Time is at a premium for Brad Boelens. He works full time at John Deere Harvester Works, as a customer and product support representative. He heads to the farm, near Cambridge, Ill., on his days off, farming part time with his dad and older brothers.

Back home, he and wife Hilary are raising Emily, 5, and Laura, 3, on their Henry County farm, along with 30 chickens and four beehives.

“When will I have the time?” Brad questions, speaking specifically of adding livestock operations, but generally of life itself.

It’s a question a lot of young farmers ask themselves, as they carve out a future on the family farm while earning income off the farm and raising young families.

“It’s tough to work two jobs,” Brad says, though he’s not complaining. He knows he’s fortunate, and that he’s a dying breed of young people who have both opportunity and capacity to do what he does. That Hilary wants to be more involved in the farm is icing on the cake.

“My wife wants to be a part of it,” he says. “She has a love for animals. She wants to start hopping on the tractor and helping out.”

The Boelenses farm 1,300 acres with Brad’s father and brothers, while raising 4,600 head of hogs annually. His brothers stay busy, too; Brock farms full time and runs a seed business, and Brian farms part time and works for John Deere’s seeding group.

“The fertilizer we get from the hog buildings is amazing,” Brad says. “Some of the best ground we have has that manure on it. It’s a natural fertilizer byproduct that helps replace fertilizer inputs.”

The Boelens family raises corn and soybeans, and like a lot of farmers, has moved away from anhydrous nitrogen completely, sidedressing everything instead.

Still, Brad and Hilary come back to diversification, and to a line shared with them during their time as members of the Cultivating Master Farmers Class of 2019, a program where young farmers and Master Farmers have the opportunity to interact. What did the Master Farmers tell the young farmers?

“Farm better before farming bigger,” Brad recalls. “It’s not easy to get bigger right now, but it’s always running through my head. I want to do anything I can to help make the farm more efficient — just like everyone else in the family.”

Brad and Hilary say they’ve listened to Master Farmers talk about how they didn’t start big and didn’t inherit farms, and yet they’ve made it.

“How did they get there? A lot of it is stewardship,” Brad says, adding that you have to ask yourself how you represent yourself and your farm.

“One thing my brothers and I try to do is represent our farm the best we can, and hopefully someday we’ll have an opportunity,” he says, adding that his brother Brock and wife Natalie were members of the CMF Class of 2015.

“We want to farm because it’s what we love to do,” Brad adds.

And if they could get to the point where all three brothers farm full time?

“We’d love it,” Brad says. “We want the freedom to be outside, be your own boss and enjoy it.”

ADVICE: “Farm better before farming bigger.” That’s the timeless advice Brad Boelens has picked up from his time in the Cultivating Master Farmers program with his wife, Hilary. “I want to do anything I can to help make the farm more efficient — just like everyone else in the family.”

Real diversification

While the Boelens family may have a stake in the hog business, Hilary’s livestock interests are decidedly smaller in proportion — but no less fruitful. She is raising 30 laying hens and managing four beehives.

“The honey and poultry operations really dovetail into how we strive to operate: doing the best we can with what we have,” she says. “We try to do that across all areas in our farming operation and daily life.”

Hilary got hooked on bees a few years ago, helping a friend with hives. Today, she thrives on the challenge of managing her own hives, mounting a constant learning curve (noting “with bees, things are never the same”), and pulling her first liquid-gold honey crop this summer. She sells her honey locally and plans to do the same with eggs, when the pullets start laying.

“We have a lot of friends with small businesses and friends from church who are looking for locally raised food, like chicken and eggs,” Brad says.

And honey? Beekeeping started out as something to play with, but now Hilary has found a market, particularly with people who want local honey, which is supposed to help with allergies.

Down the road, Hilary’s considering a small flock — 50 head or so — of meat birds, and she’s growing peaches, plums, pears, apples and blackberries in their orchard.

MARKET: “We have a lot of friends who are looking for locally raised food, like chicken and eggs,” says Brad Boelens of Hilary’s poultry and honey efforts.

“Starting with poultry this spring was a pretty simple decision: I wanted to produce high-quality meat and eggs for our family,” she says. “I know the care and the nutrition we give our birds daily, and I take a lot of pride in that.”