Editor’s note: This is the third in a three-part series examining the future of private farming in Story County. Today’s story examines the current college students’ expectations and apprehensions about a future in farming.

The ground shakes. Dust flies. The rumble of trucks rings all around.

Stand back, Nick Hermanson has a job to do.

Hermanson, junior in agricultural systems technology, is working today — as he does most every day this time of year — at home on his family’s 4,200-acre grain operation just south of Story City.

Lately, as harvest has hit full-swing, Hermanson has been putting in 50-hour weeks, mostly hauling grain with his newly-acquired commercial driver’s license.

“I haven’t hit anything yet, and I spend a lot of time in this truck,” he said. “I go to bed at night, and I still see corn.”

Ask Hermanson why he comes home so often to farm and his answer is simple.

“It’s fun. I get to set my own hours. I have a boss, but he doesn’t tell me what to do.”

Hermanson is seemingly wise beyond his years. Besides juggling 50 hours a week working on the family farm and taking 14 credits, Hermanson also recently bought a house in the Campustown area.

Nick’s father, Alan Hermanson, said that Nick has always been “a serious type.”

“I remember even back in third grade, Nick was the playground moderator. He would listen to both sides of the story and help make everything OK,” Alan said. “Yesterday, he thought he was behind and was racing around to catch up hauling grain.”

Erik Christian is also a student who spends at least three full days a week by Story City help with the family farm.

Christian, senior in agronomy, admitted that he had thought about becoming a full-time farmer instead of attending college after high school, but his parents’ influence made him enroll.

“My parents were smart enough to make me go to college, and I am glad I did,” Christian said. “Going to college makes you analyze things more and gives you more options down the road. What good is a guy who doesn’t go to college when he decides he can’t keep farming 15 years after graduating from high school?”

Christian said he enjoyed his college experience and will be starting graduate school for agronomy in the spring while he decides whether to return to the family farm.

Christian is also familiar with the Hermanson farm and family. Nick takes after his father, he said.

“Al can fix anything anywhere. I remember going on vacation with them, and Al would be on the phone. He could run that farm from anywhere on Earth,” Christian said.

Nick agreed that fixing things in the shop is one of his favorite things to do.

“I spend around 90 percent of my time on the farm in the summer in the shop. I learn basically by just screwing stuff up,” he said.

Besides working on farm machinery, Nick has also spent more than 150 hours on restoring a 1955 Ford Mustang, which he has been working on since his senior year in high school.

Nick said besides giving him a strong work ethic, growing up on farm has given him a lot of common sense.

“Farm kids know how to work ,and they make good choices,” he said. “They seem to have more common sense with some things.”

Kyle Meyer, senior in agricultural systems technology, agreed.

“Farm kids experience a lot of things that they take for granted,” Meyer said. “They have strong work ethics and are very down to earth.”

Meyer has spent his free time working for Story County farmers for the past two years.

In the spring he worked for a farmer in rural Ames and is now working in Gilbert.

Besides working for area farmers, Meyer also helps his dad on their 3,000-acre family farm in Holstein whenever he goes home. Once he graduates in the spring, he will return to the farm, he said.

Meyer is one of the few ISU student farmers whose future is certain.

Ask Nick what his top priorities are, and he’ll say family and friends. Ask his parents and they’ll say farming and his education. Nick, like many student farmers at Iowa State, has the hard choice of whether to return to the family farm.

Facing high land costs, expensive machinery and short start-up funding, new farmers’ ability to begin and sustain farming operations is often limited.

“I wasn’t really thinking freshman year,” he said. “If I had to do it again, I might have gone to school out of state. There are good and bad things about living so close to home.”

Even though both of Nick’s parents said they would be disappointed if Nick chose not to return to the farm, in the end they both agreed they just want what is best for Nick and will be proud of him no matter what he decides.

“Life is full of decisions. Here in the Midwest, we may not be Ivy League scholars, but we still have to make important choices,” Alan said.

“Nick has always made good decisions.”