Heartland Heroes: A Salute to American Farmer

Growing up in the Ohio Valley, I was surrounded by small family commercial farms.

In the winter, I worked on a dairy farm, milking cows with electric machines that produced milk that would get collected by a truck every other morning.  The hours were perfect—dawn and dusk, before and after the school bus.

In the summer, I worked on a beef cattle farm, moving hay bales from the wagon to the barn for storage. Great duty for a growing teenage wrestler.

Farming was hard work requiring long hours and a commitment to the care of the livestock in a rain-or-shine environment. It was something that everyone else’s survival depended on.

Unfortunately, the number of American farms has declined steadily. Today, there are about 2 million farms—200,000 fewer than in 1997.

The Life of a Dairy Farmer

Howard Barker owns Barker Farms along with his brothers Bob and Tim. Together, they have carried out the legacy of the last small family-owned dairy farm in Jefferson County, Ohio, founded by their father in 1954.

The Barker brothers manage 70 Holstein dairy cattle to provide milk for dairy products for United Dairy out of Martins Ferry, Ohio. Their day starts at 6 a.m. bringing their daily cattle from their grazing and feeding shelter to their milking barn.

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They harness the cows in their milking stalls and feed them as they perform their daily chores. At 7 a.m., the cows are cleaned and attached to electric milkers that relieve the Holsteins of their milk and automatically distribute it to a sanitized and refrigerated milk tank.

After milking, the Barkers clean the stalls and the waste gutters where they use manure as a fertilizer component for plowing and seeding fields of corn and haythat will eventually become silage — or preserved pasture grass — after it ferments inside a silo.

In the cooler months of early spring, the Barkers head to the field to plow, fertilize and seed the corn and hay forages that will eventually be used as feed and fodder for cattle. In the summer, they collect the corn and hay and store it in a silo to create silage.

After a midday break for lunch, the Barkers finish up their duties, including routine maintenance of expensive farm equipment. At  6 p.m., they milk the cows once again. Once they finish cleaning the barn, the farm work is done at 9:30 p.m., just in time for dinner.