Meet the Farmer: Bill Couser

A month ago, I had the opportunity to tour the Couser Cattle Company in Nevada, IA. Our tour guide was Bill Couser himself. Bill provided a brief tour and presentation of the Couser Cattle operation, and a Q & A session. Bill’s transparency toward consumers about his practices combined with his passion for creating a sustainable approach to agriculture makes him an excellent feature for our “Meet the Farmer” blog post.

Bill Couser gave Young Professionals in Agriculture (YiPA) a tour of his facilities in June.

Bill and his wife, Nancy, reside just west of Nevada where they continue to run their farming operation with their youngest son Tim. Along with their cattle operation, Bill and the family also grow corn, soybeans and raise seed corn for Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer. Bill has been renowned for his innovative approaches to a variety of farm management and conservation practices. He is the recipient of several major awards including; Iowa Master Farmers award from Wallaces Farmer magazine, the 2010 regional Environmental Stewardship Award for his cattle company the 2011 Iowa Beef Quality Assurance Award, and named one of Time magazine’s “100 People that Matter..”  Bill’s dedication to farming and improving  long established practices have turned heads and has changed not only the farming industry, but the way consumers view agriculture.

Couser Cattle Company raises about 5,200 head of cattle each year. This may seem like a rather large operation, but there are several other notable features about the Couser farm that make it unique from other operations. Bill and his family have applied several state of the art conservation techniques that they hope will pave the trail toward creating sustainable yet efficient, widely adopted farming methods. “Are we as conventional farmers sustainable? The answer is no, not yet, but we’re a heck of a lot closer than we used to be.”

“The thing I love about farming is the chase,”Bill told a room full of young professionals in the agricultural field. While Bill enjoys finding new ways to maximize yields while utilizing less inputs, he also enjoys finding more and more uses for every part of every corn plant. He firmly believes every kernel of corn should be processed before being sold to maximize not only profit but the value of corn itself. We look forward to the accomplishments and discoveries Bill will make along his “chase” and we hope that many farmers will look to Bill as an innovative example on the path to making sustainable farm management decisions.