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Farm World columnist retires, reflects on 30-plus year career

By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

HAMILTON, Ohio — Steve Bartels will retire as the OSU Agricultural Agent, Butler County, on June 30. He began his career on Jan. 1, 1974 as a 4-H agent in Pickaway County and came to Butler County in June of 1977. It will be at least 2010 until his replacement is hired.

Bartels has written a weekly column for Farm World since it was called the Eastern Indiana Farmer.

He has seen a lot of changes.

“There were fewer people in Butler County on more acres in agricultural production,” Bartels said, of the early ’70s.

“Over the last 30 years we’ve lost about 1,500 acres a year. We had 179,000 acres in agricultural crop production and about 1,240 farms. Now we have about 930 farms and approximately 130,000 acres in agricultural production.”

Beef, lamb, dairy and pork production has gone from about $18 million a year to $12 million, Bartels said. Beef is the fourth leading source of income, cash sales to farmers.

When Bartels began his career in Butler County there were 82 dairies. Today, eight remain.

“The number of dollars of (agricultural) sales in this county has not declined substantially,” he said. “Thirty years ago it was in that $35 to $38 million range and it is still in that range, there are just fewer farms doing it.”

Taking inflation into account, however, that amount is substantially less.

Thirty years ago the county’s green industry accounted for less than a million dollars of sales. Now it ranks in the top three along with corn and soybeans.

“We are selling between $7 and $9 million worth of ‘other crops’ which is turf, nursery, Christmas trees, tree fruits and small fruits and vegetables; things that are sold directly to consumers, locally grown,” he said. “That is the latest trend; people want to buy from farmers directly and look at the person who grew their food, look them in the eye. The meat industry is somewhat going that way now.”

One big change Bartels helped bring about was reducing the amount of fertilizer farmers used on corn and soybeans.
“We were able to teach farmers that they could save $12 to $15 an acre by rotating corn and beans,” Bartels said. “... the corn rootworm adult that is able to survive on soybeans and to infest the corn the next year is not in this area of the state.”

As an OSU agent, Bartels encouraged producers to switch to reduced- or no-till farming methods. The success of that was evident in a presentation he gave to the National Agriculture Agents meeting in 2003.

In that presentation he told how Butler County farmers were invited to take part in a Corn Club Check and about 30 to 35 would participate each year. Bartels broke the results down into five-year segments. Between 1977 and 1981 76.1 percent of the farmers used conventional tillage practices.

By the 1997 to 2001 check, almost no one plowed anymore so Bartels redefined conventional tillage as less than 30 percent crop residue from the previous year still on the field after planting. Even with that change, conventional tillage had dropped to 14.7 percent.
He is proud of the relationships he has built with farmers and people in the county, Bartels said. In the troubled farming years in the 1980’s farmland prices plunged from $3,000 to $1,500 an acre. Farmers didn’t know how they were going to continue and some didn’t.

“Where I was able to sit across tables with people and help them come to some decisions, to help them stay in business; where a couple of them were talking about suicide, to be able to get them professional help and to understand that that was not a good option, that is what I am most proud of,” he said.

He has lots of plans for retirement, Bartels said.

The biggest is catching up on repairs on his 125-acre Wayne Township farm. His faith is leading him to do something involving food shortages whether that is with food pantries or community gardens or something else.

He and his wife, Judy, have led travel tours for 11 years and will be going to the Passion Play in Oberammergau next year.
Bartels and his son have begun planting Christmas trees on the farm. When asking advice from tree farmer John Nieman, Nieman told him to keep at it and “in about 60 years you’ll have something.”

Bartels said he looked forward to seeing what the operation would be like when he was 120 years old.

Reception to honor Bartels
“I thank the Ohio State University, the Butler County commissioners and the people for giving me the opportunity to be able to work with them for that last 32 years,” he said.

An open-to-the-public reception will be held in honor of Bartel’s retirement on July 12 from 2-5p.m. at the Princeton Road Campus, Butler County, 1802 Princeton Road, Hamilton Ohio.

7/1/2009