Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series examining the future of private farming in Story County. Today’s story examines how the baby-boomer generation view the changes in farming, and Friday will look at current college students’ expectations and apprehensions about a future in farming.

NEVADA — Ewes, horses, a dog, three boys and 3,600 acres.

Welcome to the farm of Steve and Laurie Henry.

The Henry family has strong ties to Nevada — the three boys attend the local elementary, middle and high schools and the family runs a grain operation of corn and beans and raises seed corn.

But Steve Henry hasn’t always been a Nevada farmer.

After growing up on this farm just north of Nevada, he is raising his own family there. Henry attended Iowa State, then worked as a real estate loan officer in Nebraska for five years.

But the farm drew him back.

“Farming’s been in my blood. I knew it was the right thing to do,” Henry said. “My grandparents gave my dad the opportunity to farm; my dad gave me the opportunity, and, someday, I want to give my boys the opportunity.”

As Henry brings in his 17th crop this fall with the help of three full-time men and his wife, Laurie, he said things have changed since he grew up on the same farm he currently resides on — especially technology.

“The way we farm has changed. All the new technology is a double-edged sword,” he said. “As an operator, I love it — it makes me more profitable. But there are drawbacks as well.”

Although Henry said the best financial investment he made was his land, he also said that several GPS-driven tractors and machinery that have parallel tracking capabilities have changed the way he farms.

Henry said it is important for new farmers to learn the financial components of farming.

“Know what a cash sheet is, a balance sheet, a budget,” he said. “Too many people don’t understand.”

Although profitability and new technological equipment go hand-in-hand, not every farmer can afford it.

John Carswell, the store manager of Vetter Equipment Company in Nevada, said most farmers he deals with manage between 600 and 1,000 acres.

“Once in a while, we’ll see a guy with 80 acres come in, but not very often,” Carswell said.

“A new combine costs around $260,000, not including a bean head that is around $8,000 and a corn head for $12,000. To plant what you harvest, a new planter is around $60,000.”

James Penny, an ISU agriculture alumnus who came to Ames in 1964 and has stayed involved in local agriculture since then, has also watched changes in production.

Penny, the 2003 winner of the Iowa State College of Agriculture Floyd Andre Award, is the general manager of the Heart of Iowa Cooperative, which has eight locations throughout Story County.

“This will be my 28th harvest at Heart of Iowa, and, as I watch the progress being made by our farmers, I am thinking about the many changes I have seen since I started working here,” Penny said. “Back then, most of the harvest was done using a 15-foot head for soybeans and, if you were lucky, a four-row head for corn.”

Today, 25-foot heads for soybeans and 12-row heads for corn are seen throughout Story County.

Further, he said, most of the grain was hauled into town using tractors pulling single wagons that had 250-bushel capacities, with the occasional straight truck that could hold 300 bushels. Farmers today generally transport their grain with semi-trucks that can carry up to 1,000 bushels.

Ron Gates, the grain department manager for the Heart of Iowa Co-op, which serves 800 Story County farmers with its eight locations in Story County, has also seen a change in the way grain in Story County has been produced.

“We are seeing the same farmers get bigger and bigger, and we have had to adjust with that,” Gates said. “Our storage facilities will be full, and we will start filling a cement pad out front that we’ll fill up with 750,000 bushels.”

As the farmers have changed their production methods, the communities they live in have also changed.

Paul Lasley, professor of sociology, conducts a rural life survey every year by sending questionnaires to random rural Iowa residents.

In 2000, his survey showed 85 percent of rural Iowans agreed that people in their community enjoy each others’ friendship, but only 44 percent agreed that their neighborhoods are closely knit.

“Americans as a whole expect to live a certain way,” Henry said. “It’s why you don’t see anymore June Cleavers — people everywhere have certain expectations on how they want to live.”