Podcast Episode 74

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Shifting from Defense to Offense – One Farmer’s Story

Shifting from Defense to Offense – One Farmer’s Story

Episode 74 | 40 min

With Guest:

Kim Larson, Kandiyohi County Farmer

Jamie’s latest guest has a long history in agriculture. Kim Larson started out buying farmland in high school, serving in leadership positions in the ag industry and local government, and teaching ag classes at the college level. He and Jamie discuss leadership, problem-solving, watersheds, ditch assessments, grassroots government, the future of agriculture and more.

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You should always be able to say, ‘we can do better,’ and I think that in agriculture there are areas where we have to do better. I’ve tried to bring that back to those that are now in leadership for commodity groups– let’s not get on the counter-attack when things are coming back at us, let’s say, ‘hey, we understand that we can do better in this area and we are determined that we will do better. I look forward to agriculture’s future.

— Kim Larson

Guest Bio

Kim Larson started farming in Kandiyohi County with his father, and currently farms with his son, Joshua. He has taught in the agriculture program at Ridgewater College and has been active on township boards and in local, state and national associations related to the agriculture industry.

Jamie Duininck (00:02):
This is The Water Table.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
A chance to hear the agricultural side of these issues.

Jamie Duininck (00:09):
A place for people to go find information and education

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Water management is just going to become even more critical into the future.

Jamie Duininck (00:17):
How misunderstood what we do is.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I would encourage people to open their minds and listen to this dialogue.

Jamie Duininck (00:31):
Welcome to The Water Table. If you enjoy listening to The Water Table, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. This next year, we have a lot of great episodes coming and I don’t want you to miss them.

(00:49):
Well, welcome back to The Water Table podcast. Today I have a guest that I’ve wanted to interview for some time. Kim Larson. Kim’s a farmer here in Kandiyohi County where Prince Go’s headquartered and where I live. Kim and I met back in the probably early 2000s, 2005-6 timeframe. There was a lot of things going on at the time locally and in the state government of Minnesota around wildlife conservation, farming, where all that intersects. Even the arts and parks and trails were involved around some taxation issues and how to raise money for… And Kim was just a real strong voice of reason, is what I would say at the time, around logic and how we work on in rural America and rural Minnesota and what’s important to us, but what actually works too.

(01:45):
Kim, you’ve done a lot of different things in your career. You’ve worked, you’ve taught at the college level, ag sci, a ag programs, things like that. You farm every day and been involved in local government. So just thought it’d be fun to just talk about that at that level and how we connect grassroots to people in rural America. So thanks for joining me today, Kim. Oh,

Kim Larson (02:12):
You’re very welcome, Jamie, and I’m glad to be here.

Jamie Duininck (02:15):
I hope that this podcast is as fruitful as just the conversations you and I have when we run into each other in town or on the street somewhere. It just seems like when that happens, it’s looked down and it’s a half hour or an hour later, and that conversation goes all the way around from family to farming to what’s just going on in our lives. So really excited to have you join me and just talk for a little bit. Why don’t we just start? Tell us a little bit about you and who you are, some of your past that probably has brought us to where we are today.

Kim Larson (02:52):
Yeah. Well, as you indicated, I do farm. That still is ongoing. I currently farm with my son, Joshua, who lives right across the road from me now. And for me, my leadership area started back when I was 27 years old. I saw leadership from the point of view that my father was a county commissioner, and I think he was in his second going on his third term as a county commissioner. Very busy. And what, he had a meeting he was supposed to go to in regards to addressing wet milling potential that was coming into this part of the state. He couldn’t make it so he asked me to go, and it was like, “Okay, I’ll just go in, listen, take some notes, and take it from there and bring it back to him.”

(03:45):
Well, at the meeting, they basically decided to have follow-up meetings and a lot of the farmers there were much higher profile than what I felt I was and considerably older. And so when it came time to have that follow-up meeting determination of who’s going to go from this group, everybody was too busy and they pointed to me. And so that kicked it off and it was a large company that went into wet milling cooperative.

(04:18):
But when I started on the actual board of directors for that, I was with an older gentleman by the name of Joe O’Neill and when we shared rides to together down to Marshall, Minnesota where our board meetings were held and it was after the, well I suppose fourth or fifth, board meeting, Joe turns me on the way home and he says, “Kim, you aren’t participating much.” He said, “I’d sure to see you maybe add a little bit more to the meetings.” And I says, “Well Joe, I really don’t feel I have all the answers maybe everybody else has.” He slammed on the brakes and he says, “Have all the right answers? Who has all the right answers?” He says, “Just asked all the right questions.” And that stuck with me.

(05:06):
And I’ve used that throughout my leadership to ask good questions because anybody can ask the good questions. As you mentioned, I had an opportunity to teach in the ag program at the Ridgewater College, and one of the classes I taught was in leadership and sales and service and was part of that as well. And I taught that part of it was a major segment in that course for me was to make sure that students understood how to ask the right questions. That’ll take you a lot of places in leadership and it true did for me.

Jamie Duininck (05:47):
Yeah, great. And in my time knowing you and things we talk about are a lot about what’s going on, local government-wise and you being involved in that. How have you seen your leadership change as you’ve grown older and how you’ve applied your leadership, whether it’s in the town board or just in being a little bit older. And whether it’s talking with your son or other farmers, how have you seen your leadership style change?

Kim Larson (06:18):
Jamie, it really has changed. After that time on that cooperative board, I got involved with the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association on the state level and later into the national office holding level for ASA, American Soybean Association. At that time and at that age, I was very defensive for agriculture. If anybody said a hint of anything that sounded to me like it was on the edge of maybe an attack, I would take it as an attack on agriculture and I would get very defensive.

(07:01):
But I have really evolved into understanding that we have to face the facts. And I know there was just as this older gentleman gave me some background on dealing with my leadership on a board level, also had some older individuals tell me that you always should be able to say, “We can do better.” And I think that agriculture can always say, “We can do better,” and there are areas that we have to do better. And I’ve tried to bring that back to those that now are in leadership for commodity groups that let’s not get on the counter-attack when things are coming back at us. Let’s just say that, “Hey, we understand that we can do better in this area and we are determined that we will do better.” And I think that’s one of the biggest things that I’ve probably evolved in my leadership.

(08:06):
I have gone on to, as you mentioned, spend leadership on the town board level. And in those cases, I’m really just trying to apply the fact that let’s just make things work where we can make them work. Sometimes you have regulations even on the township level where if you’re creative enough, you can probably help somebody make something work that maybe others that are on that township level might say, “Ah, this is the rule. We can’t bend it.” I just try to say, “Let’s see how we can be creative and make this work.”

Jamie Duininck (08:46):
Sure.

Kim Larson (08:47):
So that’s some of the leadership things I think I’ve evolved in.

Jamie Duininck (08:50):
Sure. Interesting because I think part of what we’re trying to do at The Water Table here is inform people around what we do on the farm with water management. And so often, there are problems. And so often with those problems, if somebody is living in town or living in the country and working in town but isn’t close to agriculture, they’re driving by and seeing something. And to them the farm is what it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. You have a tractor. You plant in the spring. You harvest in the fall. And there’s so much going on behind the scenes. There’s so many changes. Those changes almost always are because we recognized in agriculture we had a problem. How do we do it better?

(09:39):
But there’s never going to be perfect, right? There’s always going to be… So I appreciate what you’re saying because I think it’s true and I think that’s what we’re trying to do here is just inform people on what we are doing. We know that there are problems with water quality. Some of them are created by agriculture. Most of them aren’t, but some of them are. And how do we solve those issues? So appreciate how you express that. And then you being on a town board and your father was on the county board and I know he ran for county commissioner, but what do you think is important when it comes to electing county commissioners in rural counties we live in? What are the important factors that people need to think about?

Kim Larson (10:27):
Well, first of all, I think that there needs to be balance on anything. We had five of us on our township board and I think it was very important that we had balance there. It’s the same on the county level in an ag area such as we hire here in Kandiyohi County, my dad always felt it was very important that we have at least two, if not three, of the five commissioners be from the ag sector. And that still holds true today. And we bounced around a little bit here more recently where we have not had more than one. And I just think that somebody that has the background in agriculture has a better understanding of the needs of agriculture.

(11:23):
And so I feel that first of all, that’s the most important, that we have a balanced government in local government. And that person that’s going to be that commissioner needs to have vision, needs to have a vision of where this county probably would best look to be in the future, not just one or two years out, but 5 or 10 or 20 or 30 years out and have good vision. I tried to carry that forward and even on the township level, and I think it’s even more important on the county level.

Jamie Duininck (12:04):
And when you say that about looking out, so many of the decisions that are made at that level have ramifications and impacts down the road 10 or 20 or 30 years. And a lot of times you’re on a town board or a county commissioner level, you’re trying to implement what federal government or state government is. And so it can be quite challenging if that’s intended for, if that ruling is intended for today, but now you’re down the road 10 years, things change.

Kim Larson (12:37):
The impacts can have long tails as they say, yes.

Jamie Duininck (12:42):
So you obviously have had desires in your life to try to pursue positions like that at the county board level. And what is some other advice, other, you mentioned, vision, which I think is a good one, but you would give to somebody that was interested in running for a county commissioner or even a town board position.

Kim Larson (13:06):
You have to understand the position that the county is currently in or that the township is currently in. I come to find that out on the township level. The first thing I did was when I looked into going on the township board was look at the minutes for the past three years and see where it’s come from, see what the constituents are asking for. Because that generally if things are getting done, it’ll show that in a three-year period. And I saw some of that on the township level. Things weren’t getting done/ people were coming back every year asking for this to be addressed and there was no follow-up. So immediately I was able to, if you want to call it, come on board with an agenda. Like they say, be careful not to come on board with an agenda, but you really have to kickstart the things that need to get accomplished.

(14:09):
And then there’s also, you better background yourself on how the process works in that local unit of government. On the county level, I spent a little time looking at ditches and how does the ditch authority work and what’s the importance of understanding how a ditch is impacting the county as far as getting that work done. I needed to do that because I’m in an area where we farm where really don’t have anything that we own that has an extensive ditch payment where we have an assessment. So I needed to understand it on that larger level.

Jamie Duininck (14:54):
Would you consider just knowing you a little bit now that one of the more frustrating things about the roles you played was just the lack of movement and getting things done?

Kim Larson (15:05):
It really is. You hear constantly on a current basis on the national level where these guys are supposed to be working for us, but it just seems like there’s too much else of things that are involved that shouldn’t be involved, that has that division between both aisles and nothing gets done. And a little bit of that, I saw on the township level. The township wasn’t getting along with the county. The communication was poor. And in both cases, the county didn’t want to come back out and meet with the township. The township didn’t want to associate with the county. So even on local grassroots where things are supposed to get along and be more cohesive, I found some of that going on. I think I’ve found where we’ve improved that, and in a short period of time we just held some joint meetings and just laid the cards on the table and we’re able to move on. And I think that’s where it starts.

Jamie Duininck (16:20):
And in regard regards to frustrations and where that’s at and how that stays with you for a while, but what motivates you to continue to be involved? What are some of the things that are most rewarding to be involved in local government?

Kim Larson (16:38):
I think the satisfaction that I had where I was able to maybe help somebody even though they had some roadblocks and regulations, either on the township side or the county side, where I was able to move past those, maybe call them speed bumps along the way, and help these individuals find that I can get help. I can get somebody that understands what I’m trying to do. And I think that was an area that probably makes me feel like I’ve really accomplished something and probably brings me back to being willing to be a part of that wherever I’m involved.

Jamie Duininck (17:30):
Right. One thing that I’ve heard since I was young around local government and that’s really where if we had more grassroots, if we can get decisions made at local government, they’ll be better for the populace and for the people, and the more local it is, the more fair it is, those kind of things. Have you experienced that in your career? And I guess what do you think of that comment and statement?

Kim Larson (17:57):
Well, I think it’s as true today as it has been in the past that grassroots government really is the most pure government. And I think it has to do with a lot of it, with the fact that you’re dealing within neighborly claimants. You know these people. You have an understanding of your neighbors. I think it has a lot to do with that. And then it isn’t …you move up the chain in government and things become more regulated, and this agency is all of a sudden impacted and that agency. So part of it is the nature of the beast, and it just becomes more detailed to further up the government chain that you go. And it also becomes more frustrating because a lot of those regulations, they aren’t able to cover the regulations they have and then they continue to add to them. And it’s much more prevalent on further up in government than it is at right at the local government here in township and county.

Jamie Duininck (19:13):
Sure, sure. And speaking of where Water Table’s all about water issues and how do you see local government, whether it’s county boards or township boards, being able to impact water issues? Positive and negative, probably.

Kim Larson (19:29):
Yeah. Well, it’s where the voices come that probably makes the impact. And that’s why I taught the students at Ridgewater College the importance that we have to speak up. We’re much smaller numbers now today than what we’re here years ago as far as the percentage of farmers in an area. And so you can’t just have one individual from one quadrant of the county speak up. You have to have numbers of people to point out that this is important for agriculture. We need this, and there’s more background to this issue and here’s here it is from the ag point of view. And it isn’t to come back with what I said before and be argumentative, but it’s to point out the facts. And so I think it’s critically important that in local government that we have, it starts with having those individuals that represent us in government, but it also is that everybody has to play a part in addressing and speaking up.

Jamie Duininck (21:00):
Sure, sure. And when we talk, one thing that’s changed. I’m sure you’ve seen it in your career being longer career too, but is how important and how much authority watersheds have now, taxing authority and watershed boards. I can remember times where I don’t think I would’ve known what a watershed did or what it was necessarily from the standpoint of I knew what a watershed was, but not how that interacts with the public from the standpoint of their board. How do you see that working with watersheds and county commissioners and county boards together? And do you see that as a fruitful relationship or is there challenges there?

Kim Larson (21:49):
Well, it’s critically important. I think in the most part, the counties have a liaison commissioner that sits on the watershed board. And so it starts with that, that they are involved to the point where they know what’s going on with the watershed. They can answer questions on behalf of the county. They can bring the questions from the watershed back to the county board into further discussions on a county board government level. The watersheds are fully involved as part of the ditch authority because each ditch is assigned to a certain watershed. And so it’s all intertwined. The regulations don’t seem to get less. They always seem to get more. And I think the input from the county board on addressing these regulations is highly important to make sure that there’s not overreach.

Jamie Duininck (22:59):
And speaking of you led into where I was going with that, with ditch systems and county ditches. A lot of our general public doesn’t understand how ditches are assessed and paid for. And I want to get into some other things around wetlands with that too, that you and I talked about early on in our relationship. But tell us a little bit about how that works and how ditches are assessed and paid for.

Kim Larson (23:28):
First of all, in almost every case, every county has an individual that is the director for the ditch authority in that county. In our case, it’s an individual by the name of Lauren Engleby who I’ve known for quite some time, and he’s been in that position for quite some time. And so when I was looking at running for the county board more recently, I went in and talked to Lauren. He gave me a handout but basically reminded me that there’s redetermination now. That isn’t the case back when my dad was first day commissioner. But those kind of things have evolved where redetermination means that it’s not those individuals that have the farmland that touched the ditch as it used to be originally. It is determined all the way out to where I am at where I have just a very small percentage that is a payment of assessment for that ditch in order, maintenance and clean up and anything else that may incur a cost.

(24:43):
But the redetermination as he put it in this, a handout for me here, of benefits as a process that identifies all properties that contribute storm water to a county ditch system. When the county ditch systems were established, most were considered agricultural ditches, and the farmland owners immediately adjacent to the ditches and paid to construct and maintain them. And now the Minnesota Drainage Law requires a stormwater from agriculture and non-agriculture lands to be considered. And so it’s all factored on a formula, Jamie, and it reaches out to where you may think you don’t have anything to do with a certain ditch, but you do because that water does feel that very maybe minute portion, but it all contributes into that ditch system.

Jamie Duininck (25:39):
A part of your farm or your land is flowing through that ditch and some may go different direction, but they can have that figured out. I think that leads into another area that I wanted as visit about is. You personally, your family farm, you have done some water management practices, some tiling, and that water is going somewhere to these ditches. But what have you seen from those tiling practices as far as impacts positive on your farm, negative if there is any, but to you continuing your operation and successfully farming?

Kim Larson (26:21):
I, as you know, indicated earlier, I basically farmed with my dad. And he had purchased some land back when I was young and in high school, and that land needed tile. And he was determined that we should be able to probably address some of these tile needs ourselves. So he went out and bought a backhoe, and at the time there wasn’t plastic tile as we have today. It was all cement and it was a lot of hard work.

Jamie Duininck (26:21):
Yeah, absolutely.

Kim Larson (26:52):
And we tiled miles of tile with that first old backhoe that we had, and we’ve traded backhoes at least three times since then that initial time. And we bought a tile plow. And we have a four-wheel drive tractor and we’re able to plow in our own tile. Those have changed that parcels of land considerably. It provides so many benefits just for the fact that you can actually tell them. There were ditches involved. There were open ditches throughout some of these farms where we got the required permits needed to convert the ditches to actually put tile in and do that drainage. That improved a lot of it because the potential for sediment to run off into ditches and go downstream is many times higher than it is to be filtered through the subsurface drainage. So I feel that we’ve increased the value of that land by doing so, the productivity obviously. And we continue to add tile here and there. I think it’s an ongoing practice that is just a science.

Jamie Duininck (28:27):
Switching gears a little bit, but comes into this water quality discussion. But over time, over the last, when I say over time, a long period of time, a hundred years, but our federal and state government have purchased lands and easements, got easements on lands. And so we have in Minnesota, in our area of Minnesota, we’re in that beginning of that prairie pothole region. We have a lot of protected lands, whether it’s owned by fish and wildlife or state waterfall production areas, those kind of things. But we still have millions of acres of lands that are wetlands that are owned by individuals, by farmers. You have some of them and that’s where I’m going. And we have so often hear from people that maybe don’t understand how that all works that are hunters or that those are wetlands, those are… Even though you might own it, you need to protect that. These are really public enjoyment places.

(29:37):
And yet, you taught me about that years ago around you pay tax on that wetland every year, and significant amount of tax, and you like to use that wetland just like those guys, like hunters. And I’ll put myself in that category. I like to use them too for bird hunting and waterfall and those kind of things in the fall. But they’re yours. You own that property and you do pay tax on them. And I don’t think a lot of people understand that you’re… I don’t know how many acres. I’m not asking that, but you have of wetlands, but you do pay taxes on them and help funding that way. Talk a little bit about that.

Kim Larson (30:26):
It’s part of maybe our water management in a sense. We have a private ditch and we do have a major wetland that is between farms that generally considered a problem for the fact that we have a lot of drainage that comes into that ditch system, our private ditch, from neighboring farms. And in the spring of the year, we would have tremendous amount of problem with the fact that it would overflow the ditch out into the field. We couldn’t get those acres planted. We tried to construct dams to hold the water back into that wetland. And as I said it was, it’s a major wetland of close to 40 acres in an area in this particular case, and the dams would wash out.

(31:30):
Well here, 15, 20 years ago, I suppose at least maybe 15 years ago, FSA had a program of easement opportunities, and this was still owned by my dad. And I just said, “Let’s look into this.” Well, what resulted from that is that they were able to construct a real dam, something that we didn’t feel like we’d wanted or had the background to invest in, and they made it a better wetland. So we took acreage that we could not farm anyway, never would be able to. And it was basically a holding pond for that ditch system of ours. And that dam has done a remarkable job of holding that water back. It maintains that water even in some of the drier years that we’ve had recently. So that the habitat there for the waterfall has done quite well. We’ve had a pair of nesting trumpeter swans that have held that area for their broods for, oh man, for the past six, seven years. And we enjoy being able to have the background to see that.

(32:52):
I feel that farmers get a bad rap, and I think it’s a little bit of what you’re asking for this. I took this very personally back a number of years ago when it was in the Minneapolis paper that farmers were not providing. They were taking away the habitat for waterfall. It was also a study done at that same time that came out that showed that agriculture at that time provided 82% of the habitat for waterfall and wildlife. 82%. I thought we were doing quite well. The protection through these easements of current watershed waterfalls, I think, is important.

(33:46):
I’m adding one as we speak. I border the fish and wildlife and they’ve been asking me if I’d consider putting part of that into an easement. I own two-thirds of a major wetland on that border and the Fish and Wildlife owns one-third and I’ve agreed to that. We’ve had higher land prices recently which have accelerated the payment for that easement. And the process that agriculture is going is that we are protecting the areas that really do need the protection. And I think it’s probably the future for agriculture is continue to be able to be acceptable to things that we can and probably have to do.

Jamie Duininck (34:36):
For sure. I appreciate that answer. We’re running short on some time here, but I know I wanted to ask you a little bit about how you’ve been following a little bit aware of what’s going on with Discovery Farms. I’ve had Warren Formo on a podcast a while back, but let’s talk about that a little bit and how that impacts agriculture and how that excites you personally.

Kim Larson (35:01):
Discovery Farms is something that started through 24 ag groups here in the state of Minnesota. And one of the first ones was took place right here in Kandiyohi County back in 2007. And it was at that point where they had an opportunity to compare the watershed area from a local farm going into Lake Wakanda, which was just south of Willmar plus the storm water that came out of the city of Willmar into Lake Wakanda. And it was from that science that was done that showed that actually agriculture did better than the city in some cases, and especially in the area of phosphorus. And the city had as much as 17 times as much phosphorus coming out of the city stormwater than what came off of that farmland. Nitrates, we got to do a better job on nitrates because it did show obviously that we have some of that that’s showing up.

(36:05):
But even on that farm, one interesting factor I’ll leave you with is the fact that they did a fertilized and an unfertilized field. They only had a small acreage obviously that they were going to spend for unfertilized, but the phosphorus was higher on the unfertilized. And the reason for that is that the fertilized field produced more stover coverage and so there was less surface runoff from that accumulation of more yield and stover on top of the ground. And that sediment then was slowed down and kept in the field. I thought that was very important.

(36:50):
So I see the continuation of Discovery Farms. There’s many of them across the state of Minnesota now. I see them as probably one of the best factors for education on water issues that we have. And I would like to make sure that we continue to support the Discovery Farms.

Jamie Duininck (37:09):
For sure. And it’s also something that I don’t think as we fund them. We help fund them and we’re talking about them, but I don’t think we’re talking about them enough as agriculture and what. There’s just so much fruit there and so much ability to inform the public about things that they’re thinking about. And they will draw their own opinion if we don’t give them the facts and what we’re doing. They’ve got a great story to tell on a lot of these places, and we probably have a much better story to tell than how we’re telling it.

Kim Larson (37:45):
We do. And then the public needs to be informed that there is more to the story and here’s where it is.

Jamie Duininck (37:53):
Well, Kim, I appreciate you showing up today and being part of The Water Table podcast. And as we go along, maybe we can do this again sometime, but I’ll leave you here with the last word. And you and I, we wrestle politically once in a while, so I’m going to give you the last word rather than sometimes I take it, but here on The Water Table.

Kim Larson (38:17):
Well, thank you, Jamie. I did appreciate being here. And I guess this is part of that leadership that I think we all have to partake in. I look forward to agriculture’s future. I think we have a great future. All you have to do is look at where we are today. Looking at the Ukraine is now in flux. I have had opportunities with American Soybean Association to be in Ukraine back in the mid-1990s. It is the bread basket of the European area. Who knows where that’s going to be in the future? But we continue to provide the vast majority of food for the world right here in United States of America, and we should never take that for granted. It is the biggest part of the farm security of the Farm Bill is food security. And so let’s keep that in mind.

Jamie Duininck (39:19):
For sure. Thanks for joining us today on the water table and we’ll see you again next time.

(39:27):
Well, thanks for listening to this episode. I have so much fun recording these. I hope you have as much fun listening as I do recording. These episodes are available on all major podcast platforms as well as YouTube. So find them and download them when you can. Thanks for joining us.

Podcast Episode 74

Shifting from Defense to Offense – One Farmer’s Story

Episode 74 | 40 min

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Podcast Episode 74

Shifting from Defense to Offense – One Farmer’s Story

Episode 74 | 40 min

With Guest:

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