Get to Know the Growers: Blair Hoseth
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 new “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.
Blair Hoseth, MCGA board member
Mahnomen, Minnesota
Tell us about your farm: Where is it, what do you grow, how long have you farmed, who do you farm with, how long has your family farmed this land?
We farm in northern Minnesota on land farmed by my family since the 1800s. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my dad farmed here, and now my son and his wife are starting to take over some of the land and working with the cattle. We raise primarily corn and soybeans. We raise enough alfalfa to feed cattle. We run about 400 head of angus cattle, including a 150 pair cow-calf operation through to the finishing. We raise some crops for a seed company, and sell retail seed for them also. We also sell skid steer attachments.
What do you love about farming? What do you find to be the most challenging aspects of it?
The ever-changing weather is the biggest challenge. Everything can be fine, and the next day, you never know what it’s going to do, from drought to rain to hail to damaging winds.
The financial aspect is always interesting. You don’t know sometimes how much you want to expand or trim things. Now we are into the retirement and transition phase and wondering, “How will that all go?” Succession planning—I’m 61 years old—that’s probably the biggest thing on our minds right now. How do we keep the incentive for the next generation to keep profitable and have a love for what we enjoy about farming? You just want to do the right thing, and you’ve never done it before, so takes a lot of thought and careful planning.
The things I love about farming are some of the simpler things, like the smell of hay curing or combining the corn and seeing that yellow corn coming out of the combine and going into the grain cart. Putting the cattle out on the green grass. It’s really nice, after we’ve harvested, to open that gate and turn the cattle out onto the fields to eat the corn and soybean residue and start converting it into more fertility for the field.
Why is it important to you to participate in the Minnesota Corn Growers Association?
Corn has really done a lot for us. Raising corn has helped us become a more sustainable family farm. It has allowed us to feed our cattle economically, and also raise a cash crop. Part of it is how well corn works in a rotation with soybeans or wheat. If we were to do just a soybean-wheat rotation, I don’t think we would be where we are today financially. Corn takes more of an investment, and it brings more of a risk and more work, but it pays. It’s rewarding being a part of Minnesota Corn Growers Association, working to promote the use of corn and enhance its profitability. Together, we are learning how to help keep our markets secure. Being in contact with our lawmakers is a big part of this process, too. Informing public officials about what we do, and learning about how government works—learning on both sides is vital.
[More: Learn how Minnesota Corn is developing new uses for corn]
Do you have particular issues or goals that you would like to pursue as a grower-leader?
I want to keep corn profitable in our future, the way it’s been in our past. It is a constant challenge, a moving target. With electric vehicles coming on, we have a big challenge ahead, trying to keep demand for our product up. Not just nationwide, but internationally, it’s a huge challenge right now. We’re at a crossroads. Will ethanol become the foundation for sustainable aviation fuel? There are also changes bringing uncertainty to the marketing of distillers grains—livestock numbers are down. We’ve got a lot of challenges. But we are facing them, and we are working hard to get the demand to stay up and to continue rising. I think we have good potential for some of these promising new areas, especially aviation fuel.
Another promising technology is ClearFlame, which makes ethanol fuel work in diesel engines, with a fuel blend that’s more than 90 percent ethanol. There is huge potential there.
[More: Learn about ClearFlame from the Minnesota Corn Podcast]
Who has inspired you by their example? What did you find inspiring about them?
I think the Minnesota Corn Growers Association—the organization as a whole—has been my inspiration, and not just any one person. I’ve met and become friends with many leaders here who are really inspiring, to see how they just step up to the plate. As they rise up the ranks, they are very dedicated to the corn industry. Those of us who are further geographically from the main office are at a little bit of a disadvantage when it comes to being as active as we want to be. Up here in Mahnomen, we are a five-hour drive to get down to the MCGA office in Burnsville. The traveling we do is always worth it. We fly out Corn Congress in D.C. where we meet members of the U.S. Congress and their staffs. We also go to Commodity Classic, and we go to St. Paul to meet with our local and state lawmakers. We get to attend lots of meetings, but thank goodness for Zoom, because it’s not always possible to get there in person, but we can attend virtually for a few hours even during the busier times.
How do you like to spend your free time? Do you have hobbies? Play a sport? Like to travel?
Even during the busy farming season, we take Sundays off for family. We have three grandchildren and enjoy time with them. After the corn harvest, we enjoy traveling.
We have had the privilege to have numerous employees from Europe and Latin American countries who come to work on our farm. Most are college students studying agriculture who are interested in coming here to learn about American farming and culture. In the off-season, we travel. It’s rewarding to see some of these folks back in their own countries, on their own farms, and having the chance to learn how their operations work and to meet their families. We love history. Rome was especially rewarding. We loved getting to see the artifacts of world empires and walking the same streets as all these figures from history did.
What do you think is something about farming that might be surprising to the average consumer?
Here is a big thing. We were made aware of this by a new employee at the MCGA office. When talked about driving by farm fields and seeing Monsanto and DuPont signs in the field. She thought they owned the farms and that much of Minnesota agriculture was basically corporate farming. The signs she was seeing are not about farm ownership—they show the brand of the seed the farmer is growing, as a kind of advertisement to other farmers. It shows how a particular seed variety is working in their area. These fields are usually still family-owned farms. More than 96 percent of the farms in the state are family owned. Some of us have started to use a different signage on the field edges facing the roads that say things like “farmers feed and fuel the world.”
We have to wake up and get out of our shell and realize what city people see and think when they are seeing our farms. Most city people don’t know a farmer personally. MCGA is doing a great job getting out and communicating with the public, at the State Fair, Farmfest and other venues. We’re going in the right direction, but we need to keep it up. Education is the key.
