by larger farms has depressed prices across the board, which means that only the biggest farms can count on a profit. The number of farms in Iowa has declined by more than 25,000 to 93,500 since 1980, while the average farm size has jumped to 350 acres from 284. Mr. Docekal believes he is one of only two members of his high-school class still farming.

When Joe first said he wanted to be a farmer, at age 14, his parents hoped this dream would pass. But as senior year started last fall, Joe still talked of somehow running his own farm, even as his classmates began preparing for college or the military.

A farm girl herself, Joe’s mother, Shelly, used to love working the fields with her husband. But then the economics of farming deteriorated. Mrs. Docekal had to quit the farm about six years ago and go to work in Waterloo, a city of 67,000 about 20 miles from her home. She’s now a manager at a department store. She recalls how hard it was to explain this career move to her grandmother, to tell her how the family farm no longer yielded enough money to support a family. She wants her son to avoid any such heartache. “A big part of me, as his mom, doesn’t want to see him go through the pain and frustration of trying and not making it,” she says.

When as a young boy Joe showed interest in farming, Mr. Docekal was glad. It meant he could have his son move machinery around the barn and take over in the fields for short stretches. He enjoyed the companionship and the free labor.

But it never occurred to him that Joe would want to farm on his own. He assumed Joe would be scared off by the same things that had been scaring farm boys for 20 years—the news reports, the Farm Aid concerts, the TV shows and movies that always seemed to portray farming as a constant struggle. Even the Future Farmers of America educational group says the overwhelming majority of its members are not future farmers at all. The group now calls itself FFA—just the initials—and only 4% of its 461,000 members are considering a career in ranching or farming.

So why did Rich Docekal’s son get the urge to farm? “It kinda grew on me,” Joe says. He can remember when his mother, father and grandmother all worked the same land, how they all operated on the same schedule, full of hope in the spring, sweat in the summer, and, finally, relief in the fall.

Looking back, Mr. Docekal wonders if maybe he should have let Joe sit on his lap while he balanced the checkbook instead of when he drove the tractor. “It takes so much money,” he says. “Somebody from the business world would come out here and think we’re insane.”

Mr. Docekal borrows about $200,000 every year from the bank for everything from seed to diesel fuel. He receives about $20,000 a year in government subsidies. After expenses and debt repayment—and assuming the crop grows well and prices stay firm—he is lucky if as much as $35,000 falls to the bottom line. This is why Mr. Docekal, like his wife, works a job off the farm. In the winters, he is a truck driver.

Farming isn’t just “the hands-on, mechanical, get-dirty kind of work anymore,” he says. “You’ve got to use your head a little more. I went to some marketing classes. I wish Joe had gone with me.” Without that help, Joe will be lost when it comes time to sell his crop, his dad says.

Mr. Docekal has tried to explain his concerns to Joe. He pointed that he doesn’t own any of the land he farms. About 160 acres belong to his wife’s family, which means it could someday belong to Joe. But that’s not nearly enough to support a family. Mr. Docekal rents the rest of the land he works from neighbors.

‘Too Skeptical’

 Joe listens to the warnings. He doesn’t get angry. But he tells his parents that he thinks they’re wrong. It’s not as if his goal is to become a professional athlete or a brain surgeon, he says. That would be unrealistic. He lives entirely surrounded by farms, and he wants to be a farmer. He can’t understand why it should be so difficult.

“I just think they’re being too skeptical,” he says. “Yeah, it’ll be hard, but it’s not going to be impossible.”

Joe hopes to get started the same way his father did, by borrowing his old man’s equipment and renting some farmland, then saving enough to start buying his own land and his own machinery. A new model of the John Deere combine his father owns sells for about $110,000. At the moment, Joe has about $2,500 in his savings account.

By late last year, there were signs that Joe was beginning to get the message from his parents and teachers. He still insisted that he would be a farmer, but he acknowledged that he would probably need a second job while he tries to get established.