While most Iowa State seniors are starting their job searches, Jeff Edler already is working full time at his chosen career. As a third-generation farmer, the 21 year old said he has known for a long time what he wants to do with his life.

Jeff, a senior in agricultural studies, maintains a 16.5 credit class load while going home several times a week to work on his farm south of State Center, Iowa.

For the last two years, he has been in a partnership with his two older brothers, Jeb, 27, and Justin, 23. The brothers’ operation includes farming 1,000 acres and raising 500 sows. They work closely with their father, John, whose operation involves 1,300 acres and 300 sows.

Although the farms hire extra laborers, Jeff’s contributions are still necessary, he said. He works nearly 60 hours a week on the farm during harvest time and an average of 45 hours during the rest of the year.

“If it’s not because I want to, it’s because I have to. But most of the time it is because I want to,” Jeff said. “I love farming. I can’t wait until I graduate.”

Jeff said his college degree will give him a feel for everything from agronomy and animal science to agricultural systems and technology.

“With things getting so advanced you don’t have to have a degree, but it helps, especially with the management and economics,” Jeff said.

He maintains a B average, even after taking more than 18 credits during the previous three semesters. Jeff admits he doesn’t always make it to his classes. Though he said his professors are pretty good about working with him when he has to leave.

He uses any available minute in Ames to study because he will not take school work home, he said.

“I’m one of those people who can just study the night before a test and still do well,” Jeff said. “Although at times, I feel like school work comes out a little short.”

Jeff also has to give up a lot of the free time that most college students enjoy.

Still, he is involved with the Farm Operations Club and a curriculum committee for the college.

However, he had to resign from his second year on Ag Student Council.

“I sometimes wish I could do more, but this is the real world,” Jeff said. “You’ve got to work if you want to be big.”

Farming is self-satisfying for Jeff because it allows him to be his own boss and be involved in the management decisions, he said, although he admits it is hard work.

“It’s time demanding, hard on your body and keeps you away from your friends and family,” he said.

Jeff is not alone among his peers in making frequent trips home to farm.

Lisa Breja, academic coordinator for agricultural education and ag studies, said it is pretty common in her department for students to go home to their own farms or to help their parents.

She said most of the students in ag studies who commute plan to farm after graduation.

Returning home is a way for the students to keep up-to-date on the family and community events, she said.

“They don’t want to lose their connections and don’t want to feel out of place when they go back,” Breja said. “I have a high view of the students who can keep up with their school work and activities at home.”

A day on the farm

It’s a dark overcast Saturday morning.

Jeff is awake by 6 a.m. and drives from Ames to the farm to begin chores by 7:15 a.m.

Dressed in a typical farmer’s outfit — worn-out clothes, boots and a baseball cap — Jeff helps his dad with morning hog chores.

Twice a day, chores involve feeding sows and their pigs.

He also takes time to clean out the manure from the sows’ pens.

Jeff then walks to the next barn of 350 pigs, where each pig weighs on the average 180 pounds.

He scrapes the manure from the pens while paying careful attention to the health of each pig. Jeff gives a shot to one sick pig.

By 9 a.m., the pigs are fed and their stalls are cleaned out.

On this particular day, the pigs need to be moved to different pens. John describes the moving routine as a circus.

Red swinging gates open and close as one batch of pigs moves from pen to pen.

The art of herding hogs shows as father and son patiently work together to keep the groups of 40 sows from running away.

One group of sows gets a little rambunctious and heads for the manure pile.

As the stench of hog odor spreads through the air, the sows appear to be having fun rolling in the mud.

Jeff and John laugh as they get sprinkled with manure from head to toe.

Once the sows are in their pens, the men work together to catch the 100 3-week-old pigs.

Jeff skillfully uses a syringe in each hand to vaccinate the pigs. The pigs are then sorted and moved to a nursery.

After a noon dinner break, it is time to go out to the fields, which are a golden tan in the bright afternoon sunlight.

Jeff drives the large, green John Deere tractor, with six-foot dual wheels, and pulls the grain dump wagon six miles down the gravel road from his farm to his dad’s farm.

He arrives at the corn field and catches up with Justin, who is driving the combine. The two work together and follow each other around the corn field at a pace of seven miles per hour.

Once the corn fills the combine, it is unloaded into the dump wagon. After Jeff’s dump wagon is full, he unloads the grain into a truck which will take it to a storage facility.

While driving around the field, the brothers pay close attention to each other and to the conditions of the field.

They are “experienced pros” and have worked together long enough to instinctively know where the other is going.

The harvest routine will usually go on all day — sometimes until after midnight. To keep himself occupied while spending long hours in the tractor, Jeff listens to the radio or talks on his cellular phone.

His fianc‚e often rides with him to keep him company.

He says he also has a lot of time to think about everything in his life — except school. Jeff doesn’t complain about boredom after the long hours in the fields.

“It’s hard to get bored when you like what you do,” Jeff says.

Even after he leaves the farm Sunday night, it follows him back to Ames.

Jeff says some nights he stays up late thinking about how the pigs will all get bred.

He works hard to keep up with things in Ames so he can hurry back to his farm, he said.

A look at the future

Justin said he is ready for his brother to return to the farm full time.

“It’ll be nice when he gets out of school to have an extra hand to get things done,” Justin said. “It’ll make a big difference when Jeff gets out.”

Within the next few years, John plans on getting out of the hog business when his sons buy him out.

His sons will make changes to their father’s operation to make it more modernized. They will also keep expanding their sow herd and acres.

Jeff’s mom, Jan, said she is optimistic about his future in the operation.

She said she and John warned their sons that farming takes hard work and total dedication.

“It has been fun to watch him meet the demands. Right now this seems to be what he will be happiest with,” Jan said. “He has enough interest and ambition to make it his career.”