Perham, Minnesota · Otter Tail County · Est. 1914 · Dryland Grain & Edible Beans
Our Story

Four generations.
One piece of Minnesota.

The name says it all — this farm has carried 1914 for more than a century. Dairy built it. Grain carries it. Data is how we make sure there’s a chapter after ours.

No. 01 — Where We Come From

Rooted in dairy heritage

My great-grandfather started this place right around 1914 — close enough that the year became the name. My grandpa took it over with about fifteen cows in the barn, and he and my grandma built it up however they could: milking, custom chopping for the neighbors, filling silos, even welding snow plows in a little shop he put up — always finding one more way to make the farm pay.

My dad grew the herd and built the barns. And when he retired from the dairy in 2009, the operation passed to me and went a hundred percent to grain. The barn went quiet, the fields got louder, and the questions got more interesting: not just how much did we grow, but what is this soil capable of, and how do we leave it better?

— Michael Steeke, fourth generation

Grandpa with his cane, Dad, and Michael standing together in front of tall tasseled corn

Grandpa, Dad, and me — the fifth generation is growing up on the farm now

No. 02 — The Ledger of Years

How a dairy farm became a data farm

~1914

The first chapter

My great-grandfather broke this ground and set the farm on its way — and four generations have carried what he started ever since. The badge on the grain bins still reads: Est. 1914.

1939 aerial survey photo of the farmstead and fields
The farm from the air, 1939
Grandpa’s years

Fifteen cows and a welder

Grandpa took over the milking, and the side work — the chopping, the silos, the snow plows out of that little shop — kept the farm from ever depending on the cows and one year’s crop alone. Building things to make the farm stronger runs in the family.

Two men with a homemade V-plow clearing deep snow in front of the farmhouse
Plowing out the home place
Late 1980s

Third generation takes the barn

Dad took over the dairy from Grandpa, grew the herd, and built the free-stall barn — the work that built this place.

Inside the free-stall barn during construction
Inside the free-stall barn
1998

The barn burns

The stanchion barn in the middle of the yard burned down. It was the get-big-or-get-out era, and the family chose to keep going: a double-seven parlor went up, the free-stall barn did the housing, the old barn’s footprint became the feed shed — and the silos kept right on working.

2009

The cows leave — grain takes over

Dad retired from the dairy, and the farm passed to the fourth generation — me — and went a hundred percent to grain. A new chapter, and the moment I got truly hooked on the operation.

Sunset over the farmstead
The home place
2012–2016

Data arrives, the rotation stretches

Autosteer, yield mapping, and variable-rate corn seed came in — and we started keeping data on everything. Spring barley joined to break the corn-and-beans cycle, and the first cover-crop cocktails went in behind its early harvest.

2017

The subtraction years begin

We moved to all conventional, non-GMO corn — and kept walking that direction, one input at a time: glyphosate retired for good, every crop on the farm non-GMO, and cover crops spreading until they reached every acre.

2018

The Indicator test changes everything

Running the Indicator Complete soil test from Next Level Ag Labs — the Haney portion especially, alongside the total digest extraction — rewired how we think. The verdict: focus on carbon. Manage biology, not just chemistry. That principle now touches every acre and every pass.

Corn seedlings showing their root systems
What the tests pointed at
2020–2024

Every acre mapped, variable-rate everything

All soils mapped into management zones, in-season soil and tissue sampling on every one of them, and variable rates extended to every crop’s seed, its fertility, and the 2×2 on the planter — prescribed from this season’s tests, never an old one.

2025

The Farm Office goes digital

We built Grain OS, our grain-marketing system — software watches the markets through every session; a person makes every decision. The same AI-as-advisor pattern spread to fertility planning, combine setup, and the grain dryer.

We are stewards of land that belongs to our Creator, entrusted with the sacred responsibility to nurture it with care and grow the healthiest, most nutritious food possible.
— the Steeke family
No. 03 — What We Hold To

The values that run the place

North Star

Food that matters

We grow food that ends up on a table — and we want it to be the most nutrient-dense food we can raise.

Moral Ground

Soil stewardship

Feed the biology, build the carbon, and prove it in the tests — every season.

The Slow Burn

One season at a time

Longer rotation, then covers, then no glyphosate, then all non-GMO. The next moves point the same direction.

Family

Enough is a strategy

The farm fits the family, not the other way around — a design decision, not an accident.

The house motto: enjoy, and always improve.

Why We Farm the Way We Do →