Farm Dream: Microphone in Hand, Matt Brechwald Bootstraps into Agriculture

Farming success is chained to the highest premium paid across a long series of benchmarks, and Matt Brechwald’s farm tale, split between dirt and the digital world, firmly fits the mold.

By Chris Bennett

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June 24, 2021 02:05 PM

In May 2008, Detective Matt Brechwald waited inside the cookie-cutter convenience of a city neighborhood, hiding in plain sight within an unmarked car, while passing the hours watching for the movements of a stalking suspect. Breaking the stakeout’s monotony in mid-afternoon, Brechwald’s suburban vigil was interrupted by the arrival of a truck pulling an odd trailer several houses down from the targeted address. Observing the strange trailer, Brechwald’s mind and heart clicked in unison: He was staring at the doorway to a future in farming.

Thirteen years onward, Brechwald’s agriculture dream has become reality on a farming operation flourishing just outside Boise, Idaho, and his time is split between dirt and the digital world. Brechwald’s voice has risen to the top tier of the ag podcast media heap, and as the most prolific host of the medium, his Off-Farm Income podcast is a top-drawer show, churning at 1,000-plus episodes over a six-year run, with a finger on the pulse of U.S. agriculture, and a loyal audience of first-generation hopefuls and seasoned farming veterans.

Today, just outside Boise, in Kuna, Brechwald, 47, owns a picturesque, livestock-based operation centered on cattle, goats and pigs. In addition, he turns out Off-Farm Income episodes at a staccato pace, custom podcasts for multiple businesses, and owns a chain of rental properties. Brechwald is an entrepreneurial success, but his achievement came with a heavy dose of delayed gratification.

No one stumbles into modern farming; no one arrives in today’s agriculture by accident. Success is chained to the highest premium paid across a long series of benchmarks, and Brechwald’s tale firmly fits the mold. Police work, pocket gophers, podcasting and far more, his account is a clarion call for all those who believe the farm life is within reach.

Setting the Fuse

Rice, tree nuts, and beef formed a three-legged stool of Brechwald’s childhood in Valley Home, Calif., located in the Golden State’s Central Valley. Hopeful of a cattle-related career, he studied animal science at Modesto Junior College and completed the degree at Montana State University. Following a series of ag internships and a chain of sales jobs in fertilizer and chemicals, Brechwald didn’t find a road to farm or ranch ownership, and moved into law enforcement as a police officer, and later detective, for 15 years (three years in California; 12 years in Idaho).

In 2008, Brechwald, in his mid-thirties, sat on the aforementioned stakeout. “Across the street, a different guy pulls up with a strange-looking trailer, unhooks, sets the jacks down, and pulls out an antennae boom,” Brechwald recalls. “The house owner walks out, and they go over a run-through of whatever this machine was, and then they shake hands, the truck driver hands over an invoice, and the new owner takes possession.”

A complicated device, but a simple transaction: “Whatever the business deal was on that trailer, that was the moment I saw a way to farm. I needed a piece of equipment to take me to farmers.”

Brechwald subscribed to an agricultural newspaper and began combing the pages, drawn by a particularly intriguing advertisement for a trailer-mounted PERC (pressurized exhaust rodent control) machine. Essentially, a PERC uses compressed carbon monoxide to exterminate pocket gophers—the bane of many producers, and a major nuisance in Idaho’s alfalfa fields. Brechwald noted the curiosity, but within his bubble of suburbia, and neck-deep in police work, he couldn’t decide if the machine was the right fit. The pocket gopher pursuit was shelved.

However, in 2011, roughly three years to the stakeout day, Brechwald found his farmland located 20 miles outside Boise, in Kuna: a house and 25 acres of flat, rough ground in need of attention. Brechwald and his wife, Autumm, bought the place and implemented irrigation, fencing, pasture, hay production, and more, all in an effort to turn value out of high-desert ground that otherwise was bound for sage brush.

In tandem, the couple enrolled in a University of Idaho Extension class—Living on the Land—and began filling in the blanks, hoping to find farming solutions of all stripes. During repeated sessions, Brechwald heard land-owning classmates complain about…pocket gophers.

The fuse was set: Brechwald had confirmation of need and opportunity, and he knew where to get equipment. Time to buy a PERC and start a rodent extermination business?

“Six times. I chickened out six times. Then, in the spring of 2012, I woke up in the middle of night and couldn’t sleep. I thought, if I don’t order that PERC now, I’ve got to wait a whole year, because weather shutters business in winter, especially in highly seasonal Idaho. Autumm said, ‘Do it.’”

He ordered the PERC, assembled it two weeks later, and placed an ad on Craigslist. On May 25, 2012, Idaho Gopher Control secured its first paying customer, and Brechwald scrambled out of the business gate—and he didn’t dare look back.

Changing Horses

By summer’s end, Brechwald was slammed for time, covering policing or pocket gophers, and very little in between. The following spring, in 2013, he permanently walked away from detective work, and dove headfirst into his acreage, backed by multiple sources of off-farm income, including teaching law enforcement classes at a nearby community college. Anything to fill in the cracks and keep the farm momentum going.

“I was a new farmer with a small piece of ground and hardly any animals, but suddenly I could adjust my schedule and be here whenever I needed to calf, cut hay, or irrigate, versus a job in town. I suddenly had flexibility to be an entrepreneur.”

Albeit in a different geography, Brechwald had returned to the world in which he was raised. “I’ll never forget the first time I truly realized I was self-employed. I was leaving the farm and pulled over at the end of the driveway to text a buddy about football—which I did for 20 minutes and totally wasted good time. I finished texting and realized I was accountable to no one but my family, and my time and land belonged to me. Working on my own farm was a lifestyle that hurt bad when I couldn’t reach it, but so satisfying when I got it. It was an incredible feeling, and that’s when I decided to start a podcast to tell others how to get to the farm.”

Brechwald truly had changed horses in midstream—and stayed firmly in the saddle.

The Toughest Knot

Today, the arena of agriculture podcasting is filled with broadcasts of every description, from field work to management to machinery to marketing to technology to legal matters to Extension, and all points in between. Yet, in 2014, there were only a smattering of ag podcasts available, and absolutely nothing in the realm that Brechwald was about to tackle.

Brechwald could rely on a crystalline voice with a steady cadence, but other than media interviews related to law enforcement, he’d never been behind a mic. Understandably, he was stricken with impostor syndrome: “Who am I to do this? Why will anyone want to listen to me? But I also knew there were people in every state in the country just like me, trying to figure out how to make it in agriculture and I could help them by telling what I’d done. Also, I knew there were small business people out there, owner-operators grinding with no glamor, and they could tell what they’d done.”

In a nutshell, Brechwald already knew his audience. “Farmers that live solely off of direct farm income are a rarity,” he says. “Probably 90% of farms need some form of off-farm income, and that can drive an attempt at some sort of unique business. There’s also a huge number of people discontented with life in city, climate-controlled cubicles, artificial light, commutes, subdivisions, and general urban problems, and they want an agricultural lifestyle of some kind, but it’s so difficult to obtain.”

Further, going from city to country presents a tough knot to untangle. Staying close to a solid-paying city job means limited access to affordable land, yet moving toward lower-cost land means cutting the cords with the city job. “The answer is off-farm income,” Brechwald says. “That takes a different form on every single farm and requires a niche that no one else sees, but if you want it bad enough, it can be done and the proof is in thousands of ag entrepreneurs across the nation.”

Taking his words to action, and after several months of planning, Brechwald bought a digital recorder and microphone off the shelf, connected the pair in a spare room with zero modifications (where he still broadcasts today), and sat red-faced, alone in silence, afraid to record. “I just started talking and went for it.”

Off-Farm Income was born. From day one, Brechwald’s mind was blown: He was pumping out signal to a hungry audience. The podcast began drawing feedback at a furious pace. “My timing was right. There were not many ag shows out there and seasoned farmers and hopeful farmers were very, very interested in any means of sidestream income. It was a snowball effect and it didn’t take long to build a loyal audience.”

Brechwald’s confidence to walk a road no one else had traveled was par for the course, Autumm explains. “The day I met Matt, his goal was to have his own farm. He took an idea about off-farm income and turned it in to something that connected with so many people. I don’t know exactly how many people across the country are looking to do the same thing with a farm, but I know it’s a high number of people with the dream.”

Win-Win-Win

Over 1,000 episodes later, his solo effort has multiplied at a rapid pace, and Off-Farm Income currently is produced six days per week. Fridays showcase an interview with a farmer or agricultural worker who offers a bootstrap story. Mondays and Wednesday feature interviews with FFA students centered on entrepreneurial SAEs. Tuesdays are Brechwald in solo mode, sounding off on potential income avenues. Thursdays are cherry-picked replays of memorable interview episodes from the vault, boosted with current producer updates. Saturdays are exclusive to rural crime, with each episode focusing on an illegal scheme or activity.

“I advise anyone wanting to start an ag podcast, or really any topic: Start and don’t over-analyze because it’s easy to get trapped in planning. Your first 50 episodes may be horrible, and so what? The next episode is what counts. You’ll develop your skills and reputation through repetition, and nobody will remember how awful your first episodes were. No one cares.”

After six years of broadcasting, Brechwald also hosts Corn Revolution, Pioneer Tour, and D&B Supply, as well as producing Bulkloads. On the Off-Farm Income show, two types of guests stir his passion. First, ag entrepreneurs that succeed in rural areas, producing a tri-fold economic boost: “It’s a win-win-win for the small community, the farmers being served, and the farmer with the business. I’ll never forget Craig Bailey with a seed roasting business in Virginia, or Aaron Tiemeyer with a seed-cleaning business in Iowa. Both of those guys epitomize what I’m talking about.”

Second, Brechwald’s admiration is sparked by high school students with genuine business ingenuity: “There are FFA kids accomplishing things 30- and 40-year-olds are still just thinking about. I’m talking about FFA kids making six figures in high school, and it’s inspiring. There are also teenage farmers out there who have already managed to get a foothold on farming ground. The accomplishment is incredible.”

“Wearing the Boots”

Rod Zehr, 59, runs a PERC gopher machine across 15,000 acres in Oregon’s Malheur County, roughly 60 miles from Brechwald. A lifelong farmer with stints in row crops, dairy, and feed lots, Zehr helped mentor Brechwald in the rodent extermination business, and quickly recognized Brechwald’s mettle. “Matt is just that kinda guy. He made his own way and that’s what it takes to make it in modern agriculture, because you must have a game plan. Hard work alone won’t cut it; you must have goals set and a path to follow all on your own. That’s what Matt did.”

“He was shaped by agriculture growing up, but he didn’t have a path to get in, so he made his own path,” Zehr continues. “In some ways, even though he lives in a different state, he’s just gone back home.”

Brechwald—farmer, businessman, entrepreneur, podcaster—possesses the same passion and ingenuity he champions in others. “Matt is fueled by learning and gaining knowledge,” Autumm says, “but he’s motivated by helping others.”

“A farm is so satisfying, but it’s also very difficult to run,” she adds. “So many people think a farm is about land and beautiful sunsets, except that if you’re the one wearing the boots, then you have to work so hard to get it and keep it, but it’s also worth every bit of work that goes into it.”

Echoing Autumm, Brechwald does not sugarcoat his journey, or hesitate to offer a word of warning to hopeful ag entrepreneurs: The road to success is a long, tough haul. “You better be real,” he concludes. “You better plan and set goals. You better scrap with old equipment. You better realize this is about a better life down the road, not the moment, and therefore you have to watch every dollar. You better know there is pain and hard work ahead. It’s all worth it though, and there’s absolutely nothing like farm life.”