Field tested: Dunn County UW-Extension's ag chief heads for 'green pastures' of retirement
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Jim Faust
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By WALLY SMETANA
editor@dunnconnect.com
Sunday, August 9, 2009 7:07 AM CDT
Now that Jim Faust has retired, lack of things to do won’t lead to boredom.
There are four grandchildren – plus one on the way – to spoil. Farm Technology Days are scheduled next year in neighboring Pierce County, and Jim has volunteered to help. He and his wife, Karen, reside on a 40-acre farm near Norton, and he is experimenting with intense grazing while raising his pet Angus beef animals.
Jim served Dunn County’s farming community for nearly 30 years in two capacities – farm management agent and agricultural agent.
A full professor with UW-Extension, he graduated from UW-Madison with double majors – agriculture education and dairy science. Before replacing F. Milo Olson as farm management agent, he taught vocational agriculture at Colfax High for a short time. He was named agricultural agent following the retirement of Keith Sommerfeld.
During a recent interview, it soon became apparent that Jim is a loyal advocate of UW-Extension.
“The bottom line,” he affirmed, “is that Extension is about ideas that are based on research. We are not selling a product. Goals of the ideas we expound are to increase profitability for the farmer and to improve the quality of his life. These ideas can be accepted or rejected.
“Farmers are hungry for new ideas. A farmer tries something. A neighbor looks over a fence, sees what has happened and duplicates the idea. Using these ideas, we have built the greatest agricultural empire the world has ever seen,” Jim said.
Examples
According to Jim, there are countless ideas, resulting from research, that have had a tremendous impact on agriculture. Some he listed are hybrid corn, artificial insemination of cattle, balanced dairy rations, testing of dairy cows to measure production, and low-cost milking parlors.
“Forwarding of ideas. That’s what Extension is all about,” he declared.
Jim pointed to innovators such as Dunn County’s Elmer Hanson, who discovered the value of applying lime in the growing of alfalfa. He contended, too, that the drought, coupled with research, has helped reveal the value of alfalfa.
“During drought periods, test plots of alfalfa remained green, while plots planted to red clover and grasses turned brown,” Jim said.
But he stressed that agriculture can be very unforgiving and mistakes, even minor, are very costly. He recalled that hog farmers, who hadn’t “forward contracted,” were wiped out some years ago when the price dropped to six cents a pound.
John Deere
When interpreting what has transpired recently in the dairy industry, Jim compared the John Deere tractor with the milking parlor.
“The two-cylinder John Deere could generate just so much power,” he said. “When farm implements got bigger. the need for more power became apparent, and the four-cylinder tractor took over. The same with dairy barns that had minimum capacity. As herds became larger, barns were replaced or remodeled with parlors.”
According to Jim, the advent of the milking parlor has proved more beneficial than anyone ever imagined.
“A modest parlor is so much better on the human body,” he declared. “No more need to replace knees or repair shoulders. And it’s difficult to imagine how much cows enjoy their improved environment resulting from flow-through ventilation.”
Capital intensive
According to Jim, there are some 200 dairy herds in the county. Whether this number will decline, remain static, or increase will be determined in large part by what farmers receive for their milk.
“Dairying is so capital intensive,” he explained. “Consequently, it is very difficult for a young couple to start farming unless a farm is passed from one generation to the next.
“But there are a lot of empty barns in the county,” he continued. “If the price of milk ever climbs back to the $20 a hundred level, as it did last year, an entrepreneur could buy a herd of milk cows and rent a barn and some land. The need to invest in machinery would be eliminated if he practiced intensive grazing (frequent rotation of pasture land), thus allowing the cows to do the harvesting about six months of the year.”
Feels good
“Mistakes that were made are overshadowed by the successes we experienced,” Jim said. “I feel good about my career,” he added. “You take the bad with the good. What’s important is the relationship you build with farmers, colleagues and neighbors.”
Some recent accomplishments of Extension in the county is the sponsorship of Farm Progress Days in 1998, which brought statewide recognition, and six years of hard work that led to the establishment of a farmer-owned ethanol plant in the county.
These accomplished were recognized, too, by David Wilson and Richard Klemme, chancellor and dean, respectively, of UW-Extension, who dispatched a certificate to Jim that stated, in part, “In grateful appreciation for 30 years of dedicated service to the residents of the State of Wisconsin and your colleagues in Cooperative Extension. We recognize your commitment to improving the economic impact of agriculture in Dunn County and throughout Wisconsin. … We salute you for your commitment and the positive difference you made in the lives of so many people.”
Looking ahead, Jim sees energy, global warming and sustainability as the major challenges facing agriculture – and the nation’s economy.
“Assessing his office on the third floor of the courthouse, Jim commented, “Everything we have in this office can be traced to fossil fuel. We have to change. We have no choice but to find an alternate source of energy.”
Proud
While Jim is proud of his association with UW-Extension for nearly 30 years, he also expressed great pride when talking about his family.
He and Karen are the parents of three sons – all married and with families.
The oldest is James, a project engineer with Henning Construction in Des Moines, Iowa, and the father of a daughter; Jason, a technology teacher at Middleton High School and father of two sons; and Justin, a mechanical engineer at Greenheck Fan Corp. in Wausau, and father of a son – with a daughter to arrive sometime in December.
“And we have three fantastic daughters-in-law,” Jim exclaimed.
Hiring freeze
Because of a hiring freeze, the position won’t be filled immediately, Jim said. That freeze might be lifted next month, and should that happen, a statewide search will be launched to find his replacement.
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