Best Young Farmers/Ranchers-4

This story is the fourth of five profiles on the people selected as the DTN/Progressive Farmer's 2024 America's Best Young Farmers and Ranchers program. Today, we introduce Brad Laack, Lake Effect Farms LLC of Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin.

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Brad Laack is building a first-generation farm headquartered outside of Sheboygan Falls in east central Wisconsin. With partner Eric Kell, their Lake Effect Farms LLC has built a sizable custom-farming business paying not only income for work performed but also finding high value in the relationship he builds with the best farmers in the region.

He listens to what they tell him. "I learn from these farmers, especially the older farmers," Brad said. "You cannot replace those years of experience and wisdom. They'll tell you. It's a good idea or it's a bad idea. They've been there. They've seen it. And I respect that a lot of all of them."

CUSTOM-FARMING BUSINESS

Brad's custom-farming business is paired with his own land holding but it's the largest portion of his overall enterprise. For neighboring dairies and farms, he and Eric custom-plant corn and soybeans, apply chemicals with four sprayers and custom-harvest grain with a pair of John Deere combines. On his ground, Brad manages corn, soybeans, winter wheat, alfalfa and a 100-acre pilot project growing red beets for the local canning market.

Randy Kleinhans has known Brad for most of Brad's life. Brad is now 32. He was Brad's 4-H leader. Brad grew corn on Kleinhans' land and worked nights in his dairy barn. He has been an important mentor to Brad. "His work ethic and honesty, his communication skills with his customer base, those things that I think are just outstanding, and they have allowed this business to grow to the extent that his clients put tremendous trust in him," Kleinhans said.

Brad values his judgment. "You cannot replace his 50 years of experience. Any idea, any wild dream that I have gets run past Randy first. He's the one who said, 'I think you should do that' or not. He is the one who got us to where we are."

Lake Effect Farms, with its heavy clay soils, is founded in a unique part of Wisconsin. It sits between two significant bodies of water that can vastly alter the climate, even by the hour. Lake Winnebago to the west is shallow, 30 miles by 10 miles and Wisconsin's largest inland body of water. Near and to the east is Lake Michigan, cold and deep, and many multiples larger than Winnebago. "Our whole climate is affected by the weather Lake Michigan and Lake Winnebago throw at us," Brad explained.

The farm's name is taken from the lake-effect snows that bury the environs of Lake Michigan, the result of cold Canadian winds blowing south across the warmer, open waters of the lake. The event sets up bands of heavy, lake-effect snow that pile up inland, 2, 3 or 4 inches per hour.

Brad manages no cows. But he does custom crop work for dairymen who manage some of the best dairy genetics in the world. "You've got world-class dairies all over this area," he said, operations ranging from 30 to 40 cows all the way up to 10,000 cows that are milked three times a day on a carousel or by robotics.

Brad's wife, Nicole, grew up on a farm and is a full-time herdsman managing 1,500 cows at a dairy about 25 miles from their home. They have a young son, Porter. On Lake Effect Farms, she is everywhere, moving equipment or bringing meals to the field. "She doesn't get the credit she deserves," Brad said.

Summer is custom chopping and hauling perhaps five cuttings of alfalfa. Fall is a sprint to chop and move corn for silage. Nothing stops that harvest, Brad said, showing photos of a forage chopper and semi nearly swimming through black mud and water. "Starting in the middle of April, it's pretty much wide open from when the first seed goes into the ground to (when) the last corn stock is harvested off the field."

LOGISTICS KEY TO OPERATION

Logistics is key to the custom operation. Moving equipment, making repairs, anticipating the best locations for fuel, seed and chemicals. Employees are key, as well.

Brad counted 12 full-time and part-time employees harvesting and moving soybeans one day in November. "There is no way I could do all this alone," he remembers thinking at the time. "I don't deserve the credit. They do."

It goes without saying that it is equipment -- the correct line of equipment -- that makes a custom-farming business attractive to its customer.

Brad bought his first piece of equipment, a combine, when he graduated from high school. "Combines always intrigued me. From little on, I would be riding with different neighbors. I can't thank them enough for taking the time to do that, and I think that's just kind of where all this started."

It was on a Midwest combine-hunting trip with his dad, John, in Indiana that Brad found a 1994 John Deere 9400, 2-wheel-drive, 20-foot auger head and six-row corn head. He ran it for two years and sold it for something larger without emotion or remorse. Brad is not an equipment collector.

"It's got to sustain itself. We're not a multigeneration family farm. Every piece of equipment has to justify itself. That's the only way that it works," he explained.

GROWING EQUIPMENT INVENTORY

Today, Brad runs two combines. One is a Deere S790 with a 40-foot draper head and a 12-row folding corn head. "I mean it's unbelievable. You're going to get four times as much done as we did when we started 15 years ago," he said.

Lake Effect Farms' equipment inventory grew with demand. Pull-type sprayer in 2011. No-till drill in 2012. From the open cab tractor, he pulled a six-row corn planter over 800 acres that year. "Saw the sun set and rise many times from that seat," he said. The next year, 2013, saw the arrival of a 12-row corn planter, double that with a second 12-row planter in 2014. "It was 2017 when the first self-propelled sprayer came," Brad said. He has four sprayers now.

Brad has a bit of that Midwestern sarcastic side. About farming. About income. The guy at the end of the bar. The ease of a profession practiced by a visitor -- and a drone that won't fly. But he loves his work. Up before sunrise. Home well after dark. Visits to the field from Nicole and Porter.

"Ten years ago, I never would have told you where we're at today because I never would have dreamed of it. This is all so inspiring. You go out in the spring and put a seed in the ground, take care of it all year and come back to harvest. It's awesome to watch that crop turn into something. And, year after year, we keep doing it, getting better as we go along."

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Editor's Note: This is the fourth of five profiles of our 14th class of America's Best Young Farmers and Ranchers sponsored by DTN/ Progressive Farmer. They are among the best of their generation who have chosen agriculture as a profession and lifestyle. The annual award recognizes five farmers and ranchers who best represent the pioneering promises of American agriculture: Farmers and ranchers who are innovative, imaginative and who work to improve their communities.

See Brad Laack video profile and all of the 2024 America's Best Young Farmers and Ranchers Winners at https://spotlights.dtnpf.com/….

See Best Young Farmers/Ranchers-1 at https://www.dtnpf.com/….

See Best Young Farmers/Ranchers-2 at https://www.dtnpf.com/….

See Best Young Farmers/Ranchers-3 at https://www.dtnpf.com/….

See Editor's Notebook blog by DTN Editor-in-Chief Greg D. Horstmeier about the winners at https://www.dtnpf.com/….

See Reporter's Notebook video with Miller on https://www.dtnpf.com/… where he talks more about the 2024 winners, as well as how people can apply to be next year's class of winners.

Dan Miller can be reached at dan.miller@dtn.com.

Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DMillerPF.

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