Headwinds haven’t stopped this forage harvester

Hoff Farms chops corn for 20 to 25 clients each year, focusing on small and mid-sized dairy operations.

Farming is never easy, but it can be made that much tougher when you’re beginning from scratch. As with many who set their life’s sail toward a sustainable farm business and start with little or nothing, Allen Hoff knows what it’s like to simultaneously fight for a bank loan, operate with and constantly fix older equipment, build and keep a client base, and start a family.

Growing up on his parent’s small family farm near Knapp, Wis., Hoff always had his sights set on being his own boss as a custom forage harvester. “I love this business; I’ve always loved this business. I like the challenge and the people,” he said last fall as we circled a cornfield in his chopper. Our sharing of the chopper cab came after a night where he got 40 minutes of sleep because of a silage bagger repair that needed to be made before morning.

It wasn’t long after graduating from high school in 2000 that Hoff began working for a local tractor salvage yard. He bought his first used silage bagger in 2003 and added another a year later, renting both out to area farmers. He eventually would add two more baggers to his inventory and began working for a local custom harvester in 2006. “We laid out about 3 miles of bags in 2013,” Hoff said. “That was our peak year when there were still a number of smaller dairies that liked to fill their own bags.”

When the custom forage harvester he was working for got out of the business in 2016, the young entrepreneur extended himself to purchase a used chopper and three trucks. These days, Hoff runs a 2015 Claas chopper, three silage baggers, three trucks, a silage cart, a Hesston center-pivot mower, and an Oxbo windrow merger from his home base in Glenwood City, Wis.

Smaller farms

Hoff’s custom forage business, operating as Hoff Farms LLC, services 20 to 25 farms, both dairy and beef, and many of those are return clients every year. Occasionally, he will chop for a bunker or pile silo operation, and on rare jobs will still chop and fill an upright silo. He also helps assist other custom forage harvesters as requested. In the category of unique chopping jobs, Hoff said he has been asked to chop miscanthus, or silvergrass, which some farms use for bedding and construction companies use for mulch. He said it gets chopped in the spring when the plants are brown from overwintering.

“I kind of specialize doing the smaller and medium-sized farms,” Hoff explained. “Some custom operators only want to do a few big jobs, but I enjoy working for a variety of different operations.”

Glenwood City is hardly a “city,” with a population of around 1,200. It’s located in northwest Wisconsin and is known as the “City of 57 Hills.” That moniker offers some idea of the terrain that Hoff often deals with. “We have to cut higher because of rocks,” Hoff noted. “Most fields are small and hilly, so we charge by the cutterhead hour on the chopper. This also helps us avoid having to chop the really bad fields with washouts.” As for the trucks, Hoff said those are charged for by the hour, whether they are moving or not. He encourages his clients to make improvements that will speed up harvest such as trimming trees around field edges and fixing holes in driveways or field roads.

Allen Hoff has a passion for custom chopping. Although it isn’t a path that has always been easy, it’s one he has never regretted taking. “I like the challenge and the people,” he said.

Family matters

In the harvest offseason, Hoff works at a wood shavings company where he does metal fabrication and machinery repair. He is also a regular attendee at the U.S. Custom Harvesters Convention and the Wisconsin Custom Operators Symposium, where he enjoys talking to his peers and company representatives.

Hoff’s wife, Megan, works for a neighboring county’s human services department. The two were married in 2011 and had a son, Leo, in 2019. Hoff describes their son as their “miracle baby several times over.” Megan had been diagnosed and treated for two different forms of cancer before the age of 26. To add to those complications, she was diagnosed with HELLP Syndrome during her pregnancy, air-lifted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and Leo was born premature, weighing 2 pounds, 2 ounces. He remained in neonatal intensive care for 65 days.

Hoff recalls that spring of 2019 when there was widespread alfalfa winterkill in his area. “I only had one alfalfa chopping job that summer, and that turned out to be a blessing for me because I put 9,000 miles on the car between here and Rochester, which is about a 200-mile round-trip drive.” Today, Leo is a typical 5-year-old boy full of sass and orneriness, according to his proud father.

To be sure, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Hoff and his family. Nevertheless, the young custom operator hasn’t been deterred. “A lot of the medium and smaller dairies in this area are or have gone out of business because of retirement or economic reasons, but I still want to keep growing,” he asserted. “For that to happen, we’ll probably have to expand our geographic service area, but right now, I have a family to think about.”

Even with headwinds, it’s never smart to bet against a young farmer with a passion. Most of those boats don’t sink.