Dinses’ farm award is ‘a family affair’

It took several minutes, but Mike Dinse eventually – grudgingly – allowed that he “must be doing something right.”

Indeed: He and his wife Marsha, along with their three children, were named the 2022 Steele County Farm Family of the Year.

They will be recognized during the Steele County Livestock Hall of Fame program at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Dinses were selected by a county committee for the University of Minnesota Extension Service, which judges nominees on their support of agriculture, agriculture production and leadership.

Their response to learning about the award was that “you’re very, very humbled, but honored, more than anything,” Marsha Dinse said.

Humble is right. Here’s her husband’s description of their operation:

“We’re just basically a corn and bean farm that used to be a farrow to finish, years ago,” he said. Dinse “rented ground from my dad, and picked up some other ground, and now we’re sitting at 1,600 acres.”

The pair are fourth-generation farmers; all three of the kids are in ag-related careers, making it a five-generation vocation.

Their son, Matt, works for Central Farm Service as a precision ag specialist; son Mitch has a degree in ag education; daughter Mikayla is a junior at South Dakota State University, majoring in animal science with minors in ag business and ag marketing.

“She’s interested in the nutritional piece,” Marsha said, “as well as the breeding and genetics end of it.”

Mitch teaches industrial technology and some of the ag education at Owatonna High School, “and is really working with new programming for the new high school,” she said.

Marsha Dinse teaches third grade at Wilson Elementary; this is her 30^th year with the Owatonna School District.

Perhaps not surprisingly, she believes one of the most important things about agriculture is educating people.

“I grew up on a farm, too,” she said. “As Steele County Pork Queen, it was my duty and obligation to make people aware of exactly what things go into agriculture and animals.”

So did they encourage their kids to pursue ag careers?

“You give them an opportunity, but they have to make their own choices,” Mike said. “You can’t push it on them. They were all involved in 4-H, so they got a taste from that perspective, but they’ve been exposed to it their whole life, so they know what it entails.”

Marsha Dinse also credits 4-H for their family’s legacy.

“They’ve shown animals ever since they were little, and definitely had a passion for that,” she said. “They developed that work ethic and responsibility and got involved a great deal with different aspects of the county fair. For us, it was a huge family time, and family opportunity.”

Still, her husband said, “I wanted them to get out and find something else, so they had something to compare it to. I was an electrician for 15 years, until my dad retired, but I was fortunate enough to have a good employer that let me off in the spring and the fall” to help his father on the farm.

He took over operations of the family farm in the early 2000s.

Dinse said the most important – and perhaps the most surprising – thing about ag is easy to answer.

“All the technology that’s out there now,” he said. “It’s kind of cool in some ways, and kind of irritating in other ways, but it’s something you have to adapt to. It’s a way to get more efficient – both from an operation perspective, and fertilizer and seed usage.”

Dinse’s mechanical inclination extends to computers.

“If you look at it from the perspective of cause and effect, you can make a lot of things work,” he said. “If you just put some logic to it, and realize what your goal is at the end, it’s no different from fixing a piece of equipment. You have to understand how it works, and if you understand how it works, that’s three-fourths of the battle.”

Despite that ability, “I’ve been pretty conventional through the years, and it works for me, so I don’t see (myself) changing. I don’t see a reason to yet,” he said.

So how long does he plan to farm?

“Undetermined,” Marsha said.

Mike agreed.

“I’ll have to go with ‘undetermined.’ It’s going really well, and I’m not that old,” he said. “The stuff that moves on the end of the pitchfork isn’t there anymore; everything is being pushed around by hydraulics and diesel engines, for the most part. That makes your life a lot easier, saves the wear and tear on the body.”

This conventional farmer knows that technology is king, but offered this:

“I’ll roll with the punches, but I’ve always kind of thought that the first mouse never gets the cheese,” he said. Sometimes being on the cutting edge and investing resources “doesn’t pan out like it did on paper. From that perspective, I’ll let somebody else do that…”

In the meantime, their son Matt and his wife, Paige, have a new son.

Does that mean a sixth generation? Only time will tell, of course, but as Marsha said of the Dinse farm:

“It’s definitely a family affair; it really truly is.”