The average American has an idea of the typical farmer as a man surrounded by cows and crops. The average American would be spot-on with that image when it comes to Darvin Bentlage. Darvin was born and raised on his family farm and he exudes the confidence of a lifetime farmer. He was involved in FFA in high school and soon won the State FFA Farmer Award. Darvin was also on several FFA judging contest teams and was the secretary of his FFA Chapter. He attributes much of his success in the agricultural industry today to those involvements as a young man.
Darvin spent some time in college after high school but later realized that wasn't the path for him. He soon came back to the family farm and he's been forging forward as a full-time farmer ever since.
Back home on the family farm Darvin's father was custom farming in the area. Soon upon Darvin's return, though, they started increasing the number of cattle in their operation. At one time they were farming over 2,000 acres. Through the years and many crop and calving seasons, Darvin has changed his production status. He is now farming about 1,160 acres and in 1992 he made the transition to 50 percent crop production and 50 percent cattle production.
In 1994 he started a registered Angus seed stock herd. He joined the 4-State Angus Association in 1995, and today serves as the president of the Association. He's also involved in the Missouri Farmers Union which is an organization committed to giving farmers new and innovative marketing ideas for their herds. Darvin also enters the Green Springs Bull Test each year. He raises bulls for growth and carcass data and is moving into feed efficiency testing. His herds consist of 42 registered Angus animals and around 70 commercial head of cattle. "We try to produce what our customers want," said Darvin, "One of those qualities is low birth weights. We don't specifically produce for that trait within our own growing herd, but we recognize it's a desirable trait so we try to include it in our outgoing animals. Overall, though, we want our animals to be balanced with lots of good qualities."
The farm sells about 10 bulls a year. Mostly this is done by private treaty. "We have steady returning customers year after year, it doesn't take too long to get our animals sold because we've developed a reputation for having consistently good cattle." Darvin also sells calves at the stockyards. "We're dabbling with the idea of catering more of our animals to the 'natural' market. We already have a lot of natural beef and we're considering expanding our operation into that market." The qualifications for natural beef are that the animals have not had antibiotics or hormones and that they eat natural (not genetically modified) feeds and grasses.
Darvin also raises wheat, soybeans, corn and milo and uses many of his own grains for feed. "The elevator we go to has a soybean roaster and they roast them to make quality soybean meal for us. We've seen this meal effective in helping with conception rates," said Darvin. He enjoys being on the farm and filling the role of the "traditional American farmer" who raises crops and cattle. He concluded, "It's so nice to be a farmer and be out with nature every day. I love not hearing any sound except for the cows and the breeze—it's the closest thing to actually being with God."
