Sheep Industry News July 2024

S itting in the living room of the home his grandparents retired in, Lynn Fahrmeier talks of spending his entire life – except for four years of college at the University of Missouri – in a 200-yard radius of Fahrmeier Farms. “The farm has been in the family for about 125 years,” said Lynn, who is the Region IV representative to the ASI Execu tive Board. “My great grandfather immigrated from Germa ny to the St. Louis area and then came out here to the Kansas City area with a lot of other immigrants. My grandfather added to the farm, my dad added to the farm, my sister and I have added to the farm. We’ll see what my son (Samuel) can do with it in a few years.” Lynn’s dad attended a one-room school just 200 yards from the old farmhouse he was raised in and often just walked home to eat lunch. When the school was closed years later, Lynn’s grandfather purchased the property, and it was converted into a home for Lynn’s mom and dad. Lynn grew up there before eventually moving into a newer home that his grandparents built for their retirement years. The Katahdin sheep in the nearby barn are a relatively new addition to a farm that is now being worked by a fifth generation of the family. “When I came back after college, I thought I was going to come back and have a big hog operation,” said Lynn, who majored in animal sciences. “I’m too young – even though I’m 62 now – to remember the poultry industry integrating. But I lived through the integration of the hog industry. If I could have had a crystal ball, we would have gotten out of the hog industry sooner and put up some contract finishing barns or something. We suffered through two collapses in the hog market before we finally got out.” Lynn was 34 when he married Donna in the mid-1990s. Needing some additional income to support the family they wanted to have, the new couple started looking into sheep. “But, I didn’t want to shear them,” he admitted. “So, we heard about this crazy kind of sheep that had hair instead of wool. We started investigating – which was harder to do back then before the internet – and found the Katahdins. The Katahdin association only had about 150 members at that point, but there was a small concentration here in Mis souri and in Kansas. So, we visited four or five operations and bought a starter flock from a couple in Kansas. We kind of fell in love with the animals and the people. Since then, we’ve been up to as many as 200 ewes, but we’re at about 130 right now.” With a background in cattle and hogs, Lynn was surprised

to learn that the sheep industry hadn’t really adopted the use of genetic selection at that point. “Quantitative genetics was just a given in the swine and beef industries,” Lynn said. “Nobody bought bulls or boars without genetic data. Everyone knew that was the way you did it. I got into the sheep industry and went to the Fort meyers in Kansas to look at these lambs. I told Laura that I needed some data and she just hugged me. She said, ‘You’re the first sheep producer that’s ever asked me for that.’ She was an early proponent of the National Sheep Improvement Program, back when Dr. Dan Morrical of Iowa State Univer sity was running it through the Hereford association.” Lynn would later serve as both a board member and chairman of NSIP. “I have been put in these leadership positions mostly be cause I have a big mouth,” Lynn joked. “I was on the Katah din board for six years, two of which I was president. I was on NSIP for eight years and served two years as chairman. Then someone by the name of Steve Clements had the bril liant idea to ask me to be on the ASI Executive Board. I’m up for re-election in 2025 and would like to serve two more years on the board, but that’s where it stops. I’m not going to be president of ASI at any point in the future. “We need good producers to keep stepping up and filling these leadership positions. That’s not to say that I am a good producer. I just think I was outspoken enough that Region four elected me to represent it on the Executive Board. I’ve appreciated working with ASI and learning more about the sheep industry in general, including wool production. Wool is a great fiber and I have learned to appreciate how hard it is to produce fine quality wool and how it is used in garments.” PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE After tripling the size of the row crop operation and add ing sheep to the family farm, Lynn is eyeing one last major change: solar panels. He’s recently signed a contract to put solar panels on the farm. It takes on average seven years from signing the contract to actually having panels up and running, and only 50 to 60 percent of those initial contracts are carried out to fruition. “When we looked at the numbers, we had to do it. Their cash rent per acre is REALLY good,” Lynn said. “We were talking with Samuel at the time about coming back to the farm. He had a corporate job after college, but wanted to come back and work on the farm, so we were trying to figure out how to make that work for everyone when this deal

June 2024 • Sheep Industry News • 23 July 2024 • Sheep Industry News • 23