As an early adopter of technology, fifth-generation Iowa farmer Jason Haglund gets a thrill out of testing innovative products on his farm (while wearing his signature khaki pants). He combined his training as a therapist and experience as a behavioral health executive with his love of agriculture to co-found Rural Policy Partners.
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Meet Jason Haglund
Technology in agriculture is always evolving, thanks in part to farmers who are willing to test products and methods. Jason Haglund, nicknamed the “khaki farmer,” due to his impeccable style in the field, is one of those early adopters, welcoming all kinds of innovations to his Boone County, Iowa, farm.
In addition to farming, Haglund spent 20 years as an executive and leader in behavioral healthcare, addiction treatment, prevention, and child welfare systems. He decided he could make a bigger impact helping rural communities and families by working to affect behavioral health policy, so he and a former state legislator co-founded Rural Policy Partners. Now he educates politicians and the public about mental health needs in rural America.
Episode Highlights
- Haglund farms with his brother-in-law, growing 500 acres of row crop corn and soybeans near Boone, Iowa. Estate planning was an important part of being able to continue the family farm after Haglund’s father’s passing.
- Haglund has been inspired by some well-known high-yield farmers to try new things to make the most of his land. He uses cover crops, late season fungicide, and nutrient management on his farm, and tests all kinds of product innovations and new methods.
- As a founder of Rural Policy Partners, Haglund has spent the past three years traveling, public speaking, and working with legislators in different states about mental health needs in rural America and promoting the integration of behavioral healthcare into the healthcare system.
- For most farmers, finances are a major stress, which Haglund says is all the more reason to continually assess succession plans and make sure they stay up to date.
Jason Haglund
A few years ago, we tried some intercropping. So you throw corn and soybeans in the planter at the same time. We did a six row split on a trial of about 80 acres…. It didn’t work out so well, but it sure was a good conversation in the neighborhood because a lot of people would stop by and say, ‘You mean to plant both corn and soybeans in that field?’
— Jason Haglund
Links and Resources
- Visit Rural Policy Partners to learn more about the group’s mission.
- Listen to the Stepping In It podcast from Haglund and Renee Schulte, discussing behavioral health policy development and practice.
- Listen to mental health crusader Kathy Fahy’s interview on 15 Minutes With a Farmer.
Transcript
Please note: This transcript has not been edited.
Lisa Foust Prater: Welcome to the 15 Minutes with a Farmer Podcast from Successful Farming, I’m your host, Lisa Foust Prater. My guest today is Jason Haglund, a fifth-generation Iowa farmer and founding member of Rural Policy Partners, which helps rural communities with behavioral health policy. In each episode, I have a quick 15-minute conversation with a farmer to hear their story and share their experience, expertise, and life lessons.
Jason, thank you so much for joining me today on 15 minutes with a farmer.
Jason Haglund: It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Lisa Foust Prater: So I know that you’re a fifth generation Iowa farmer. Tell me a little bit about your family farm’s history and then what it looks like today.
Jason Haglund: It was 1885 that J.B. Haglund came to this country as a Finnish speaking Swede. And I actually have his citizenship documents that I found during COVID. Three years ago, we went through and did a bunch of ancestry. And so we were able to kind of retrace the steps back. And so I still farm that same land in Boone County from 1885. So you asked about history, that goes way back, right? So 140 years later, here I am farming that same land and hopefully the sixth generation will come along, either my sister’s kids or my own kids will want to take over and farm that same little piece of land in Boone County, right?
Lisa Foust Prater: Isn’t that so interesting to think about that history and what those lives must’ve been like, you know, coming to America, not speaking English and just setting down roots and finding yourself in Boone County, Iowa. And here you are setting up a farm and gosh, just the changes in technology and in the world in those 140 years. I mean, can you imagine what they would think if they could see things today?
Jason Haglund: The evolution is unbelievable. I think about the rapid pace just in my lifespan of how farming has changed, of how what we do has changed, the way we approach the technology and the science has changed. I can’t imagine, you know, working oxen or driving horse. I can’t imagine it. I did it at Living History Farms, so I can’t imagine doing it. you know, I can’t imagine doing it to the scale of what we do today. It’s just, it’s really mind blowing.
Lisa Foust Prater: It’s so fascinating to think about. So what does the farm look like today?
Jason Haglund: Yeah, so the farm today, it’s really my brother-in-law and I, you know, we formed a company, we did our own succession planning, you know, part of the evolution of farming is figuring out in the complications of how we live today, of how do we manage a multi-generational family business? How do we structure it so that it can continue into the future? And so one of the things that we’ve worked really hard to do,
You know starting, you know with my dad before he died it was figure out what is this going to look like? How do we transition the land and the equipment and move it forward so that hopefully my kids and my sister’s kids can do the same thing.
So now we’re just around 500 acres row crop corn and soybeans really trying to push technology and so we’re in a kind of a special place that we can do things we can take risks because both my brother and I, my sister, my wife, we all, we all work off the farm as well. So we’re able to do some things and really push some things to be innovative. Right. And, know, kind of both my professional life and my farming life is really about being entrepreneurial, pushing the limits and seeing what we can do. And so really I’ve been able to do the best of both worlds, and doing that on our farming operation as well. And so my brother-in-law feels the same way about how we do that. And so we really get to do some fun stuff.
Lisa Foust Prater: So what kind of things have you been doing?
Jason Haglund: Well, you know, so we do a lot of things and our neighbors look at us and go, what are you boys doing? You know, so, you know, part of what we want to do is we really want to push. We want to make the most of what we have. Right. And so, you know, we, we, we work, we, we’re, I’m a firm believer is you should always surround yourself with people smarter than you. Right. I do that both, you know, in all aspects of my life is I really want to, if I want to grow, then I got to get uncomfortable places. And so, you know, we’re part of a little group with David Hula, Randy Dowdy, know, some of the big yield guys who helped to coach us and mentor us. And I think those opportunities are really good. It helps to challenge you to see what you can do. So a few years ago, we tried some intercropping. So you throw corn and soybeans in the planter at the same time, we did a six row, six row split, did that we did a trial of about 80 acres. It was a whole lot of work. And we didn’t get a whole lot of yield bump. There’ll be people around across the country that say, that’s the way to go. You get huge yield on corn.
It didn’t work out so well, but it sure was a good conversation in the neighborhood because a lot of people would stop by and say, you mean to plant both corn and soybeans in that field? But, you know, we were able to do a lot of things. Well, you know, we do a lot. My son does a lot with drones, so we’ve been able to do some cover crops, which is very different than what we did historically. We do a lot of late season fungicide. We do a lot of nutrient management, you know, really looking at how do we maximize what we can do. And so it’s been really exciting. Sometimes it’s a little scary because we’re mixing a whole lot of things together for that sprayer pass. And even our cooperative will be like, you have to come out here and mix it because we don’t even know how to do this. And they can’t even get the products that we’re using right now. But that’s part of the fun, right?
We really want to push the limits and see if we can’t do things just a little bit differently. And I’m sure if you think about all those generations before me, if they would look at the way we do things now and the way that we manage, they’d be going, why are you doing that? You know, but I think that’s part of, know, as we look ahead, as we think about workforce and we think about all of the things we have to think about, you know, how do we have to, how are we going to think differently? You know, I, I’m nervous still when I fly a drone and I’m, know, the younger generations, they just pick up that controller and they can zip around and do things that I’m like, it scares me to death. Right.
But you know, I just think of how that technology is going to change and shape farming moving forward in ways that we can’t even imagine yet. And so I’d rather be on the front end of those things. I don’t want to be sitting back and waiting. I’d rather test those things out now, even if they’re not perfect, right? A lot of those technologies aren’t perfected. But boy, it sure is fun to see how you can do things differently and measure it and look at the responsiveness of it and look at that data and use data. So I guess that’s the scientist in me, right?
Lisa Foust Prater: Yeah, I love that. you know, someone has to push the envelope. Someone has to be the one to say, yeah, we’ll try it here and see what it does in Iowa or, know, in Boone County and what, what, how it goes here. And I just love the thought of your neighbors coming over and looking at what you’re doing and being like, what is happening here?
Jason Haglund: Absolutely.
Lisa Foust Prater: You also are a founding member of Rural Policy Partners, which helps rural communities with behavioral health policy. And that is something I’m very interested in as well. I write a lot about mental health and those kinds of issues in rural America. so tell us about Rural Policy Partners and what brought you to that.
Jason Haglund: Yeah, well, you know, that’s actually what I went to school to do, right? I spent 20 years as an executive, managing nonprofits, behavioral health, outpatient clinics, treatment facilities. You know, I went to school to be a therapist. So like, I never dreamed I would even be a farmer, right? But you know, that ruralness doesn’t leave you right showing pigs at the fair being in 4-H growing up on a farm. It’s always with you and I always secretly farm but always had this professional career.
And so it wasn’t really until the last five years I realized, you know what, I’m going to turn a new page because I can make a bigger impact helping rural communities and rural families. And so a friend of mine kind of drew me in. She’s a former state legislator. She said, hey, there’s a lot of work we could do around policy, around educating politicians, about really making a difference for rural communities across the country. And I’m like, well, what can I give to that conversation? She goes, trust me.
And so we started doing some projects and I’ve spent the last three years traveling, public speaking, working with different legislators in different states, really around how do we bridge this gap? We’ve got isolation, we’ve got rural communities really struggling. And so how do we talk in agriculture and ranching in these frontier communities and these ranching communities, these agricultural communities about stress, about emotional wellbeing because a lot of folks are really struggling. And really that’s where I spent the bulk of the last three years. It’s been fantastic. Just going out and having conversations with folks and finding different ways to help integrate behavioral healthcare into the healthcare system.
Lisa Foust Prater: I’m, certainly not an expert, but I’ve talked to a lot of people both who are experts and who are farmers and ranchers who have dealt with their own, you know, their own issues. And, I feel like I’ve seen sort of a shift in just the willingness of people to talk about things, maybe a little more publicly.And I’m wondering if you’re seeing that.
Jason Haglund: It absolutely is. I always cite the Rural Healthy People 2030 report, where for the first time, rural communities said that access to behavioral health and addiction treatment is more important or more necessary than just primary care. And that’s the first time the conversation of rural areas has really shifted to that. And so my work with critical access hospitals, really, that’s the new conversation. So people are more willing to talk about it, but there still is that stigma. There’s still that hesitation to have the conversation. And I think that’s what’s and there’s the disconnect. Sometimes our systems are so disconnected. Our health care system has forgotten about behavioral health in a lot of places. And so it’s not just rural communities wanting to talk about it, but it’s our health care institutions having to figure out how to have the conversation and lead the conversation as well. And I think that’s really where the opportunity is, is it’s really up to our local. We think about those institutions that we look to, our local hospitals, our local schools, they really need to be empowered and have the tools and resources to have these conversations and have the professionals there who can lead those conversations. And unfortunately, that sometimes that doesn’t exist because we’ve never funded that. We’ve never created the opportunity for small communities to take the lead in having this conversation.
Lisa Foust Prater: You know, if you’re a doctor or a nurse or any sort of medical professional in one of those facilities and a farmer, or a rancher comes through your door and they’re talking to you about either physical symptoms or emotional behavioral symptoms, things that are happening in their life, what they are telling you is so different from the things that a non ag person could be telling you.
Jason Haglund: Well, we have to be able to teach people to talk farmer because you just don’t get to say to a farmer or rancher, go take a day off, take some time for yourself because the cows still have to be milked. The corn still has to come out, right? You don’t get to, you don’t say things like that. And so a lot of my time has spent educating people on how do you talk to people? How do you talk to ranchers? How do you talk to farmers? Because it’s not the same. Your bedside manner looks different. And that’s part of what I’ve brought to this full circle, right? Going from working in the facilities, overseeing facilities, to actually wearing my farmer hat more often than not when I’m out and training folks and saying, this is how you talk to a farmer.
Lisa Foust Prater: So what, is your advice to, you know, to farmers who maybe see one of their neighbors, who may be struggling or, how do you know, you know, what, what, what should people look for in each other?
Jason Haglund: Any anytime there’s a change, right? And so, you know, I always tell people if you see something, say something right. If you notice something, just call it out. Right. One of the core one of our core beliefs when we started rural policy partners was we said three words that mean the most to us. That was that we’re willing to be candid, creative and collaborative. Right. And it goes back to my agricultural roots. You know, and Renee growing up in Iowa and be a legislator here in Iowa is that we’re not afraid to have candid conversations.
We want to sit down at the table, look across from someone and tell them how we feel. It doesn’t matter if it’s our neighbor or if it’s a legislator in another state. That’s what we do. We’re creative in coming up with solutions and helping problem solve. And we want to be collaborative. Right. And I think every interaction we have should be based around those three pillars. And I think that no matter what the conversations we need to have with someone, we shouldn’t shy away from having a conversation, even if it’s a tough conversation. If we’re doing out of caring and compassion it’s gonna be okay, but we have to be willing to be, we have to be willing to have that conversation and prepare ourselves for the days we do have to those conversations because it may be with our kids or our grandkids, not just a neighbor.
Lisa Foust Prater: Right. Yeah. you know, that’s so true. And with a spouse or your parents and those kind of conversations can be hard, especially, know, if it’s with someone who may be their sort of your authority figure and not the other way around. If you notice your parent or, you know, someone like that struggling, that can be tough to sort of tell them, I’m worried about you. And their answer can be, well, I’m the one who does the worrying. How do you do that?
Jason Haglund: And frankly, I tell you, I see it. I see it all the time when we start having conversations about succession planning or being worried about a parent or grandparent who’s still driving the tractor at 85 years old who shouldn’t be in that tractor anymore, right? These are all conversations that we’re gonna have to have someday and thinking about how can we do that in a way that’s meaningful.
Lisa Foust Prater: I loved what you said about, you know, that you and your sister that you had talked with your father about succession planning and that you had all of that figured out. So talk about that a little about succession planning and like, you know, why it’s so important not just to continue the farm, but to safeguard your own mental health.
Jason Haglund: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, think you’re right. mean, financial stress, 80% of Americans, their number one stressor is finances. And we know in the agricultural community with prices the way they are, land values, rent. I mean, I could go through the list of just how stressful finances are right now. And I think that’s part of it, right? It’s having a plan, not just for the landowners, but it’s that ongoing process of what happens next. I one of the things I’ve learned about succession planning over the years is it never stops, right?
If you want your farm to continue long after you’re not here anymore, what have you done to educate and teach everyone how to manage on that farm? You can’t just give up the reins when you’re 80 and say, okay, good luck. Somebody needs to teach you all along the way, right? Because I was probably in my mid 40s, almost 50, before I think I really started to figure out and make real decisions on the farm. And most farmers love to hang on to control. And I think that’s something I really want to retire early. So I’m really thinking I want to shuffle control off as soon as possible. I guess I have a different perspective. But I think that’s part of thinking about how can you stay engaged, but yet still educate and bring along those younger generations so that they’re there to take over? Because we’re losing farmers faster than we’re bringing new farmers to our rural areas. We’re losing ranchers faster. We’re losing all aspects of our rural communities. And so we really need to mentor and bring folks back. And so we need to think about doing things differently to be able to do that.
Lisa Foust Prater: Absolutely. And I think the technology is a big part of that. The willingness to take risks and do things differently is a big part of that. Improving healthcare services is a big part of that because it’s not a big draw for agriculture when you see the depression and suicide rates. That’s not super attractive as an industry. You know, improving all of those things is only going to help our industry as a whole. So it’s really behooves everyone to try to do that for all of us.
Jason Haglund: Absolutely.
Lisa Foust Prater: Jason, you’re doing such good work. I love hearing about all the innovating things you’re doing on the farm and also just the fantastic work with rural policy partners. That’s such important, important work you’re doing there. So thank you for all you’re doing for behavioral health in rural America and keep up the great work. I look forward to following you and seeing what’s next.
Jason Haglund: Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.
Lisa Foust Prater: Thank you for listening. Please subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Open the latest issue of Successful Farming and visit us online at agriculture.com for more interesting features and news for your farm and Join me next week for another episode of 15 Minutes With a Farmer.