This story is part of Michigan Public's series "Mornings in Michigan," which looks at morning moments from across the state.
Farmers in Michigan, and across the country, are under pressure. From 2002 to 2022, Michigan lost about 670,000 acres of farmland. That’s the equivalent to the size of about seven Detroits.
The challenges have changed over time, and they can make it difficult for Michigan families to pass on their farms from generation to generation.
To meet a family that has kept their farm since the early 20th century, we took a two-hour, early morning drive from the Michigan Public studios in Ann Arbor to Unionville in the Thumb just a few miles from Saginaw Bay.
After driving past many miles of farmland, we saw a house with a green and yellow sign out front beside the road. There was a donkey in a large pen and a peacock roamed around the driveway as we pulled in.
We’d arrived at the Bell Family Farm. That sign we spotted comes from the Historical Society of Michigan. It certifies the farm as a Centennial Farm, which means it’s been owned by the same family for at least 100 years.
The first generation
It was a sunny, windy spring day when we met the Bell family. We sat in some chairs outside near the pen where the donkey, Jack, likes to push around his enormous soccer ball.
Dave Bell inherited this farm from his father Arnold Bell, who inherited the land from Dave's grandfather, Leonard Bell. Dave showed us a copy of the original deed. Total price: $5,500.
Dave's grandfather bought the land in September 1919.
“Poor guy," Dave said. "He never did own a tractor. Everything was horses, you know?"
Dave Bell is 82. His grandfather’s original farmhouse is still here. Dave’s daughter, Terri Eden, and her husband live in it now. Terri is the family historian. She pointed out a horse-drawn plow sitting by some other old, rusty farm equipment.
“I hate that it's in my yard," she said with a laugh. "But I hate to get rid of it because the stories are just... they're sacred, right? Like that... that's history,” Terri said.
The farm has a barn, some sheds, other animal pens, and 76 acres the Bell family has been farming for four generations.
There’s a lot of family history there and some of it’s painful. In 1954, Dave’s grandfather, Leonard Bell, hung himself in a barn that used to stand a few feet away from where we sat. Years later, Dave’s mother asked him to take down that barn.
“I said, 'Okay, Ma,' and I started tearing it down and burning it board by board,” Dave said.
After Leonard's death, Dave’s father, Arnold, then took over the farm and Dave started working with him. He was 10 years old.
"At that point in time, I was driving the little Ford tractor," Dave said. "My dad was a wheat and bean farmer. He raised wheat, seeded the wheat the next spring, plowed the clover down, and had navy beans. And then back and forth. That was his farming."
Dave said he and his dad had a rocky relationship. As Dave gained experience, he said his dad was losing interest in the work himself and expected Dave to run most of the operation at Bell Farm.
Tough times
Keeping a farm in the family means getting through tough years and sometimes even decades. In the 1980s, after borrowing against his land, the acres became worth less than Dave owed. His wife, Phyllis Bell, said the Great Flood of 1986 was another hit.
“Well, it rained so hard, we lost a lot of sugar beets," Phyllis said. "You've got to have the weather working with you. And when it don't, you know, it's bad.”
Sometimes keeping a farm takes more than farming. During those bad years, Phyllis cleaned houses. Dave kept farming, but also took a factory job and became a machinist.
“It's the best thing that ever happened to me because then I started paying tax," Dave said. "Farming, you don't pay no tax. You write it off. So if you ain't got a big retirement on your own on farming, you're in bad shape.”
Renting out the land
According to the Historical Society of Michigan, about 30% of Centennial Farm applications are from families who now rent out their land. And as Dave started getting more factory work, the Bells started renting out their farm to other farmers.
Since the late 1990s, the renter has been a member of the family, a cousin, Jason Haag. Jason mainly farms sugar beets. He drove to meet us at the farm in his massive John Deere sprayer.
We climbed a metal ladder to the cab. Jason started it up.
As we pulled into the field, he pressed a button to unfold the two booms — enormous green, metal arms lined with spray nozzles. Jason said with the sprayer he can fertilize up to 1000 acres a day.
Dave Bell, who has spinal stenosis from years of twisting and turning on less sophisticated machinery, told us Jason and other younger farmers have it easy because of new technology. But Jason said every era brings new concerns, like today’s high fuel and fertilizer prices and interest rates. The sprayer also cost him over a million dollars.
Jason also owns his own farmland and rents other farms, in addition to the Bell property. In total, he farms between 500 and 600 acres.
“You've got to remember, I can't make a living on 200 acres doing what I'm doing. So I gotta be a lot more productive because the margins are a lot, lot thinner than what they were in the '70s and '80s," Jason said.
"I'm hoping my son has it even easier, you know," he added. "Thirty or 40 years down there will be advancements you and I can't even fathom right now. He might be farming while living in Chicago or something like that, controlling everything remotely.”
The next generation
But whether Jason’s two sons will take over is still an open question. The day we visited the farm, his older son, Lincoln Haag, was getting ready for his high school graduation that night. Lincoln has done a lot of farming with his dad.
"I really just like being outside and being able to work with my hands rather than sit at a desk and whatnot,” Lincoln said.
He wants to get a college degree in agriculture like his father did, but said he might not end up working these acres on the Bell Family Farm.
“I'm not a huge fan of the 20-hour days," Lincoln admitted. "So I want to go into agriculture, but I'm not sure if it'll be farming. Right now, I'm kind of leaning towards seed development, like the genetics part of the seeds.”
Jason Haag understands the appeal of other agriculture jobs. He’s built a successful soil quality consulting business, but he always wanted to be a farmer. He would love to see his sons continue that work, but he won’t force them into it.
“I will not do that with either one of my kids," he said. "If they want to come back, that's my job right now is to make the opportunity”
That view is one Kathy Wollensak has heard before. She heads the Centennial Farm program for the Historical Society of Michigan.
"It is true that a lot of times the farm families, the younger generation doesn't want to have anything to do with it, but they don't mind owning the farm. They just don't want to do the work because it's difficult," she told Michigan Public in an interview in May.
The state of Michigan created the Centennial Farm program in 1948 and the Historical Society has run it since 2008. Since its inception, about 7,600 farms have been recognized for staying in the same families for a century or more. However, the program doesn’t track farms that have been sold off after they’re certified.
Wollensak sees a common theme among all the farms.
“I would say the through line is pride of ownership, pride in their family, and they're just so grateful to be able to have that celebrated.”
