Emmet leader stands ground against city money, ‘Big Ag’ bias

Among geography’s amusing quirks is the fact that landscape features often get intuitive names that reveal something about their identity. Two examples: 

1. From Charlotte, Lansing Road takes you northeast to… Lansing, of course. 
2. The narrow strip of grass between Lakeshore Drive and Lower Hamlin Lake isn’t Lakeshore Park or Lower Hamlin Park; it’s called Long Skinny Park because look at it.

You get the idea.

Flip that convention over, though, and there are plenty of exceptions, like how Cale Veurink’s ancestors had the nerve to first plant crops and raise livestock in a township called ‘Resort.’ This is way up in Emmet County, southwest of Petoskey and not far inland from a high-end resort community boasting “deep-water access for mega yachts” and some very expensive golf courses.

I didn’t see Veurink’s mega yacht when I visited last month, but maybe it was in the barn. Funny he never even mentioned it; usually people wanna show those things off...

Safe Within the Family

“My great, great, great-grandparents, Henry and Catherine, bought this farm in 1885,” he said. “So there would have been Henry, Herbert, Frederick, my grandma Diane, my dad, and now me.”

If you’re counting, that makes Cale a sixth-generation farmer — a rare bird this far north.

“It’s been in our family ever since,” he added. “We haven’t lost any land; it’s safe within the family.”

As a kid he helped dad with the cattle, but the crop side was only about 30 acres of fodder. Cale got to work as soon as he got home from college in the spring of 2021.

“That summer I grew 20 acres of corn. I’ve built that up, but I didn’t want to just go out and borrow a bunch of money, so I’ve just built steadily over the past couple years, reinvesting profits. 

“I’m up to about 400 acres now” but acquiring that much land here (remember the location) is no easy feat. “Dad still does the cattle — that’s his wheelhouse — and I’m doing about 415 acres of row crops this year.”

Cha-Ching

Most of those acres are rented, revealing a key challenge to farming this close to a Great Lake: Few growers can bankroll Up North land prices when Chicago Money’s looking for a summer place, auction paddle in hand.

“It’s incredibly expensive,” Veurink said. “One 25-acre field I was farming was listed for $20,000 an acre. 

“That’s the price of farming in this part of the state. Thirty years ago there were a couple larger farms around here, but now we’re really it. There’s just more and more money — city folk — funneling up here and buying up land.”

If hiked-up land prices weren’t enough, Veurink says a size bias among input suppliers doesn’t help.

“The Big Ag companies want guys running a couple thousand acres, who can buy a lot of product, new equipment, and all the new tech and chemicals that come out. We can’t afford stuff like that. 

“We need to work hard — nose to the grindstone, pencils sharp — and just kind of chisel out our way,” he said. “It’s not just Big Ag anymore. 

“You’ve got to recognize these small farms.”

Finger on the Scale

This is where Farm Bureau’s grassroots system comes into play, amplifying members’ voices regardless of scale or production style. Veurink’s simple plea is to please not forget the Little Guy.

“And I don’t think it’s too big a fish to fry, writing policy,” he said. “My fiancé and I wrote a policy adopted at the last State Annual Meeting to get tax-break incentives for landowners renting ground to Young Farmers — so they don’t just sell it.

“I may not be able to buy that land, but maybe the landowner would be willing to lease it at a better rate. Maybe they can get a tax break to keep it in agriculture.”

The challenge of keeping land in cultivation this far north is mostly in the hands of smaller operators like Veurink, more focused on maintaining their foothold than they are bent on expansion.

“We’ve got cattle out grazing on pasture and, personally, I think this is what American agriculture should look like,” Veurink said. “It doesn’t get any more real, and when you do it like this, you’re less dependent on Big Ag companies. They don’t like operations that depend more on themselves than outside inputs. 

“Farm consolidation is not good at all, and it’s coming to a head because we just grow more and more corn and soybeans every year and markets are drying up.”

Hands on the Wheel

Almost through his first year leading the Emmet County Farm Bureau, Veurink reports mostly smooth sailing, partly because his predecessor, longtime Emmet leader Bill McMaster, remains involved and just a phone call away.

“Bill’s still vice president and always at the meetings,” Veurink said. “He’s so excited about the younger generation being on the board.”

“Two new board members — Lidia Komondy and Brandon Okray — are both Young Farmers,” and it’s got Veurink thinking about another year at the helm, with an all-YF executive committee a tempting possibility for the 2026-27.

“Young Farmers up here enjoy having more of a voice. We’re the ones who really have a horse in the race, while a lot of the older guys are retiring.

“We’re the ones most affected by decisions that are being made. We need to be the ones with our hands on the wheel and our voices being heard.”