Is there such a thing as “double custom farming”? Because it seems like Robert Jantzi takes the idea at least one step further.

Custom farmer Robert Jantzi breaks into a quick, silent laugh when asked about his “busiest time of year.”

“Spring. Summer. Fall,” he says, pausing for a smile between each word. He’s not pausing for much else these days, even though we’ve caught up with him just as winter starts to show itself in the central Ontario township of Wellesley. He and son Randell have just wrapped up some large, square baling and have put up some haylage. They’re a couple of weeks into working corn silage. 

Corn silage is his favorite work. “There’s less pressure,” he says, but “less” is relative. As we talk, his phone buzzes and he finally interrupts our talk to answer. After the call, he pauses again—for just one, barely affordable moment—to calculate how many silos he will need to fill before the end of the week.

None of this work is on his own land, but all of it is within about 30 miles of the family farm. All of it is for unique clients that set the Jantzis apart even in the notably frantic sub-profession of custom farming. And pretty much all of it is ready to go. Now.

“So that’s kind of where we’re at,” Jantzi says, and with another quick, silent laugh, he climbs back into a tractor cab he may not leave again for 12 hours.

“Where we’re at” turns out to be an open question when trying to catch up with the Jantzis for an interview. They’re somewhere in the field, sharing location via text message and GPS coordinates. Looking for Robert makes for a very nice drive, though. Wellesley’s topography seems created to show off its family farmsteads, most of them about 100 acres in size. Almost every low hill is topped with a red barn and green silo, some of them generations old.

The Jantzi farm is similar, but not the same. Similar because of its appearance and size, about 150 acres, and its makeup: small tracts of corn, soybeans, wheat and alfalfa, along with 80 stockers. Not the same, because Jantzi’s modern farm with modern equipment is surrounded for miles on all sides by non-mechanized Mennonite and Amish farms. 

Similar again, though, because Jantzi’s opportunity is to work as many of those farms as he can, with the same care as he would work his own. “90% of my work is for the horse-and-buggy set,” says Jantzi, referring to the groups’ preferred method of highway travel, so familiar in this part of Ontario that yellow road signs alert motorists of the practice with a horse-and-buggy icon.

Mennonite and Amish orders are on something of a spectrum concerning their views toward technology, says Fred Lichti, pastor of the Mennonite church in the neighboring town of Elmira. Lichti, who grew up on a Mennonite farm, says these orders share a theological framework but might accept different levels of “culturation,” as Lichti calls it. 

While that might mean a Mennonite or Amish farmer can’t own a combine or a tractor, they can hire someone who does. And those who use cell phones—Lichti says wireless cell phones are not literally connected to the outside world and therefore acceptable to some—might find their “someone” in Robert.

Mennonite farmers spend time in their shops making furniture, tools and other products for city folk, “and they say it pays for them to get the farming custom-done than to do it with their horses,” says Robert. “That’s where I come in.”

Each year, Jantzi and son will plant 2,000 acres for Mennonite farms and cultivate another 2,000. They’ll put up 10,000 bales of hay and fill 60 silos. “17 this week,” says Robert, reminding us of the immediacy of his work and, likely, the brevity of this interview. Jantzi says his willingness to be on call for work and his “reasonable rates” keep him busy, and close to home, given the proximity of his clientele. 

It’s custom farming by definition, but so very different from the norm in that business. “So, I’m guaranteed work for quite a while,” Robert says.

It’s good work, but Jantzi isn’t the only custom operator working this tiny but potentially lucrative niche. High above us, a Mennonite client has climbed his silo to watch as corn silage fills it to the top. We only get this moment with Robert as the trailer empties into the silo, and Robert already has his next client lined up, just down the road. “They call you, and if you’re available, you go. If you’re not, they get somebody else.”

It’s go time. Interview done. “So that’s where we’re at,” Robert says again, and heads toward the next silo.

A Custom Farming Fleet Featuring the Massey Ferguson 8730S

The Massey Ferguson 8730S is part of a long list of AGCO equipment in the Jantzi fleet, which includes a MF2250 large square baler, an 1840 small square baler, a Massey Ferguson triple mower, two other recent MF row crop tractors, a 16-row White Planter, a Sunflower cultivator and a Fendt 718 tractor. This year, though, Robert and son Randell are sharing time in the cab of the new 8730S.

“It’s just a smoother ride,” says Robert, thanks to the OptiRide Plus cab suspension, important for a guy who might spend 18-20 hours in the cab. In their short time with the tractor, Robert and Randell have already noticed the ease of use, too, from the Multipad joystick that makes baler controls more accessible, to the larger Datatronic 5 touch screen, that Randell says makes ISOBUS assignment of joystick controls easier. Robert says comfort and ease of use were selling points for adding the 8730S to the family’s fleet.

His long connection to the brand meant other Massey Ferguson hallmarks were no surprise to him. The 8.4 liter AGCO Power engine offers the horsepower to make quick work of a hay field or to pull a trailer full of corn sileage with trademark efficiency. “For fuel usage on my Masseys, I’ve been very impressed,” says Robert. “They use very little.”

Dependability closes the deal for Robert, who, like any farmer, cannot afford downtime. In his case, though, even minutes can cause him to miss days of potential work. “How I get work is word of mouth. Uptime in machinery is very important because if you’re broken down, if you can’t go, you miss out on an opportunity.”

“The biggest thing is the demand for customers to get their field work done in a short period of time,” says Willem Van De Camp, with Connect Equipment in Innerkip. “The Massey fit his (Robert’s) needs. It’s got a wide range of horsepower and it fit what he was looking for.”