When Dallas Hakeman ’68 goes to work, he sits in an air-conditioned cab, his state-of-the-art combine steering itself through his soybean and corn fields. The yield monitors tell him exactly how many bushels he is harvesting. And his tractor uses grid sampling to put down the ideal amount of fertilizer for each area—saving money and protecting Iowa’s rivers and streams from toxic runoff.
“When I was younger, farming was pretty hectic from a physical point of view,” says Hakeman. “I just can’t get over how much it’s changed in my lifetime.”
Hakeman farms 1,400 acres in and around Waukee with his wife Linda and a part-time retired helper. At the height of his business, he farmed more than 2,000 acres and kept both cattle and hogs. But with two grandchildren nearby and retirement looming, Hakeman has begun to cut back. His farm is now fairly small compared to the large operations today. Twenty years ago, though, it was big business.
“The size of operation I have won’t be available many years from now because everybody has to get larger in order to survive,” he says.
The Rural Mindset
Hakeman has been farming since 1985, when his father-in-law retired and Hakeman decided to buy him out—cutting back to part time at Southeast Polk High School, where he was a teacher and coach. But six years in, he realized that he couldn’t do both and quit teaching to become a full-time farmer.
Although he wasn’t raised on a farm, Hakeman grew up in rural Iowa—Newell and then Waukee—helping to bale hay and cultivate on neighbors’ farms. He loved the small-town life. Hakeman remembers one Halloween as a boy when he strayed farther away during trick-or-treating than his mother had specified. His aunt spotted him in her neighborhood, knew he wasn’t supposed to be there and called his mother.
“The small-town environment has some positive aspects that maybe we’re missing today in the larger communities,” says Hakeman. “But you’re not going to change that. You can’t go back to the way it was.”
Hakeman still does some things the old-fashioned way, however. For instance, he has only a handshake agreement with his landlord. The man even lets Hakeman set the price of the land depending on how good the harvest is that year.
“That’s the way we’ve done it for years,” says Hakeman. “Maybe it’s not wise. But you build up relationships where you really do trust the people you’re working with. I trust him as if he were family.”
That’s saying a lot, considering how integral a role his family has played in his life and work. All three of his kids—including Amy Hakeman Johnson ’98—grew up working on the farm, driving tractors and mucking out hog pens. They still help on weekends when they get a chance. Hakeman had hoped to pass on the farm to at least one of his kids, but he’s come to realize that small farms are no longer viable in this economy.
Big Changes in Small Agriculture
For one, the equipment—with its GPS, auto-steering and 400 horsepower engine—is a huge investment. Hakeman paid $350,000 for his brand-new combine last fall, not counting the corn and bean heads that fit on the front. Plus, the price of farmland has skyrocketed. Nearby land is selling for more than $10,000 an acre. That’s almost a million dollars for an 80-acre plot Hakeman says you can expect only $300 in profit from each season.
Those prices have been pushed sky-high because of development in Waukee. The greater Des Moines area keeps expanding west, making Hakeman’s land more valuable—and more difficult to hang on to in the face of those big-number offers. His father-in-law used to own the land where Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines now sits. He sold it in the early 70s and bought the land in Waukee. Hakeman has been gradually selling that land to development firms. And the acres he still owns will soon be crisscrossed by a new road and a new Interstate 80 interchange.
Despite the value of his land now, Hakeman is still nostalgic for the way Waukee used to be—when he graduated from high school in 1964 with 36 other students. Today Waukee High School has 1,100 students in grades 10-12.
“I miss the closeness of the small community,” Hakeman says. “I used to know everybody in the city; now I don’t know anybody. I think small communities have some good things going for them.”
Hakeman says he’ll likely sell most if not all his land in the coming years. In fact, he regrets not buying more when prices were low—back before he or anyone else foresaw how far west Des Moines would grow. But for now he enjoys the farmer’s life. He likes the flexibility of the schedule; the only busy times are planting and harvest. That leaves him more time for his family—such as the morning he spent reading with his grandson in kindergarten for Dr. Seuss week.
“The nice thing about it is that you are your own boss and you set your own schedule,” he says. “So if you want to quit at six o’clock, you quit at six o’clock.”
To encourage serious, intellectual discourse on Civitas, please include your first and last name when commenting. Anonymous comments will be removed.
Pingback: Growing Modern – Central College