Fowlers named farm family of the year
\\\"Get up early in the morning, see the sunrise, smell the air out in the country. I was born to be a farmer.” — Ron Fowler
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TRUMAN - The Fowler family out of Truman has been named Farm Family of the Year for 2026 in Martin County.
Today, Ron and Dora Fowler run a 1,000 acre farm of corn and soybeans. The farmland sits where Ron Fowler's grandfather used to farm, and where his father before him was born. The corn, however, goes to the main piece of their operation.
"We are owners in a 6,000-sow unit in Illinois, and get 2,600 isoweans every six weeks," he said. "We wean to finish those on six different sites, and we make our own feed for our own hogs. All the manure generated from the operation goes back on the land to grow our corn, and the corn goes in the bin to feed the pigs."
On top of Ron and Dora's 1,000 acres, their son Travis Fowler also farms his own 1,000 acres of corn and soybeans nearby. Ron said their operations are separate, but they farm together. His grandsons, Jed and Grayson, also help out and do work around the farm.
Ron started owning pigs in high school, and when he and Dora got married in 1975, they had around 60 of them.
"We moved that to 200," he said. "Two-hundred went to 500, 500 went to 1,000. When I initially started, I sold feeder pigs, and then I began to finish my own hogs, and I finished all of them. The disease pressure had gotten bad, so we sold our sows here and went to the sow unit in Illinois to bring cleaner pigs here. Now we wean to finish about 18,000 pigs a year on multiple sites," Ron said.
As for why pigs, Ron said he enjoyed working with them while growing up on the farm.
"I was on a dairy farm, and I did not like dairy, didn’t like cattle, but I enjoyed the hogs. They have most always been money makers. More so, they’re a lot more work, but they’re also a lot more net income than corn and soybeans, and it’s very nice diversification with the corn and soybeans. It was mainly because I enjoyed it."
Starting out, he said they didn't have an actual farrowing house until 1977 and built a gestation barn by 1986. Over the last few decades, the operation has grown to where he has employees who do the work in the sow barns, and he takes over when the baby pigs are around 12 pounds.
"We get a 12-pound pig, keep it in a nursery, feed it specific diets," Ron said. "At 40 pounds, we take them out and put them in the finisher site. Everything right now is all in, all out by sight, and it’s in an attempt to keep the disease at bay."
That disease is PRRS, Porcine Respiratory and Reproductive System, a virus Ron said spreads easily and attacks the lungs and other organs of pigs, as well as causing sows to abort and have pregnancy issues.
"That’s the main one we’re fighting now," he said. "There are several others, but biosecurity is something that we all work hard on to try to keep them healthy."
Alongside this, Ron said one of the biggest challenges facing farming is marketing and knowing your costs.
"I don’t care if it’s corn, soybeans, or hogs; you have to know your cost of production," he said. "You better be fairly savvy at marketing, because you can’t make too many big mistakes and you’re done. It’s a pretty big industry now. I consider myself as being fairly small, but I have no desire to get a whole lot bigger. The challenges are bad enough."
Even so, there are no plans for the Fowler name to go away anytime soon. Ron said he simply loves being a farmer.
"The smell of the freshly tilled dirt. Probably my favorite thing is combining corn, especially on a good year when it’s doing well. Everything about it, even the pigs. There are certain chores with the pigs I don’t enjoy, but I enjoy being around the pigs, raising pigs. Get up early in the morning, see the sunrise, smell the air out in the country. I was born to be a farmer."
When they found out they had been chosen, Ron said they felt honored and truly blessed, but they know that Martin County has a strong crop of farmers who are also deserving of recognition like this.
"What we need to be is humble in the fact that we’re nothing special," he said. "I don’t feel we’re anything special. We just got picked, and I think that’s great, but you can drive, and you could give this to farm families all up and down the road. This year was our year."
The Fowlers will be recognized with their award at FarmFest in Morgan, which runs from Aug. 4-6.