For many Wisconsin farmers, custom operators are essential to keeping their operations running smoothly—whether it’s tillage, manure spreading, or harvest. With the busy fall season now underway, demand for these services remains high.
Jeremy Heim, a board member for the Wisconsin Custom Operators, says the supply of operators has been steady this year thanks to favorable conditions. “In our area, I think there’s plenty of people out there to do the work right now,” Heim explained. “We’ve had pretty good weather, so it makes it pretty easy to do custom work.”
As farms continue to grow and labor gets harder to find, the role of custom harvesters has only become more important. “Absolutely, people are in need of custom harvesters as the farms grow and labor gets tight,” Heim said. “It’s just a good option for a lot of operations to move to custom work and have us come in and do maybe half of it or maybe all of it—whatever works for them.”
From corn chopping to liquid manure applications, custom operators will be putting in long hours this fall to help farms finish before frost sets in. Heim estimates his crew alone will handle about 1,500 acres of corn and move roughly 100 million gallons of liquid manure this season.
For farmers looking to hire, Heim recommends making sure an operator is reputable and certified. More information is available at wisconsincustomoperators.org.
