What do you get when you mix two first generation farmers, thousands of acres of crops and an unyielding drive to continue innovating and honing their work?
You get Clinton County Farm Bureau members Zach and Ronna Wagner: Your 2025 Michigan Farm Bureau Young Farmer Achievement Award winners.
The Wagners helm a bustling crop business, growing corn, soybeans, wheat and canola on 3,600 acres across a 62-mile stretch of Eaton, Clinton, Ingham and Ionia counties along with managing a small cow calf to finish beef herd where they locally sell freezer beef.
It’s a journey that started off with ground nobody else wanted. Fourteen acres of grass, to be exact, spread out across four small fields that weren’t being worked.
It wasn’t anything the neighbors wanted to mess around with, but for Zach, who grew up in the country, but not on a farm, it was a dream come true.
“Ever since I was a little boy, I was always attracted to the large equipment and watching the machines in the field, and it's just what I always wanted to do,” he said. “I started from nothing. I didn't even have a wrench. I always wanted to farm.”
Meanwhile, Ronna’s journey in ag started with both sets of her grandparents having dairy farms, with one later switching over to beef. After earning a dairy science degree, she was involved in the industry before meeting Zach and going all in on row crops.
“I've always just been around agriculture and farming, and it's just a lifestyle,” Ronna said. “I always couldn't wait to get home from school to work on the farm, and it's something that we hope to be able to surround our kids with.”
The Young Farmer Achievement Award recognizes successful young farmers (individuals or couples) who derive a majority of their income from an owned production agriculture enterprise and showcases their achievements in the business of farming.
While there’s seemingly always pressure on farmers to grow their operation and expand, the Wagners said they’re content with their size but would not turn down an opportunity closer to home. They’re realistic about the logistical hurdles that come with farming ground in four counties and said there’s just too much competition for land for them to want to try to pick up any more ground closer to home.
“We spend a lot of time on the road, traveling from field to field, so we're kind of maxed out with acreage where we're at right now,” Zach said.
So, instead of setting their sights on more acres, the Wagners are looking to do things smarter. To innovate, and look toward doing more things themselves, including the possibility of taking on their own spraying work in the future. Maybe, the Wagners said, their kids would want to run the sprayers someday.
In the meantime, there’s plenty of other ways they’re refining their operations.
“We've upgraded a lot of technologies,” Ronna said. “We’re using variable-rate fertilizer, grid sample soil tests, and working on fertility and using different technologies to improve our soil health.”
Off the farm, they’re focused on the health of their county Farm Bureau — especially when it comes to recruiting young farmers. Zach serves on the Clinton County Farm Bureau board, and Ronna serves on their County Annual Committee.
“If you’re not a Farm Bureau member, you’re missing out,” Zach said.
“We’ve met a lot of like-minded people through the Young Farmer program that have the same goals and ambitions, expectations out of life, look forward to continuing to be involved with that.”
Their attention to the next generation of Farm Bureau is surpassed perhaps only by the legacy they want to leave for their own family.
“We love agriculture and farming the land. We want to take good care of it and teach them how to take care of it, because we need more generations that know how to take care of the land and preserve it for years to come,” Ronna said.
“We have a lot of people to feed.”
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