Finken Farm
Addressing the Problems
Using a “typical” dryland rotation, the Finkens used to raise wheat and small
grains on two-thirds of their acreage, idling the remainder in fallow until the
next growing season. The bare fallow ground was susceptible to the harsh climatic
conditions of the Dakotas. “It made a big impact on me as a teen-ager,” Bob Finken
says. “I’d help my father by doing the tillage for the summer fallow and saw the
fields later either blow in the wind or the water wash the soil down the slopes.”
Low wheat prices. Before diversifying and joining value-adding cooperatives,
Finken accepted conventional prices for wheat. Even though durum wheat makes up
the main ingredient for most of the pasta consumed in this country, overproduction
drove prices ever downward.
Background
When Bob Finken was a senior in high school, in 1977, his father became disabled.
By then, his father had expanded the family’s grain, cattle and sheep farm to
about 1,040 acres.
Finken wanted to take up where his father left off. After high school, he enrolled
and graduated from a two-year college program in farm and ranch management. His
first year, he raised crops on just 238 acres. Later, he expanded by buying and
renting land to reach the farm’s current size of 2,200 acres, of which 1,550 are
cropped.
Once he picked up the management reins for the farm, Finken emulated his father’s
system. He grew durum wheat and alfalfa and raised sheep. He plowed the fields
and seeded the two-crop rotation, allowing about one-third of the cropland to
sit fallow. The combination of plow and fallow proved harmful to the soil, especially
on the farm’s steep slopes, where erosion became acute.
Years of growing continuous wheat held other implications, too. Finken found
that certain leaf diseases — particularly tan spot — liked a steady diet of wheat.
Focal Point of Operation — Diversification
To meet twin goals of preserving the soil and improving profits, Finken diversified
his crops, adopted a more complex rotation, switched to no-till and introduced
cattle. He found it more profitable to grow some of those crops, such as durum,
barley and flax, for seed.
Today, he still relies on durum wheat seed as his main rainmaker, but also grows
spring wheat, barley, oats and a bevy of oilseeds: flax, crambe, safflower, sunflower,
borage and canola. He also added field peas, chickpeas and corn. The array of
crops doesn’t fit neatly into one rotation; Finken grows a few grains, a few oilseeds,
a legume, corn and alfalfa each year, depending on the markets. In 2000, he grew
durum wheat, barley, flax, canola, field peas, chickpeas, corn and alfalfa. He
likes to follow wheat with a small grain like barley, then a broadleaf crop like
peas or an oilseed.
“I considered myself a small farmer for many years,” Finken says. “This is probably
why I have always tried to make the most of what I did have instead of trying
to get bigger to make a living. My philosophy has been to put every acre to its
most profitable use without damaging the environment.”
Finken’s main soil-saving tenet is to keep it covered, and he does so with continuous
cropping and residue management. Gradually, he switched to less invasive tillage
and less idled ground until, in 1995, he went virtually 100-percent no-till after
purchasing a no-till drill.
“I feel that the best way to keep the soil in place is to be growing a crop on
it and to maintain the residue from prior crops on the surface,” he says. “Managing
this residue can be a big challenge, and makes me plan a lot further ahead.”
Finken’s combine is equipped with a straw chopper and straw/chaff spreader so
he is able to spread residue as he harvests. Sometimes he bales the excess straw
to feed to his livestock or to sell to neighbors. Either way, he alternates high-residue
crops with low-residue crops to maintain a consistent blanket on the soil.
No-till requires a stricter weed control regimen for Finken, who uses a burn-down
application of Roundup either just before or just after seeding, before the crop
emerges. He has more perennial grasses since he stopped tilling and has had to
spray at higher rates to control them. On the other hand, some of the weeds he
used to find most troublesome — wild oats and pigeongrass — are no longer a problem.
Finken spreads manure from his beef cattle on his fields and also uses commercial
fertilizer. The crops do not seem to suffer too much from insect damage, so Finken
rarely applies insecticides. Occasionally grasshoppers become a crop pest, particularly
when it’s dry. Finken finds that most insect pests do not seem to prey on many
of his crops, such as field peas and crambe.
“I don’t like to use insecticides — I feel they’re so dangerous, and it’s so
hard to kill just the pest and not the good bugs,” he says. “I can count on one
hand the number of times I’ve applied it.”
Finken raises a 60 head cow/calf herd, selling the calves each winter when they’re
halfway to slaughter weight. A main reason for introducing cattle was to use some
of his more marginal land that isn’t suitable for cropping. Finken runs the herd
through a 12-paddock rotational grazing system. The cattle graze a native prairie
grass, some of which used to be enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program
(CRP). For about five or six months each winter, the cattle are kept in a pen
and eat hay. Finken collects their manure, then hauls it out to the fields each
fall.
Years ago, the Finkens raised sheep, too, but the labor demands around lambing
season were too much for one farmer to handle.
Economics and Profitability
To earn more than he made from low bulk commodity prices, Finken joined several
of the new cooperatives, including a pasta co-op, that began springing up in North
Dakota in the early 1990s. He hoped he could add value to his crops by pooling
the costs of processing and marketing with farmers raising the same commodities,
thereby expanding “vertically” rather than increasing acreage to expand “horizontally.”
“The farmers were looking for a way to capture some of the value that should
be in pasta production,” he says. “There has always been a lot of competition
for additional acreage to expand the farm, so I decided it was better to expand
the farm up the food chain.”
Finken was an original member of the Dakota Growers Pasta Cooperative, based
in Carrington, N.D. Now numbering 1,150 durum wheat farmers, the co-op began with
little more than a good idea. A steering committee of farmers raised money to
get a loan, then built the first plant. To join, Finken needed to buy at least
1,500 shares — each one representing one bushel of wheat — at $3.85 per share.
He scraped together the money for 2,000 shares, kept up wheat production and waited
for annual dividends.
The investment proved shrewd. The Dakota Growers Pasta Co-op is now the third
largest pasta manufacturer in North America and the no. 2 manufacturer of private
label pasta (where the co-op makes pasta for other companies to package it under
their labels). Finken’s average investment per share was $4, and his return —
in annual dividends — has gone up 16 percent, or 64 cents per bushel.
“The shares are presently worth over twice my initial investment,” he says. “It’s
a big outfit, and it’s mind-boggling to think that I’m part of it.”
Finken also belongs to an oilseed cooperative that buys and markets crambe and
high oleic oil sunflowers. The group used to be part of AgGrow Oils, an enterprise
that sought to add value to niche oilseeds and sell them on the specialty market.
After a few years, AgGrow Oils closed its crushing plant because of equipment
problems, but the growers formed a new oilseed limited liability company to which
Finken belongs.
Finally, Finken joined Dakota Pride Cooperative, a group of durum producers that
market durum and spring wheat collectively. They now promote several varieties
of “identity-preserved” spring wheat with unique milling or baking qualities.
By raising certified wheat seed, Finken receives a 50-cent premium over the current
$3.80 per bushel rate. He sells some of that seed to a North Dakota seed plant.
Environmental Benefits
Finken’s careful residue management has helped conserve moisture in a dryland
system that sees just 17 inches of precipitation a year. Less water runs off his
no-till fields after a heavy storm, he says.
“Each summer, we seem to go through a dry spell that usually takes a toll on
crops,” he says. “The no-till crops just seem to keep hanging on and not experiencing
the usual yield drop. No-till adds organic matter to the soil, which increases
its water-holding capacity.” It also helps the nutrient levels in the soil.
Finken now notices that his soil is less compacted than it was before he moved
to the no-till system. “I know that no-till has increased my soil’s health,” he
says. “I have seen an increase in the amount of earthworm activity.”
His efforts to improve the soil on his farm won him the Ward County Soil Conservation
Achievement Award in 1997.
Finken began planting trees on the farm in 1980 and now has many miles of trees. He began by planting shelter trees, then moved on to species that harbor wildlife. In 1989, the farm was listed as a North Dakota Centennial Tree Farm.
Community and Quality of Life Benefits
Becoming involved in farm cooperatives and other agricultural organizations has
brought Finken in touch with dozens of other farmers who raise the same crops
under similar conditions. “I have learned a lot by visiting with other producers
who are facing a lot of the same challenges that I am,” he says.
Finken and his wife, DeAnne, have four children, all of whom are involved in
community organizations. Finken serves as president of the Ward County Farmers
Union and the county Ag Improvement Association, and has been very involved in
4-H.
The Future
Finken continues to challenge himself to maximize profits using new crops, rotations
and other innovative techniques.
“I’m always on the lookout for ways to make my farm more profitable,” he says.
“No matter what past successes I might have had, I’m always competing with myself
to do better.”
He is starting to explore the use of global positioning systems (GPS) technology
as a way to map yields, seeding, fertilizing and spraying. “I feel that GPS is
a great tool to be able to manage the resources that one must put into the farm
without causing runoff and harming the environment,” he says. “I’ll also keep
my eyes open for opportunities to add more or different value to my crops.”
Valerie Berton
________________________________________________________________________________
Profile originally printed in The New American Farmer, published by the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN), the national outreach arm of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program. www.sare.org
Finken Farm
Bob Finken
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