Once a farmer, always a farmer -- even at 95 years old

Pflughaupt's favorite saying is 'One more year.'
Pflughaupt family photo via Farm Progress

At 95 years old, Bob Pflughaupt is still farming, and although he lets someone else do a lot of the work, he's still growing corn and teaching others about agriculture, reports Jennifer Carrico of Farm Progress. Pflughaupt was born and raised in Linn County, Iowa, where his parents and four siblings worked to raise corn, soybeans, oats, hay, chickens, hogs, dairy cattle and beef cattle."

Commenting on how different farming life was compared to present times, Pflughaupt told Carrico: "Back then we had a little bit of everything to take care of the farm. We also had a garden and orchard. The only thing we went to town for was sugar and salt. . . . And that's the way it was for most people. We had fresh eggs and milk, and butchered pigs or cattle for our meat. We were very self-sufficient."

Even though Pflughaupt has moved into an assisted living facility in Marion County, Iowa, he's living proof that "you can't take the farm out of the farmer." He told Carrico, "I’m too young to retire. I have one more year of farming in me." His family has helped him continue doing what he loves. He still gets picked up by a family member regularly to go to the fields and check on the crops. His daughter Jan also told Carrico, "We planted eight corn seeds outside of his window and cared for it while it grew. The other residents were very interested in what was happening. Many didn’t know there was a difference between sweet corn that they eat and field corn. We used it as an educational opportunity.”

The family's DeKalb dealer even provided "a seed-corn sign to add to the test plot. The seed was the same hybrid planted on his farm," Carrico writes. Pflughaupt told her: "I had hoped the corn plants here would do as good as the ones at the farm. I think everything looks good. Corn is certainly a lot more productive now than it was when I planted my last crop out there several years ago. Back then, a bumper crop was 50 bushels per acre. We planted half the number of seeds they are [planting] now. Farming keeps changing. I never thought I’d see 200 bushels per acre.”