Get to know the Growers: Todd Wentzel
The Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA), the state’s grassroots organization for corn farmers, is led by 18 board members with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. In our “Get to Know the Growers” interview series, we’ll learn about their farms, work with Minnesota Corn, and thoughts on agriculture. Interviews for the project are by Jonathan Eisenthal.
Todd Wentzel, MCGA Secretary
Murdock, Minnesota
Tell us about your farm.
My parents started this farm in 1964. We farm primarily in the Murdock/De Graff area in Swift County and raise corn, soybeans, spring wheat, and black beans. I farm in partnership with my brother Craig, along with my wife Shari, and Craig’s wife Bonnie. We have one employee. My dad Melvin, and my mother Elaine, still help out on the farm.
What do you love about farming and what do you find to be the most challenging aspects of it?
I love the freedom to be your own boss. I enjoy planting a seed in the spring, taking care of it throughout the year, and watching it become something that can help feed the world or produce fuel or fiber.
Each year that goes by, we try to improve on something, to become more efficient or more profitable or better stewards of the land. The last handful of years, we have been trying to incorporate cover crops into our operation, trying to protect the soil from erosion. We have been able to use cover crops especially after black beans, because that’s an earlier harvest. Even on some of our earlier soybean fields, if we are combining in the first half of September, we can catch some good weather for cover crop growth. The problem in the last few years is that it has been too dry to get a good stand growing. On the corn acres, we leave the residue to hold the soil in place.
One of the things we find most challenging about farming is that the weather always trumps anything we can do. Best laid plans can change in a hurry. Weather and prices are the most challenging things. There also are outside forces, like regulatory demands or customer preferences, and those affect the future of farming as well.
Why is it important to participate in the Minnesota Corn Growers Association?
There are fewer and fewer people that understand farming or even know a farmer nowadays, so I think it’s important to stay involved. That helps keep farming sustainable for our future generations, to make sure that the land we manage can remain productive in the future and that farmers have the freedom to operate and to produce the abundant crop for the world. Without involvement of farmers and advocacy, I’m afraid there would be a lot of detrimental restrictions put on agriculture. If people don’t understand modern farming practices, then ideas that may hinder the ability to farm gain traction.
Since I’ve gotten involved with Minnesota Corn, I’ve been involved with multiple focus teams. I was first involved with the Membership & Consumer Engagement Team, which works to inform the public about what farmers do. We also work to inform young people about agriculture, working with kids in school through Minnesota Agriculture in the Classroom to make them aware of modern farming practices and that there are good jobs in agriculture.
Now, I’m on the Discovery & Development team, where we evaluate research projects and their potential to help farmers. I also serve on the National Corn Growers Association’s Production Technology Access Action Team (PTAAT). With PTAAT, the focus is on regulations and restrictions that are being created all the time that affect the products we use to protect our crops. Without farmer involvement in efforts like PTAAT, regulations would be more burdensome. Unnecessary, one-size-fits-all rules don’t recognize how sustainable farmers are nowadays.
What issues or goals are a priority for you as a grower-leader?
To keep people informed about modern farming and to work with our politicians and policymakers to keep them abreast of what is happening on the farm, assuring they are not misinformed or relying on old information.
Cover crops and less tillage are things that the public has expressed interest in, but farmers need crop protection products to do that. The alternative to those controls is more tillage, and that’s not popular nowadays. But there’s no one-size-fits all set of practices for all farms or even all the land inside of one farm. There are different areas that need different treatments. And it changes from season to season.
Who is a leader who has inspired you by their example?
There have been many good leaders involved in Minnesota Corn over the years, but the people that come to my mind first are my parents. My mom volunteered with 4-H and at church, and my dad showed me by example the importance of being involved in local boards. He was one of the people on the board when the ethanol plant was formed in this area, and he also served on the school board and volunteered at church. It made an impression on me from an early age. You have to be involved in your local community, to keep the community vibrant and relevant.
How do you like to spend free time? Do you have hobbies? Play a sport? Like to travel?
My wife and I have 10 grandchildren, soon to be 11, so we stay pretty busy with family activities. Beyond working on the farm, we have a seed business, so we spend a fair amount of time working on that. We also like to travel when possible and have meetings to go to that enable us to do a little bit of travel. You have to get off the farm every once in a while.
What’s something about farming that might be surprising to the average consumer?
I think people might be surprised that most farms are family-owned operations. There’s a perception that farms today industrial or big commercial operations, owned by big companies. The vast majority are owned by families. Even large acre farms these days are still operated by several family members. There are a lot of reasons that family-run farms are the rule—people want to see their hard work and their operations handed down to the next generation, if possible. There’s a certain set of values that farmers share, to stay on the farm, to operate on the land and raise a crop. Growing up, sure we went on family vacations, but most of our time was spent working side-by-side together, and that’s valuable time spent. You spend that time working and bonding as a family.
