Catching up with the Council: Jordan Goblish
The Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council (MCR&PC), which oversees the Minnesota corn check-off, is led by 11 grower-leaders from across the state with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. In our “Catching up with the Council” interview series, we’ll learn about their farms, work with Minnesota Corn, and thoughts on agriculture. Interviews for the project are by Jonathan Eisenthal.
Jordan Goblish, MCR&PC secretary
Vesta, 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?
I am the fifth generation of my family to farm in southwest Minnesota near Vesta. My dad, George, and I farm corn and soybeans. He was on the Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council before I was—I kind of took over his spot. I’m 33, and I have been helping dad ever since I was a boy. I started my own operation in 2015 with 200 acres. We farm together, but each keep separate operations.
What do you like about farming? What do you find to be the most challenging aspects of it?
What I love about it is that every day is different, you are never doing the same thing. There’s always something new to do.
The most challenging part of farming is the weather. This past growing season, the rain stopped, and everything shriveled up. Our crop condition was at crop insurance levels.
Why is it important to you to participate in the MCR&PC?
Serving on the Council is important to me for a lot of reasons, but the first is that I want to learn for myself all the things that the research is finding, and what we are doing to help corn farmers out. That’s what it comes down to. That’s why I’m doing it, to help my fellow neighbors out.
Do you have particular goals that you would like to pursue as a grower-leader?
I am a fan of the nitrogen studies we have been funding. With all the interest in carbon, carbon production, and carbon sequestration, I want to know more about that as well. There is a new site for Discovery Farms that is going to be one big, centralized research site, and the University of Minnesota is partnering on that. That’s exciting! I want to dig in more with sustainable aviation fuel. I think that is a huge opportunity for corn farmers.
Who has inspired you by their example? What did you find inspiring about them?
My father is a real example of leadership to me. Everything he has done in life I kind of mirror and (laughing) make better! I have always admired his ability to “control the room.” He walks in and takes charge. It comes from all his years of experience. He’s on every leadership board you can think of. In addition to the Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council in the past, he’s now on American Soybean Association’s board, and he is the planning co-chair for Commodity Classic. We actually had the largest crowd ever last year in Orlando!
How do you like to spend your free time? Do you have hobbies? Play a sport? Like to travel?
My favorite hobby right now would be coyote hunting in the winter. It’s a nighttime thing, and we use thermal scopes. It’s good to control the population so they’re not eating everybody’s cats and dogs.
What do you think is something about farming that might be surprising to the average consumer?
There’s more family in farms than there is corporate in farms. More than 2 million farms in America are owned by families—that’s 97% of all the farms.
