SD Farm Bureau boss retires

• Held retires

After nearly 36 years as executive director of the South Dakota Farm Bureau, Mike Held retired at the end of August. (Chris Huber/Republic)

Talk about it

HURON — Thirty-five years and 11 months ago, the South Dakota Farm Bureau hired a new executive director.

On Aug. 31, that man, Mike Held, retired from his post.

“If I’d have stayed one more month, it would have been 36 years in October,” Held said.

But the 66-year-old Farm Bureau veteran was part of agriculture long before he joined the world’s largest farm organization.

The Slinger, Wis., native grew up on an 80-acre dairy farm with registered Holstein cattle, 10 acres of woods and 23 fields.

He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in dairy science, and then in July 1969 went to work for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau.

Even though Wisconsin and South Dakota aren’t exactly neighbors, Held said he had worked with the South Dakota Farm Bureau and heard about an opening. At that time, the South Dakota Farm Bureau and Wisconsin Farm Bureau worked together in Farm Bureau insurance.

Held was encouraged by the Wisconsin Farm Bureau people to look at the opportunity to come to South Dakota and be the executive director.

He joined the South Dakota Farm Bureau on Oct. 4, 1976, after working for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau in Jefferson, Wis., for seven years.

What does Held remember about the beginning of his time in South Dakota?

Drought.

“ ’76 was a far worse drought than we have in 2012,” he said. “It was quite a shocking transition to see how severe the drought was in South Dakota.”

Another shock, he said, was to see the state that the South Dakota Farm Bureau’s finances were in.

“The condition of the Farm Bureau when I came in 1976, at best, was precarious,” he said. “We were under water.”

Thirty-five years and 11 months later, Held said the South Dakota Farm Bureau, headquartered in Huron, is on solid financial footing. The organization has reserves that would allow it to operate for a year without having any income.

Though Held said he didn’t do it alone, restoring Farm Bureau’s financial security is one of his proudest accomplishments during his tenure as president.

“I would put that at the top of the list,” he said.

A close second has been the increase in Farm Bureau’s member families. There were fewer than 5,000 Farm Bureau families when Held came to South Dakota, but the organization will finish this membership year with about 12,500 families.

That increase is especially notable, he said, because rural populations — where Farm Bureau got its start — are dwindling.

“One of the assets that Farm Bureau had that most other farm organizations did not have was a local county organization with officers and a board of directors,” Held said. “It’s far more challenging today to keep activity at the county Farm Bureau level.”

The South Dakota Farm Bureau bills itself as “an effective agriculture organization that serves its members by working to improve the personal, social, economic and political interests of South Dakota’s farm and ranch families.”

The long-time executive director said farming has changed drastically since he first started with Farm Bureau, with much of those changes stemming from technological advances.

While Held said technology and a “more mobile society” likely have contributed to part of the population shift, he said technology also has improved farming and helped agriculture producers.

“The whole electronic age has allowed a lot of rural farmers and ranchers to be connected, some obviously better than others, but they are connected,” Held said.

Those connections keep farmers up-todate on everything from prices to global events to supply and demand.

Though Held is leaving the South Dakota Farm Bureau in better shape than he found it, he said the organization is not without its local or national challenges.

“The world population is growing,” he said. “There’s going to be a tremendous demand for food, fiber and fuel to be produced by farmers and ranchers.”

But, he said society has changed, and not everyone understands — or supports — agriculture.

“We used to talk about consumers being two generations removed from the farm; now it’s more like three or four,” Held said. “That is one of the challenges that agriculture and Farm Bureau has taken under its wing, to build that relationship.”

Held said the Farm Bureau is leading the charge in educating those who have no knowledge of agriculture producers’ methods, or their mission.

That mission, Held said, is still very basic: Grow food for people to eat.

“We are finding that most non-farmers in the U.S. don’t care if we can feed the world or not, but farmers still have a deep-seated feeling that that is one of their responsibilities, to provide production not only for people of the United States, but for the entire world,” Held said.

“We need to have a discussion with them about modern farming practices. We need to have discussions about the environmentally friendly techniques that ag producers use today — the care that farmers and ranchers give to their livestock, and the important role that biotechnology plays in our abundant production, not only today, but in that challenge of feeding a world that will have somewhere in the realm of 9 billion people by 2050.”

Another challenge, Held said, is helping people get back to “the basics of what made America successful.”

“We didn’t used to look to the federal government to solve every problem,” he said. “We expected people to try to work together to solve their problems, and if they found they had to go to government, they would go to the government that is most local to them.”

Despite the challenges, though, Held said he is optimistic about the agriculture industry, and Farm Bureau’s role in supporting it.

So, why retire? And why now?

Simple, Held said. Family.

He said his four children and 15 grandchildren are spread across the country, as far east as Madison, Wis., west to Logan, Utah, and south to Dallas, Texas.

“I love to go to work every day, but my wife and I find ourselves not being able to find enough time with family that’s geographically dispersed like that,” Held said.

In addition to spoiling grandchildren, Held said he hopes to return to coaching youth baseball.

“I’ve played baseball for 50 years and it’s a great game,” he said. “I would like to share the respect I have for and my knowledge of the game with 13- to 14-year-old baseball players so that some of them can have that same lifetime enjoyment.”

And though he won’t be leading the South Dakota Farm Bureau any longer, he’ll still be involved.

Held said he will contract with the state Farm Bureau to do lobbying in Pierre when the Legislature is in session, and other odds and ends.

“I was really getting to have some reservations about the whole thing being done, so this will keep me involved and keep me connected, but also free up some of the other responsibilities so I have more time for family,” he said. “That really could be described as the best of both worlds.”

Another thing that gave him peace of mind was confidence in his replacement, longtime state Farm Bureau employee Wayne Smith.

“Wayne Smith has been on my staff for more than 25 years,” Held said. “He’s very qualified and very capable, and will step in here to try to continue the Farm Bureau efforts.”

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