Inside one of the last large dairy farms in Portage County

Seed and soil

This is the first in an occasional, ongoing series about Portage County agriculture

Portage County has long been a prime example of what can be accomplished when people put seed to soil. For decades it has been an agricultural hub in the region, feeding families around the world with crops, meat and dairy all produced here by Portage County farmers. In this special project, The Portager is showcasing those farmers, sharing the stories of the families who feed us.

Nate Hornack grew up a few hundred yards down the road from his family’s farm in Suffield. As a kid he often helped his family out with the various aspects of running a farm, but now, living in Ravenna and working as an EMT, he gives a tour of the Congress Lake dairy farm and reminisces.

“The big thing I miss is being able to go work with the animals every day,” Hornack said. “And there is nothing like watching a sunrise or a sunset from the cab of a tractor.”

Congress Lake is an outlier when it comes to farms in Portage County. Hornack’s grandfather, Kenny Rufener, founded the farm in 1966. From there the operation grew into what it is today, one of the last large dairy farms in the county, with over 1,000 cows.

Around 700 of them need to be milked every day, three times a day. To keep up with demand, the family contracts with a company that brings in migrant laborers who handle much of the corralling and milking.

Beyond the milk parlor, much of the work done on the farm is carried out by Hornack’s uncle, Mike Rufener; his dad, Kenny Rufener; and his grandfather, Kenny Rufener Sr.

Mike Rufener, standing next to a tractor barn with Rufener Sr. and Hornack, describes the biggest change to farming in the last half century:

“Like how everything else changes, the technology changes,” he said. “It was more mechanical labor back in the day; now everything is computers. I bet in ‘66 you didn’t think you could drive a tractor without steering it.”

The family uses computers for almost every aspect of running the farm, from feeding schedules and GPS guidance on a tractor to microchip tracking in each of their cows.

Surrounding the farm are the remnants of this year’s corn crop, which was harvested a week before. However, 10 minutes up the road, Hornack’s dad was working their combine, helping to harvest their neighbor’s soybean crop.

“Everybody knows everybody in a small community like this,” Hornack said. “We try to help each other out.”

Since he was 10 years old, Kenny Rufener has worked on the farm. He’s been operating the combine since he was 12. Now 40, he sits in the driver’s chair of the John Deere, harvesting thousands of pounds of soybeans that will eventually make their way to the Ohio River and across the globe. Rufener’s favorite time of the year is the fall when the harvest begins. For him it’s an opportunity to see the hard work put into every other day of the year pay off.

That hard work is something Rufener wanted to do since he was a toddler, and it’s something he hopes to do for many decades to come.

“Farming is in your blood. You either want to do it or you don’t,” Rufener said. “I’ve wanted to do it since I was 3 years old. I was definitely born to be a farmer.”

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