"My family has been involved with agriculture for many generations. We have had this farm in Olsburg since 1964. We are a diversified farm, raising purebred hogs, purebred Angus cattle and various crops. I have worked with pigs and cattle since my 4-H projects in the mid 1960's. Following graduation from Kansas State University in 1975 I worked for another purebred swine breeder for 5 years. Amy (my wife) and I decided to move back to the farm in Olsburg in 1981.

The bloodlines of our Duroc pigs go back to a few select sows from the breeder I worked for. He had raised Purebred Durocs since the 1940's. We are small in comparison to most pork producers. We have 65 purebred Duroc and Yorkshire sows. Of the 65 sows, 30 of them are Durocs. The Yorkshires are noted for their Maternal traits and the Duroc are noted for their good growth rate and excellent carcass traits. They are also noted for their muscle quality and good eating quality. We have been performance testing since our start and only select the best of the best to be breeders in our herd. We are now placing extra emphasis on selecting Duroc pigs that have superior muscle quality. In our effort to do so, we are bringing in some old lines from the 80's. We will evaluate what they can offer to our herd. We feel that they may even further advance our effort to produce great tasting pork. We primarily sell to other small to medium sized producers. The producers purchase pigs from us because they trust the good health level of our herd, and the attention to detail and quality that we are able to employ in our small herd.

In recent years, with the evolution of large, mega swine farms, Good Farms has resisted the trend to grow large. We choose not to follow that trend because we feel that true quality is achieved by working with detail and care in breeding our hogs, not just cranking numbers and pounds off of the farm. Because of the trend of larger and larger swine operations, remaining our size is difficult because, as with many businesses we are in an era of low margin and high volume.

We are proud of our place in the farm economy and hope that we can continue to serve the producers that have been true to us over the years. We feel that the family farm has been a true asset to America and we strive to work together with our fellow producers to remain a viable part of the future. We have a strong commitment to produce pigs that are of the highest quality possible. The pigs that we are raising are not fed any antibiotics. All pigs are registered and all ancestry is tracked in making our breeding decisions."