Mother and Daughter Duo Keep the Losure Farms Legacy Alive

From left: Beebe’s sons Ethan and Gavin, her husband Brent, daughter Ava, mother Sue, and Beebe. Photo credit: Nathan Lambrecht

It’s not easy to pin down Amy Beebe. From hauling corn to fixing a truck tire to running a combine in the soybean fields, the Grant County native and fifth-generation farmer is always on the move, keeping up with her family’s 2,500-acre hog, wheat, soybean and corn operation, Losure Farms.

“With farming, that’s just how you’re born and raised,” she says. “It’s what I care about and what I want to do.”

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Beebe’s parents, Jerry and Sue Losure, both graduated from Ball State University and were teachers before starting Losure Farms in 1980. Beebe, one of four daughters, followed in her parents’ footsteps to Ball State, studying Spanish, then living in Spain for a time before becoming a full-time teacher first at Huntington North High School for four years and later at Huntington University.

All the while, she and her sister Becky also were helping their dad on the farm. But after Becky died of leukemia in 2008, Beebe realized she needed to take on more farm duties.

“I had to just really step up on what all I could do here with Dad,” she recalls.

In 2011, when Beebe found out she and her husband, Brent, were expecting their third child, she quit teaching and started farming with her father full time.

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Amy Beebe farmed with her father, Jerry Losure, until 2017 when he died of a heart attack. Photo credit: Jayne Ellen {Sweetness + Light}

Guiding Light

Beebe and her dad, Jerry Losure, ran Losure Farms together until November 2017, when a massive heart attack followed by surgery and complications suddenly took his life at the age of 75. In the days before he died while he was hospitalized, Beebe made sure she kept the farm running.

Photo credit: Jayne Ellen {Sweetness + Light}

“We had just finished cutting soybeans. We hadn’t even started shelling corn,” she says. “When I called him and went through the list of everything I had done, he said to me, ‘Would you just relax? You’re doing a great job.’ At that point, it was as if the world stood still. I could feel the tears in my eyes, and I thought, ‘This is not good.’ Dad has always been, ‘C’mon, you can do this!’ Dad was always at least five steps ahead. He was always go-go-go, so I was expecting, ‘OK, well, did you get this or that done?’ This was just his way of encouraging us without even knowing he was doing just that. That was just the way he raised us. I didn’t know what to think.”

Determined to keep the family tradition going and pass it down to the next generation, Beebe and her mother focus on hard work, being adaptive to change and being good stewards of the land. Photo credit: Nathan Lambrecht

Girl Power: Woman-Owned Farm in Indiana

Her father’s death left a huge hole in the family and big shoes to fill on the farm.

“I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the man I had looked up to, who had always been there all of my life, was officially gone. It’s still unreal to me,” she says.

Photo credit: Nathan Lambrecht

But together with her mother, Beebe is committed to upholding her father’s farming legacy by keeping Losure Farms thriving.

“She’s my rock,” Beebe says. “Her support and strength mean everything.”

A recent milestone has been the revival of a plan Beebe and her dad were working on in 2017 to create infrastructure for making their corn harvesting operations more efficient.

“I’m starting it this year, and that’s a huge thing for me,” she says. “We’re doing it. We’re growing, and to me, that is amazing and a true testament to what Mom and Dad did in teaching me because really, aside from not having Dad here, things have not stopped.”

Beebe says she’s not aware of any other farming operations like hers in the area that are solely operated by women.

The statistics back up her observation. The most recent U.S. Census of Agriculture data shows of the more than 94,000 growers in Indiana, around 32,000 are women, and just over half of those are the principal operator. According to the American Farmland Trust, more than half of all U.S. farms in 2019 had at least one female producer, but only 14% of those had a woman as the principal producer. But based on enrollment in university and 4-H agricultural programs, the AFT report projects the number of women farm owners will grow.

See more: This Family’s Agricultural Legacy Is 5 Generations Strong

Photo credit: Nathan Lambrecht

The Next Generation

Beebe says all three of her children – Ava, Ethan and Gavin – love life on the farm. And she’s grateful that Ethan has stepped up to help his mother and grandmother shoulder some of the farm’s endless responsibilities.

Photo credit: Nathan Lambrecht

“My son has a huge impact on what we do,” Beebe says. “He’s taken so much additional work off me and helps me balance it to where I’m not trying to ride so many horses with one rear. Now I can spread it out with his help.”

To ensure her family’s farming future, she plans to keep working hard, remain adaptive to change and continue to be a good steward of the land.

“I hope that in 100 years, Losure Farms is still here,” she says. “That’s my goal and has always been my goal – to protect everything that Mom and Dad did for us.”

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