Diversity Earns Added Income for Kansas Family

Des Keller
Contributing Editor

When it comes to watching costs, diversifying income and seeking new opportunities, the Strnad family in Kansas is fighting the good fight. That's true whether they are shipping their cotton (that's right, cotton is grown in Kansas) to Texas, trying to sell more beef direct to consumers or opening up a much-needed event venue in their community.

Troy and Julia Strnad, along with adult children Sammie and Trey, work nearly 10,000 acres along with 160 head of cow/calf pairs, mostly Charolais, based between the towns of Wellington and Caldwell, in the south-central part of the state. They also grow corn, soybeans, wheat and grain sorghum.

Troy credits his upbringing and experience in a family of custom wheat harvesters to shaping how he approaches business.

"We worked from Texas up to North Dakota," he says. "I picked the brains of those farmers. I got to see all the good and the bad on those operations. If something was successful, I asked them why, and if it was bad, I asked them why. That's how my simple mind works."

Sometimes simple solutions present themselves. Strnad Land and Cattle began growing cotton six years ago to take advantage of what they saw as a more profitable crop compared to wheat. There have long been cotton growers in southern Kansas, and there was a gin within an hour of their farm. However, due to ongoing remodeling, the gin's production schedule was delayed. As a result, the family shipped some of their cotton to another gin more than four hours away, in Spearman, Texas.

DEMAND CREATES INCENTIVE

Turns out folks at the Spearman gin were itching to keep their plant running, needed more production than was generated locally and made it financially advantageous for the Strnads to either haul round cotton bales themselves to Texas or have them picked up by third parties. Continued great service has maintained their business.

"The thing I like most is when the person who hauls your cotton and processes it treats it like it's their cotton," Troy explains. Last year, the Strnads grew 2,300 acres of cotton. "So far, I feel warm and fuzzy inside," he chuckles.

If renovations at a local gin were the catalyst to ship cotton straight to Texas, then the worldwide COVID pandemic jump-started the Strnads' efforts to sell beef directly to consumers.

"When COVID hit, there were a lot of empty store shelves, and factories were shutting down," Julia says. "We started getting calls: 'Do you have any beef?' I was calling small processors to schedule butcher dates as quick as I could. Soon, you were scheduling those dates a year in advance -- the mama cows hadn't even given birth to animals we'd already scheduled."

The Strnads had been selling some of their beef to friends and acquaintances prior, but the pandemic sped up the interest. The event also spurred consumer interest in knowing where their food originated. They market about 25 head per year directly to consumers and through a new local store opened by a friend (see "FROM IDEA TO BRICK-AND-MORTAR" below).

"I tell anybody: You need to buy off-the-farm," Julia says. "You'll find out how much better it is, and you help the local economy."

AN OFF-THE-FARM BUSINESS

If helping the local economy is a goal, the Strnads haven't stopped at branded beef. Julia and Troy, along with her parents, Amy and Danny Shoffner, opened an event venue called Diamond Springs in 2023 on land they owned. The venue features a plush 8,000-square-foot building on a pond (https://www.diamondsprings.co/…). The facility features a full kitchen and separate bride and groom suites to prep for weddings, as well as expansive outdoor patios.

"My Mom and I had been to enough weddings elsewhere that we felt we could use something in this area and thought, 'Why not us?'" Julia explains. "But, it had to be strategic, accessible. We had land that was just off a highway that already had water."

Danny Shoffner generally plants cotton nearby, and Julia and Amy are lobbying for sunflowers and wildflowers so the blooms provide a pretty photographic backdrop.

So far so good. They've garnered a lot of business through word-of-mouth and via social media.

"We did everything possible not to hit $1 million in building it, but it came way closer than we wanted it to be," Julia says. "Troy jokes that if this doesn't work out, we can put hay in the building." She is being humble. Since fall of 2023, they've had 14 events. Diamond Springs has already been used for weddings, bridal showers, business meetings, agriculture meetings and family reunions.

CARBON CREDITS

Along with an event venue and branded beef, the Strnads have also taken steps to increase their already-serious conservation tillage efforts by adding more cover crops in their operation that help trap carbon in the soil rather than in the atmosphere.

Indigo Ag representatives say that as of last year, their programs have earned landowners more than $12 million in 28 states thus far, and the number of acres enrolled with them have increased by more than 300%.

The protocols to measure carbon sequestration credits are relatively new. The industry only started producing credits in 2020. The most commonly used method to sequester carbon is to move to no-till or conservation tillage. As of 2020, only 30% of U.S. cropland used no-till or strip-till.

The use of cover crops, the other significant way to sequester carbon, is considerably less than those using no-till or conservation tillage. But, the potential benefit, sequestration-wise, from cover crops is significant.

Strnad Land and Cattle's carbon sequestration payments via Carbon by Indigo have varied from $11 to $15 per acre since 2022. They have about half their operation in the program, adding cover crops and cover crop mixes as weather and time allow.

"Even though we receive payments, the seed [cover crops] aren't cheap, the weather has to cooperate and we don't always have enough labor to do the work" Julia says.

Carbon sequestration programs did make sense because planting additional cover crops helps provide feed for their cattle, either in the field or baled. Oats can be baled, and the seed can be saved for additional plantings. They use hay grazer (a combination of sudangrass and sorghum). Overall, forages like hay grazer have allowed the Strnads to get another 30 to 60 days of feed in the field when pastures would otherwise be depleted by September.

The family's diversification efforts have been aided by the fact that Sammie, 22, and Trey, 21, have both chosen to return home after college to start their own careers while helping with labor and management. Sammie has largely taken over operation of the cattle herd and has purchased her own farm. Trey farms 700 acres of his own while working for Strnad Land and Cattle.

FROM IDEA TO BRICK-AND-MORTAR

Kimmy Hagar, who had been selling produce, honey and various other products from her Kansas farm for years, took a bold step in fall of 2023 when she opened the storefront Hagar Acres Farm to Home in tiny downtown Caldwell. The move came in large part due to a conversation earlier that year with her husband, Gene, and best friend, Julia Strnad, of Strnad Land and Cattle.

"'You can do this,'" they told me," Hagar says. "The building was for sale, and we originally wanted to buy it for our daughter, who runs the bakery in town."

Instead, her husband and Julia suggested she open her own shop that sells local products -- many of them made by Hagar herself. Incidentally, their daughter's bakery operates nearby, and Hagar Acres Farm to Home (https://hagaracresfarmtohome.com/…) sells everything from beef, pork and chicken to jams, bread, eggs, teas, spices, candles and skin-care lotions and balms. In all, the store has more than 200 products.

If there is such a thing as a surprise hit at the store, it is the frozen, already-cooked casseroles Hagar prepares for customers to pick up. "I didn't believe that anybody would want to eat them," Hagar explains. She credits Julia Strnad with convincing her. "I use Strnad beef in the casseroles, and up until July this year, I used Hagar Acres chicken. The casseroles were so popular that we ran out of chicken last year. Now, we are raising twice as many."

The popularity of casseroles wasn't the only thing Hagar learned in this venture.

-- You can't do everything. Instead of trying to grow, make or raise the bulk of products for the store, she now has other farms producing the pork and beef. The beef comes from Strnad Land and Cattle. Several farms grow herbs and spices. Another produces cheese.

-- If you have a good product, people will meet you where you are. The store is only open on Thursday and Friday from 3 to 6 p.m., and Saturday 8 a.m. to noon. "At first, everyone thought we needed more hours; but what we've found is that, in a small town, when you have known specific hours and some hours outside of the normal workday, people will come. Our biggest takeaway here is the amount of community support that we have been given."

-- Plan for the future. The Hagars aren't standing pat. They've purchased two additional vacant storefronts and intend to sell the skin/body products from a separate "apothecary" shop. "Our biggest challenges would be getting funds for the buildings we have just down the street so we can grow and expand on the local food resources we have in our community," Hagar says.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:

-- Diamond Springs event venue https://www.diamondsprings.co/…

-- Hagar Acres Farm to Home https://hagaracresfarmtohome.com/…

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