"Small country elevators can't compete with large elevators, which have the capability to load grain onto 100-car trains," explained farmer Terry Weckerly, who has spent his entire life in the community. The large elevators, he explained, can transport grain less expensively and are able to pay farmers five to 10 cents a bushel more for grain than can the small country elevators.

Local Elevators Important

That higher price usually goes only to farmers large enough to own their own semi-trucks and haul grain to the distant grain-handling centers. Meanwhile, small farmers with small grain trucks still depend on selling to local elevators. When those country elevators close, the entire community suffers the loss.

So Terry Weckerly took over management of the local elevator. With no experience running a grain elevator, he learned by trial and error and eventually rebuilt a profitable elevator trade in the town. One way he did it was by finding niche markets for specialty crops. Malting barley is one. He buys top malting barley from farmers and ships it directly to malting plants in the state.

Then he started selling fertilizers to farmers. "We concentrate on providing farmers with service," said Terry. "If they couldn't buy fertilizers locally, they'd have to drive at least 25 miles to get it."

The Weckerlys' Hurdsfield Grain, Inc. continues serving local farmers by buying and selling all kinds of grain and shipping it out of the elevator by semi- truck. The profit the elevator earns from trading in specialty grains and selling fertilizers subsidizes this service.

Groceries, Hardware, Cafe

While Terry manages the elevator, his father Norman runs the grocery and hardware store, which the family now owns. They have also partnered with other local people to buy the Community Cafe on Main Street.

While the elevator serves farmers, the Weckerlys' grocery store serves the entire community. But because the business continues to lose money, they don't know how much longer they can keep it running.

Offsetting Losses

For now, the income from the elevator helps offset the store's losses. Norman bought it in 1976 when the previous owners put it up for sale because they were retiring. "He didn't buy it to make money," said Terry. "He bought it to provide a service to the community."

Though they run no livestock, the crops they grow are as diverse as the businesses they run. Their fields grow seven different crops: wheat, barley, corn, flax, canola, sunflowers, and soybeans.

Protection In Diversity

This diversity protects them from total crop failures and drops in market prices. "By growing so many crops we don't end up with all our eggs in one basket," said Terry. "Usually we can do well with at least two out of three."

Soybeans are a relatively new crop for the Weckerlys, as it is for the entire region of central North Dakota, where they farm. This is a traditional wheat-growing area previously considered too dry to grow beans. But in recent years researchers developed more drought-resistant varieties. The above-average moisture the region has received for the past eight years has helped soybean yields too.

"We've been growing soybean crops that are as good as our wheat crops," Terry said. "In fact, we plant soybeans on 25 percent of our land."

Doing custom work for other farmers further diversifies the Weckerlys' farm income and spreads investment in machinery over more land. They custom seed, spray, and harvest for others and also haul grain.

Passing On The Farm

With such a variety of crops and businesses drawing in income, the future of the farm seems secure enough for Terry's son, Chad, to join the farming partnership after graduating from college with a degree in agricultural economics. As a junior partner, Chad owns 10 percent of the operation, while Norman, Terry, and Terry's wife, Wanda, each own 30 percent.

Eventually, of course, Chad will own more of the partnership, and Terry considers it his responsibility to help his son get into farming without burdening him with too much debt. It's just one more way he hopes to not only help his son, but to help keep more farmers on the land. And more farmers mean more life for small towns like Hurdsfield, where he grew up. "We've lost a lot of rural population since I was a kid," he said. "Now we're a retirement community instead of a youthful community where a lot of people are working."

The rural population has dwindled not so much because farmers have specifically intended to get larger, he added, but because, in many cases, the retiring farmers have expected too much from the sale of their land, pricing it out of the reach of their children. It then becomes available to larger farmers looking to buy more land so they can spread costs over a larger land base.

"Historically, it was a family's grandparents who built up farms," he said. "Then, they gave their children a whale of a deal on the land. Those children, when they retire, sometimes forget that they got a deal on the land. They want to sell it for a price that's high enough for them to buy a new home in a big town. But their children can't afford it.

"I see myself as just a keeper of this place," he added. "It's my job to make sure it stays in a manageable state so my kids can continue on with it if they want to." Such commitment to the future and to the survival of family farms and small towns is bound to help Weckerly Farms and the small community of Hurdsfield stay vibrant for many more years to come.