Moving Beyond Tradition

In the spring of 2021, as Oregonians Kent, Kevin and Amy Doerfler neared 18 years of owning and operating what some said was the world’s largest grass seed farm, the three siblings had a serious talk about succession planning.

Building a succession plan for a family farm can be an emotional process and traditionally involves handing the reins to the next generation. But for the Doerflers, it wasn’t that simple.

“We knew we had to find a succession plan because we are getting older,” Kevin Doerfler recounts. Twins Kent and Kevin were in their late 50s, while their younger sister, Amy, was in her early 50s. What complicated things was the path of the next generation. Kent and his wife have three daughters, none of who are involved in agriculture. His brother, Kevin, had a son working on the family farm, while Amy didn’t have any children.

With about 15,000 acres of owned and leased land, 40-50 full-time employees and 40-50 seasonal employees, Doerfler Farms was a huge operation. 90% of Doerfler Farms’ acres were in grass seed. Cool-season, turf-type grass seed was grown, packaged and shipped worldwide. Straw from grass seed fields was baled, compressed and exported to beef and dairy farms in Asia.

Doerfler Farms was “too big an operation for one person to run,” says Kent. “It takes a group. I handled the farming and the agronomics. Kevin did the seed processing and sales and Amy was the CFO. She worked with lease contracts and landlords. So, we all had a full plate.”

Personal experience motivated the Doerflers to seek a successor. The Doerflers’ father, Bob – a larger-than-life businessman – transitioned the farm to growing grass seed in the 1970s. He expanded the farm tenfold from 1,800 acres to 18,000 acres. In 2003, he was 66 years old when he died of a heart attack. Their mother was just 34 when she died of cancer.

“You don’t want to wait until you’re on your deathbed to figure out a succession plan,” Kent says. “We didn’t want to work as much, and we wanted to travel. Don’t wait until you’re 70 to say, ‘Let’s go do things.’”

While the Doerflers all agreed they needed to act, no prospective buyer immediately came to mind. Througha real estate broker, they met with a venture capital company. However, the Doerflers believed that the typical venture capital model — buy, change, cut costs and employees, etc. — didn’t align with their values.

“We are community-oriented,” Kent says. “We wanted to do what was best for our employees, landlords and community. That’s just the way we do things. It’s in our DNA.”

In retrospect, finding the right buyer seems logical and straightforward, but Kent attributes it to divine intervention.

“It just came to me one night in my sleep: Why not talk with the Rues? We’ve known them forever.”

Neighboring farmers

Kent and Amy knew the Rue family from the church they belong to in Silverton. Joel and Donna Rue have three sons, all of whom are married and have children. The Rues’ oldest son, Jesse, was 38, Lucas was 36 and Ben was 34. Together, the families of the three brothers had eight children. 

From the Doerflers’ perspective, the Rues and Victor Point Farms seemed like a good fit. Both were grass seed farmers, and both used similar practices. Most importantly, the three brothers’ families had eight children. They saw the possibility that another generation following Jesse, Lucas and Ben could address continuity and succession. 

The Rues spent the summer of 2021 considering the opportunity, and in the fall of 2021, they reached an agreement to buy Doerfler Farms. Doerfler Farms’ 13 New Holland CX8070 and CX8080 super conventional combines were part of the deal.

New opportunities

Jesse Rue says that the possibility of buying Doerfler Farms created opportunities for them and, hopefully, for their children.

“Before the acquisition, we ran a very efficient and streamlined operation, and we did it with mainly family as the workforce,” he says. “However, we lacked diversity for future family members possibly wanting to return to the farm. With a large land base now, it provides security for the future and diversity with the opportunity to grow different crops, as well as manufacture and process our own seed.”

The two families announced the sale and acquisition in a December 2021 news release that stressed their shared values. Victor Point Farms would retain the employees, landlords and other business relationships. The three Doerflers would serve as consultants for several years.

Four growing seasons have come and gone since Victor Point Farms bought Doerfler Farms.

“I would say the acquisition is working out well,” Jesse says. “Better than we expected. We said that for this operation to thrive, we needed to keep two things: the employees and the land base. So far, we have been able to keep both. A couple of guys have moved on, and we have hired a couple, but it’s expected when you have 48 full-time guys. As far as the land is concerned, we’ve kept most of the acres. We’ve lost a couple and picked up a couple additional. But, for the most part, our acreage has remained stable.”

Today, 75% of their acres are devoted to three seed crops: tall fescue, perennial ryegrass and fine fescue. Grown for turf markets, these crops thrive in the foothills of the Cascade mountains.

“Our No. 1 goal is not to be the biggest,” Jesse says. “For us, to stick together is our No. 1 priority.”

The Rues say they appreciate the Doerflers agreeing to serve as consultants for several years. “Kent, Kevin and Amy have been very valuable in helping with the transition,” Jesse says. “They are easy to work with and do a good job of keeping the job fun. It would be very easy to get overwhelmed with this size of operation, but they had so many years of experience that they have seen most problems or issues we deal with.”

The Doerflers like what the new owners have been doing. “The Rues are going to continue the things we did well, but they are making other things better,” says Amy. “And all three of us are excited to see that happen.”