Andrew Horst – Agriculture Co-Op

My name is Andrew Horst and I work at Homestead Nutrition in New Holland. We are a local agribusiness that helps farmers in all areas of the farm. We work with herd management and with the rations for those herds of dairy cows, beef cows, goats, and sheep. We also have an agronomy team that helps with crop scouting and soil management. We sell a variety of products from animal minerals and supplements as well as soil products and seed.

When I first started at Homestead Nutrition, I was working in the warehouse. I would fill buckets with products and pull orders onto pallets to be shipped. I then started to go crop scouting over the summer with my boss where we walk through fields and help to look for things that should be changed or that the farmer is doing very good at.  We then go and talk to the farmer and explain what we found and recommend any changes to the field. For example, we might tell the farmer that there are a lot of insects that he should spray for or a lot of weed that need to be killed.

In the Fall and Winter, I started to go soil sampling on farms that our crop consultants work with. This job is very different than the others I was doing because I ride a four-wheeler through fields and use a probe to take plugs off the ground. This job also allowed me to travel all over the Eastern part of the state. I enjoy doing this because it gets me out of the office and into the field. Around the same time, I started soil sampling I also started to work more in the office doing farm mapping and whatever else they have for me to do.

I have really enjoyed being able to work more because of the co-op program. It has allowed me to grow in my role at work. If I was not able to work during school, I would not be able to do the things I do at work. I plan on staying at Homestead Nutrition for a long time since I can learn about farming which I want to do someday. Homestead Nutrition has very nice people working and running the company and that is one thing I really enjoy. They are very flexible with schedules and many other things which makes it easy to balance school and work and the many other activities I am involved in. I really am very proud to work at Homestead Nutrition.