| The beet harvest is virtually complete in the Red River
Valley for another year and a group of University of Minnesota, Crookston,
students can go back to their classes with a little more sleep than
they've been getting lately.
The students have been working for Don Edlund and Rob Tollefson 15
miles south of Crookston during the sugar beet harvest. It's something
most of them have taken part in for the last three years, after Edlund put
up a notice looking for workers on bulletin boards at UMC.
"They were looking for truck drivers," said Kevin Poppel, a
UMC junior majoring in agronomy and farm management, "but I told them
I'd be interested in driving a harvester."
Poppel has been running a harvester ever since. Five other UMC
students, Tim Adams, Scott Anderson, Adam Schiller, Matt McBlair and Kyle
Rollness, drove trucks during this year's harvest. Another student, Rachel
Roggenkeemp, ran a shedder. Brian Ronholdt, who took care of primary
tillage after the beets were harvested, completed the student contingent
on the Edlund and Tollefson harvest. The students generally started work
around 4 p.m., after the school day had ended, and they continued through
the night, until about 4 a.m.
"After about 5 o'clock it's all students out here," Poppel
said from the seat of a tractor early Friday evening, on the last night of
the harvest. "It's a good place to be. You form close relationships
working with people like this. It's a good time, a warm atmosphere, and
everybody is good to work with."
Poppel said that working the beet harvest is especially enjoyable for
him because he also worked these same fields for a few days in the spring,
during seeding.
"I had an opportunity to plant most of this field last
spring," he said, motioning toward the beets in front of the
harvester. "Now I'm back and I can look down these rows and say I
planted these beets and now I'm harvesting them. There's nothing better in
the world than that."
Poppel said most of the students involved in the harvest are involved
in agriculture in one way or another at UMC. He says he'd like to farm in
the future, but notes that the financial constraints of getting into
farming these days mean that he'll be working in agriculture in other ways
for some time after he graduates.
"But this is a beginning," Poppel said of the harvest.
"They [Edlund and Tollefson] are giving me the opportunity to learn.
Farming isn't something you can just sit down and learn by reading a book.
You have to do it."
Tollefson said he and Edlund never expected for things to work out as
well as they have when they first put signs up at UMC three years ago.
"We not only have good workers," he said, "but we got
ones who were going to be in school for a while, that could come
back."
Tollefson says even though some of the students have moved on, they've
been able to hire others through the network they have with students
already working there. New people are referred to them by students already
working there. "It's been a good experience for us," he said
about hiring UMC students. "We've been able to get some guys, and
gals, interested in working, good workers who show up for their shift.
It's just been a great asset for our operation."
For Poppel, too, working the beet harvest has been a positive
experience. "This is something I really like about Crookston,"
he said. "Where else can you go to school and get a chance to use
your skills at the same time?"
According to Poppel, as much as he enjoys the beet harvest, he's also
ready to see this year's work completed.
"We're all working for a common goal," he said. "I enjoy
farming so much, but when it gets down to the end I just want to get
everything finished."
Poppel said he normally only catches what sleep he can during the
harvest, a little in the morning, more between classes.
"I'm here to go to school," he said, "so it'll be nice
to have more time for studies once this is done... But this is education,
too, and there's just something about the beet harvest. There's just
something about having the power to pick these things up out of the
ground." |