By Ronica Stromberg
With the average age of Nebraska farmers now about 57 years, a big question for the resilience of family farms is what happens when this aging population retires? Doug Dittman, 60, of Branched Oak Farm near Raymond is living an answer to that right now.
He retired from dairying farming in 2019 after 35 years at it in northwest Lincoln. He and his first wife had 30-40 cows and produced dairy products like cheese through their creamery. They used farm-to-table marketing, selling to their own restaurant, the Hub Café in Lincoln, and at farmers’ markets and their own on-farm store, the Inconvenience Store. None of this proved “lucrative enough” to keep at, Dittman said.
“That was our attempt of being able to farm a little smaller and a little more profitably, but again, very tight margins in farming,” he said. “It's a tough business.”
He said his two sons will inherit his farm, but the creamery is gone.
“As to what they'll do, I don't know, but there's certainly a good opportunity to run cattle here,” he said.
Currently, he rents the land to a tenant, a certified organic farmer who keeps livestock and grows corn and soybeans. Dittman was also certified organic and, for many years, has been planting bur oak trees and other plants in the pastures as a way to add ecological diversity, cool the land for the cattle, retain soil moisture, build up organic matter and sequestrate carbon. His current wife, Carla McCullough Dittman, said they’ve been restoring more native plants and removing redcedars, Siberian elms and honey locusts.
She works at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln on newsletters and other tasks of the Transition to Organic Partnership Program with Katja Koehler-Cole. She and Dittman started a vacation rental business, Branched Oak Ranch, LLC, in February to use another house on their property as an Airbnb. McCullough Dittman said she wants to lead guests on hikes around the farm to view prairie birds and plants and teach about biodiversity. She plans to complete a 40-hour program this summer to become a master naturalist.
Source : unl.edu