Far-Gaze Farms keeps building back better

The Peterson family of Far-Gaze Farm in northern Rice County is pictured on their farm (Photo courtesy of Karissa Lenore Photography)

Far-Gaze Farms keeps building back better

By ZACH KAYSER editor@apgsomn.com

Four generations of the Peterson family have worked their farm in rural Rice County over the span of more than 100 years.

The farm originally founded by Christian and Bertha Peterson in 1920 has since taken on the name Far-Gaze, named both for a variety of dairy cow and for the expansive views of the surrounding countryside. Although the Petersons sold their dairy herd in the early 2000s, the name stuck through the decades.

In 1957, Burton Peterson inherited the farm from his father, and many years later, turned it over to his sons: Brian, Chris and Bruce. The Peterson boys were hooked on farm life from an early age, both from working on the family’s concern and through 4-H and Future Farmers of America, Brian Peterson recalled.

“We were helping pull pasture fence and lay tile [drainage pipes] when we were 6 years old, we were in the tractor already,” he said.

When he was a junior in high school (in the late 1970s) Brian and one of his brothers rented their own farm space and weathered the storm of a nationwide recession, as banks hounded other farmers.

“We hadn’t farmed enough to get ourselves in trouble yet,” Peterson said.

Shortly thereafter in 1982, they combined their business with their dad’s, and FarGaze was born. Each brother largely sticks to their own area of expertise, helping each other when necessary, and disagreements are rare, Peterson said. “We generally don’t do anything if one disagrees, let’s put it that way” he said. “We each kind of have our own avenues. Bruce, he’s in charge of the marketing of grain, which is a big deal. He shares what knows as we go along. Chris takes care of getting the seed ordered … December, January, he’s sorting through data and whatnot. With three of us, you get three different opinions, so we just try and stay out of it, let him do that.”

Brian described his own role as taking care of equipment maintenance, as well as procuring fuel and liquid propane. The process of delegation has worked for the Petersons for years.

However, the span of just the past four years since 2018, the Peterson family and Far-Gaze farm have faced some of their ◗ Far-Gaze Farm continued on page 22

Clyde the farm dog assists in the day’s chores on the Peterson’s Far-Gaze Farm. (Submitted photo) A combine at work at Far Gaze Farm. Despite a 2018 tornado and a reductions in hog processing in 2020, the farm, operated by the Peterson brothers, remains strong. (Submitted photo)

biggest crises. In September 2018, the farm was leveled by a tornado, and nearly half of their 250 head of pigs were killed when a grain bin was knocked over by the storm and crushed the hog barn. The Peterson clan refused to quit. Instead of throwing in the towel, they invested $6 million into new infrastructure. The outbuildings had been built piecemeal over decades without much rhyme or reason, but the tornado gave the Petersons the chance to start from scratch and design the layout of the compound in a way that maximized efficiency.

“The further we get away from the storm, we think in all reality it was maybe a godsend,” he said.

Their story of resilience struck a chord with the rest of southern Minnesota, and the Petersons were profiled in local as well as national media, including “Successful Farming” magazine.

As if in spite of their efforts at rebuilding, Far-Gaze would later face a smaller and more nefarious natural enemy than a tornado. shortage of available hog processing spots. The Petersons took to the farm’s Facebook page, offering pork to their neighbors when they couldn’t sell it on the market.

Peterson said Wall Street Pork, another entity owned by the family, struggled to work around the shortage. They sold 300 pigs individually to friends, neighbors and Facebook followers. He recalled taking pigs up to the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus where they were processed and donated to Second Harvest Heartland. Peterson went three times, each with a trailer full of about 15 pigs, he said, bound to teach U of M students how to butcher.

“It was a little interesting,” he recalled. “You come in there and it’s like, ‘I’m supposed to get a livestock trailer where?’ But we did.”

Wall Street is part of a “sow cooperative” through Minnesota Family Farms, which Peterson said helped spread out the hit among the families in the co-op.

“We sold as many as we could, versus getting the alternative,” Peterson said.

Other Minnesota farms were not so lucky. According to Minnpost, the Minnesota Department of Health spent $2 million to dispose of the thousands of dead pigs that had to be euthanized across the state, as well as finding space for the hogs that made it. All told, about 450,000 hogs were put down in Minnesota and Iowa.

Although it was a trying time, Peterson said, he understood why the meat processing plants needed to shut down during the pandemic.

“We know that for the safety of the workers in the plant, that’s what they had to do, so you just cope with it,” he said. “It’s kind of like dealing with a tornado. You deal with it, you get through it, and you hope that somehow you come out with both feet on the ground on the other end … and we did.”

In addition to emergency hog liquidation, the farm’s Facebook page serves to tell the Peterson family’s continuing story; offering awareness of the plight of the common farmer. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the US has been declining slowly for decades. As of 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated there were about 2.02 million farms, compared to 2.20 million in 2007.

But it seems Far-Gaze will buck the trend. The fourth generation, consisting of cousins (all grandsons of Burton) Tyler, John, Sam and Andrew Peterson, also works on the farm, and have given rise to another company: 3P farms, for three Petersons. Brian anticipates that one day, they, too, will assimilate into Far-Gaze.