Agriculture is a family industry in Texas. Farmers and ranchers like Jim Mazurkiewicz and John R. Giesenschlag have dedicated their lives to keeping farms and fields alive across the Brazos Valley.
Jim has been farming in the Brazos Valley since he was 15. Jim’s family moved to Washington County in the 1870s, and he is a fifth-generation Polish Texan. Now, he operates a small ranch where he raises Charolais, a breed of beef cattle known for its white color. Jim is responsible for creating programs that involve local farmers, youth and research that focuses on continuing to attract the best and brightest to support agriculture and family farming across the Brazos Valley.
“I’m a small, niche farmer, and I wanted to concentrate on a specific breed,” Jim says. “I’m what they call a seed stock producer — only 3% of the beef cattle producers in the United States are seed stock producers. They’re the ones producing bulls to go back into the commercial herds.”
It’s no secret that the agricultural industry is changing due to urban development, with 175 acres of farmland lost every hour in the U.S. Fewer families and individuals are still farming as time passes, leaving John — who has 5,000 acres of farmland in the Brazos Valley where he grows corn, grain sorghum, cotton, wheat and raises cattle — feeling concerned for the future. Hopeful life-long professionals have been looking to invest in programs that support agricultural industries and future farmers’ training.
The agricultural industry remains the second-largest Texas industry, despite expanding urban development. Farmers and ranchers today are as passionate as ever about serving their communities.
“We’re at a point now where the majority of the ag production in the United States is done by very, very few people,” John says. “I’ve got hope for the future of agriculture, but I think agriculture is becoming something that’s not viewed as completely necessary.”
John says farms and ranches no longer dominate the Texas landscape and points to Hutto, a region with some of the state’s most fertile farmland. Where grain elevators, cotton gins, fertilizer and seed businesses once dominated the landscape, is now occupied by bustling urban development. The Katy Prairie that once wrapped around Houston with some of the most productive rice land in the world is now a metropolis.
“Washington County and Fayette County used to be two of the largest cotton-producing counties in the state of Texas, if not the largest,” John says. “That was a tremendous industry there, and it’s all gone. I don’t know if there’s even 1,000 acres of cotton left in Washington County today.
“I’ve seen so much land go out of production in my lifetime, and it’s been of almost no concern to anyone. That’s productive land that will never come back.”
Although the Brazos Valley grows its fair share of crops, beef is the name of the game in this region of Texas. The Brazos Valley is known primarily as “cow-calf country,” which is the region of the state where mother cows produce the calves that go to the feedlots up in the Texas panhandle, Jim says.
“Here in the Brazos Valley, it’s beef, beef, beef … cotton, corn, grain sorghum [and] soybeans,” Jim says. “There’s some wheat and some sunflowers, but we’re a big beef-producing state and a big beef-producing region.”
While there is still some excellent cotton grown in the Brazos bottom, it’s a small portion of the region’s ag industry because it’s more suited for grass, which is where ranchers raise cattle, Jim says. He estimates about a third of a million acres of farmland are in the Brazos Valley. Proximity to A&M research and development programs, such as the Governor Dolph Briscoe Jr. Texas Agricultural Lifetime Leadership program, are enormous assets for current and future Texas farmers and ranchers.
“It’s the premier agriculture program for mid-career industry leaders,” Jim says. “It’s one of the top leadership institutes in the country, as well.”
Jim is the driving force behind the 13-year-old Brazos Valley Fair & Rodeo, an event created to encourage and nurture future generations of Texas farmers and ranchers. He is also the chair of the Bryan/College Station Chamber of Commerce’s annual Ag Breakfast, held the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
Jim says he started the breakfast tradition 25 years ago and has seen it grow substantially over the years.
“I’ve got a great committee that works with me,” Jim says. “We’ve got a lot of people that help me now, and today, it’s one of the largest chamber events that the chamber puts on.”
The event took off when the farmers started cooking the breakfast. Jim attributes this brilliant idea to John, who loves to cook.
“We were having a really hard time getting people to attend,” John says. “There was one year I told him, ‘Man, you really ought to let us [farmers] cook.’’’
After the farmers took over the cooking duties, attendance nearly doubled, and in 2022, over 600 people attended the event — the most ever, Jim says.
“The first year we did the cooking, it was four or five of us,” John says. “We cooked maybe five dozen eggs and a few links of sausage and some biscuits or something. [In 2022], we made 180 dozen eggs, about 40 gallons of coffee [and] 150 pounds of potatoes for hash browns — it’s a lot of food.”
The Ag Breakfast connects the world of agriculture to the people who know next to nothing about where their food comes from. It has proven to be an excellent way to meet some of the farmers who put food on tables in the Brazos Valley, John says.
“This particular event does as much for this area as anyone does on bridging the gap between people who are disconnected from the ag industry,” John says. “It’s a unique experience. [For] some folks, this may be the only real [connection] that they get.”
“Farmers are all unique; every aspect of [farming] is unique,” John says. “It’s something we need to have, something I want to do, and hope I can do till my last breath.”
