Photo courtesy of Ashley Millner Matt Millner, his daughter Brooklyn and his son Leo pet a calf on the farm. Matt and Ashley Millner said it’s been rewarding to raise their children on the farm - the kids love being outside and and spending time with family, they said.

As a boy, Matt Millner loved spending time on his grandparents’ farm in southwest Minnesota.

“From being a young kid, I liked coming to the farm, and helping with the cattle and the equipment,” Millner said. It was something that stuck with him as he got older, too. Now he’s the fifth generation on the family farmstead.

Millner farms land in western Lyon County and eastern Lincoln County, working together with family including his grandparents Galen and Marie Grant, his wife Ashley, and his father-in-law Joel Schreurs.

Having the connections of family, friends and neighbors have been important in keeping the farm running, Matt and his family members said.

“It takes everybody to make it work,” Marie Grant said.

“We’re pleased that it’s continuing, because it is approaching a century farm status,” Galen Grant said.

Grant said of having a multi-generation family farm, “It increases your desire to have it stay in place, and keep going. Otherwise, I personally would feel like it was sort of a letdown to my grandfather and my father, if we just let it fall by the wayside without reason.”

The farm where the Millners are now raising their family was purchased by Galen’s grandfather, Marie Grant said. “And then his dad farmed it, and then Galen and I did,” she said.

“It has always been a grain and livestock farm,” Galen Grant said. But farm technology and equipment changed a lot from his grandfather’s time. “He graduated from horses, to old John Deere tractors that would pull a two-bottom plow,” Galen said.

Today, farm equipment is even bigger.

“The cattle have always been here. My grandfather initially had some milk cows, but before I can recall, he and my father were feeding cattle together. Then we started with the cows after my father passed on,” he said. “We decided, we had a lot of rough ground, we’d try cows on it. And they worked well.”

Although Matt Millner grew up in Rochester, he loved coming to visit his grandparents’ farm.

“From the time he was very little, he wanted to spend as much time as he could on the farm,” Marie Grant said.

When he was in high school, Matt even moved from Rochester to stay with his grandparents. “People everywhere wasn’t my thing. I just liked being in the country,” he said.

As an adult, “I went to school to be a carpenter, and did construction,” Millner said. He didn’t know he would have the chance to become a farmer, until his grandparents asked him about taking on their farm. “I had always helped around the farm, but they asked me if I wanted to farm one of the fields, and they kind of led the show on that one,” he said.

Today, the Millners raise stock cows, corn and soybeans, as well as a little alfalfa for the cows.

Living in southwest Minnesota and doing farm work was also how Matt got to know Ashley and her family. Ashley Millner grew up farming. She said she enjoyed spending quality time with family, and having that connection with them. She also had jobs around the farm.

“It’s probably where my work ethic comes from,” she said.

Ashley’s dad Joel Schreurs said Matt started helping him farm after Schreurs’ father developed Alzheimer’s disease.

“That’s how Matt and I started farming together, is I asked him to help me out when my dad got sick,” Schreurs said. “Matt was working construction at the time, and he would come there after work in the evening, and then we would combine until midnight or later sometimes, to get the crop out.”

“Our farm was a livestock and grain farm also,” Schreurs said. “I had livestock until the kids were about done with high school. I just didn’t have enough help to continue with the livestock. Before that I raised feeder cattle, hogs, and sheep at one time. But it was too labor-intensive.”

Before working with Joel Schreurs, Matt had also worked with Joel’s brother David, and helped out with the sheep.

Today, the Millners, Grants and Schreurs all work together. Farming is a challenging profession, with changing costs, crop yields and prices, as well as events like storms that can affect crops, Matt and his family said. Ashley Millner said one thing that has helped their family is being honest with each other and talking about ways to move forward.

Ashley Millner said she and Matt had each supported each other’s dreams. “Matt’s dream was to be a farmer,” she said, and Matt supported her as she became a therapist. She balances her work with being a mom and working on the farm.

Matt and Ashley both said they were happy to be raising their children, Brooklyn, 5, and Leo, 3, on the farm.

“It’s fun to see the kids enjoy farming, and helping with the animals,” Ashley said. It was good for them to be able to have those experiences, she said.

“It’s rewarding just to see how much they enjoy everything on the farm,” Matt said. “They love being outside. They love being around the cattle,” he said. “They come home, and especially my son, he’ll notice if a tractor in the yard has moved.”

Family connections are still an important part of their lives, too, Ashley said. “It’s fun to see the kids connect with their great-grandparents on Matt’s side. Not everyone gets to say they knew their great-grandparents,” she said.

The connections of family and community are vital to their farms’ survival, Matt and his family members said. Some of connection comes from family members helping with farm work. Even after they retired, Galen and Marie Grant said they still come back to the farm to help out.

“We moved to town, but the farming is in our blood. I love it out here,” Marie said.

“The family operation, for me, it’s very rewarding,” Schreurs said. “Some days we’re in here talking, and Galen’s always got a joke, it never fails.”

Schreurs said he and Matt do a lot of the day-to-day work at his farm, although more help is needed for planting and harvest. Compared to the Grants, Schreurs said, he was “kind of in the middle” as far as farm transitioning. “Matt and I have conversations as to what we’re thinking, what we should do with a certain field, and how do we make it better,” he said.

“We’re very fortunate,” to have relationships with extended family and friends in the community, Matt Millner said. They rent farmland from those friends and family, he said. “They understand we all need to make a living,” both the farmers and the landowners, he said.

Matt said farming also takes support not just in the field, but at home. “It takes a lot more family and friends than what are just running the equipment,” he said of farm operations. “Your year-to-year wouldn’t go by without all of those people.”