“Our boys love the farm life and everything that goes with it,” Angie said of 5-year-old Tate and 20-month-old Jace. “If you ask Tate what his favorite thing to do is, he will tell you, ‘work with my Daddy.’ They will spend hours mimicking what Dad is doing. When Ryan is spraying crops, Tate has a ‘sprayer’ attachment Dad made for him that he puts on the front of his pedal tractor and the lawn gets watered in a similar manner.” Not Taking Anything for Granted Creating a Legacy But Angie considers her most important work to be in raising her sons, and the values she wants to impart are part and parcel of living the farm life. Contributing to Community Off the farm, Angie and Ryan strive to contribute to their local community. Besides providing a living for themselves and their six employees, they are both active in the Randolph Community Club and St. John’s Lutheran Church in Randolph, and Angie is involved in the local PEO chapter. They also hope to benefit the local and state agricultural industry. “Farming today is tough,” Angie said. “It takes an incredible amount of money to operate. The financial aspect is what I believe inhibits young adults from returning to the family farm, both for those who want to farm as well as their parents. It’s not that some family farms don’t want their children to come back to the farm. In the end that is the goal of a family farm, but it’s just financially difficult to do so. Expenses keep increasing at staggering rates for e n C arpet L ars 212 Walnut|605.665.2067 Historic Downtown Yankton LAMINATE |PORCELAIN |RESILIENT |HARDWOOD To the Brodersens, family farming is a privilege that they are thankful for every day. “Our farm is not just a way we make a living. It is our life and passion,” she said. “It takes true team work between Ryan and me to keep our operation running efficiently but, more than that, a love of the land. We run our operation based on a theory: Our goal is to leave the land we farm in better condition than we received it in. It is not the quantity of acres we farm but the quality of work.” The Brodersens’ approach to family farming is to uphold the family aspect of farming as much as the business side. “I am blessed to have an amazing husband that cherishes time with our boys and with me. We are always a priority, even on his busiest days,” Angie said. “Our children are very involved on the farm. We just got them six chickens this spring, so they have those daily chores along with many others. We do cattle chores as a family, and load and unload shipments of hogs together as often as we can.” Angie and Ryan also spend a lot of time with their own parents, each of whom has been encouraging of the farming venture: Denny and Jan Everson, and Sheryl and Dave Rehurek, of Yankton, and Marc and Lisa Brodersen of Crofton, Neb. Ryan’s grandmother, Pat, enjoys watching their sons when Angie and Ryan need to do something on the farm that is safer and easier to do without children in tow. “We have an incredible support group,” Angie added. farming. Most people not in agriculture do not even have a comprehension of the dollars it takes to feed America.” Angie supports Ryan in his role as president of the Pierce County Farm Bureau, as an agricultural leadership fellow in the Nebraska LEAD program and in his involvement with the American Soybean Association and the Nebraska Corn Board, including being selected to travel to Washington, D.C., this summer to participate in the Corn Congress. Together, he and Angie hope to educate local youth about the importance of agriculture by taking part in the Star Snippets project with the fourth-grade class at Yankton’s Lincoln Elementary as well as the Farm Bureau’s Ag in the Classroom pen pal program with an elementary school in Columbus, Neb. “The average farmer produces enough to feed 155 people annually,” Angie said. “Remember to thank your farmers. They are working hard to feed your family. And on behalf of America’s farmers, I would like to say: It is our pleasure, our passion and our love of the land. Thank you for supporting our efforts.” HERVOICE JULY/AUGUST 2014 v 9