Our September Farmer of the Month is Francis Giebel who owns Giebel’s Evergreen Dairy Farm located in Eldorado.
Giebel was born and raised on the farm with six siblings. His parents bought the farm in 1940, seven years before he was born. He grew up working in the fields and prepping cows for milking before he was even ten-years-old! This has been his passion his whole life.
In 1976, he and his wife took over the dairy, but now at 73-years-old, he has decided to sell the cows and focus on cash cropping. He said that he wouldn’t have to cash crop, but it’s his hobby. “It’s my hobby…I don’t fish and I don’t hunt,” Giebel said. Eventually, he’ll rent out the farm, but for now he just wants to enjoy cropping for a few years.
The big change for him is going to be selling the cows. “We have a lot of pets, it’s going to be hard…that’s what I’m going to miss most is the cattle,” says Giebel. He said that people are always asking him why he still farms when there isn’t a lot of money in it and he always has an answer. “I really ain’t in it for the money so much, you gotta survive financially, but you gotta also enjoy what you’re doing and that’s what I do enjoy.” He told me that you’re better off making less money and loving what you do than waking up every morning and hating your job.
Giebel said 1988 is a year that he’ll never forget because there was such a bad drought. “As much as I hate when we’re working in mud, trying to plant crops in mud, when it’s so dry and you watch things burning up, that’s worse yet,” Giebel said. He also mentioned that the only way they got through the drought was by having more feed in storage than they needed. That’s why he now always makes sure they aren’t relying on the current crop in case something goes wrong.
He gave some advice to other farmers.
- “In order to financially survive, be able to decipher between wants and needs,” Giebel said that he’s seen too many people fail because they get caught up in buying unnecessary things when they can’t afford them.
- “Buy ahead…when you have a good time when prices are good, buy something that you know you’ll be needing soon.” Basically, if you have the extra income and can afford something you know you’ll need in the near future, then get it. You would hate for prices to drop and then you need a specific item but you don’t have the money because you spent it somewhere else.
As far as 2020 goes, Giebel recognizes how the prices go up and down from one extreme to the next. He, like most farmers, wishes the markets were a little more level so he knew what to expect month to month.
Congratulations to our September Farmer of the Month, Francis Giebel!
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