Meet Justin Clawson, the new Cache County Agriculture Extension Agent

My name is Justin Clawson and I am the new Utah State University Agriculture Extension Agent for Cache County. I was born and raised in Cache Valley. My parents were raised on dairy farms in Paradise and Hyrum. My father was a Research Technician at Utah State University on the Small Grains Breeding Program for 35 years. I loved going to my grandparent’s farms and feeding cows, hauling hay and moving sprinkler pipe.

When I turned 8, my uncle introduced me to showing dairy calves in 4-H at the Cache County Fair and at the Richmond Black and White Days. When I got into high school, I talked my parents into letting me show hogs. My senior year of high school, the last year I could show, I was so proud to take 3rd place in Market. It became a project that my two brothers continued after me and I would continue to help with. In high school, I got a summer job breeding spring barley on the Utah State University Small Grains Breeding Program.

After high school I was accepted to Utah State University. I attended one quarter of college then took a two-year break to serve my church in the Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa area — It was a fantastic experience for me. I’ve been to the Geographical Center of the United States and the homestead where “Home on the Range” was written. I still remember the night I got to talk with a gentleman that lived through the Dust Bowl and heard about the struggles his family had to keep their family farm during the Great Depression in Imperial, Nebraska.

When I returned home, I was milking cows with my Grandpa the next morning. I had two weeks to ask plenty of questions about how farm life had changed in his lifetime. What the first milk system looked like when they switched from hand labor? What the first tractor was when they switched from horses? I was fascinated by how farming had changed in such a short time period and where it was headed.

I returned to Utah State and received a Bachelors of Science in Horticulture Landscape Construction. I thought I wanted a career outside of agriculture, however, my education wasn’t finished. I had an opportunity to return to the midwest for a week long class at Iowa State University on Sustainable Agriculture. Students from Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and Utah gathered at the Lake Side Laboratory in Iowa on Lake Okoboji. We visited farms in Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa. We saw pasture farrowing hogs, an organic dairy, precision crop production, feed lots, corn and soybean ridge till and conventional tillage operations. We also discussed environmental issues facing agriculture at the time.

We visited Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and the dugout site of the “Little House on the Prairie.”

I decided I needed to continue my education at USU and received a Masters of Science in Organic Wheat Production while comparing the benefits of compost to commercial fertilizers. Just before I finished I had the opportunity to continue working on the Small Grains Breeding Program as a Research Technician. It was a program I had previously worked on for 13 years while going to school. For another 17 years I traveled the state planting wheat and barley trials, testing varieties we developed for release to the growers in Utah and Idaho. I presented field trial information at crop schools and field days in Cache and Box Elder counties for many years. I taught the planting and tillage class in the Agriculture System Technology and Education Department in the spring for two years when they were short on faculty.

I am excited for the opportunity to be a part of Utah State University Extension and be in my home county working with agriculture producers. I look forward to serving the community through the Extension office located on the West side of the County Administration Building 179 N. Main, Suite 111 in Logan.

 

Writer: Justin Clawson