From Athletics to Ag: Ayer continues growing passion with family business
Aug. 27—Despite growing up on her family's farm in McLean County, Kirstin Ayer didn't expect to have a career in agriculture.
"I was more actively involved in sports, and then I showed pigs from when I was 9 until I aged out," Ayer, 24, said.
The Future Farmers of America (FFA) was a big part of Ayer's family, with her father Jonathan and brother Trenton involved, and she eventually got into it during her eighth-grade year at McLean County Middle School, practicing the FFA Creed in preparation for high school.
Still, Ayer didn't plan on following in their footsteps, and she continued to stay busy with sports as a member of the soccer and basketball teams. She was also the kicker for the high school football team.
"Basically, all growing up, I wanted to do physical therapy or athletic training or something in that field," she said.
But she kept herself occupied off the court and the field.
"...I would come home from practice and walk pigs because I had like 10 to 11 pigs every summer," she said.
Even after receiving offers to play soccer at Kentucky Wesleyan College and some places in Ohio, Ayer decided to head in a different direction.
After graduating high school in 2016, she went to the University of Kentucky to study ag education before transferring to Murray State University after a year to pursue a degree in animal science.
"I always wanted to raise hogs (and) show quality hogs," she said. "I always loved pigs. We used to, up until I was (about) 3, raise commercial hogs; and then whenever the market crashed, we kind of eased out of it.
"I always loved animals, and pigs have always been what I've been drawn to. I don't know if it's a certain thing or anything. It's just pigs in general."
She ended up getting hands-on experience with pigs working at the university's swine unit — first as a student worker in her final year of undergrad and then a graduate student farm manager while she continued her studies to receive a masters in agricultural business in 2021.
"It wasn't until then I wanted to come home and farm and raise pigs," Ayer said.
She came back to Fairview Farms — her family's 4,000-acre row crop farm in Calhoun that grows corn, soybeans and wheat and has four chicken houses for Perdue — where she is responsible for raising pigs.
She also has daily tasks as a farm hand, which includes running the grain cart during harvest season and learning the ins-and-outs of mechanical work on farm equipment, installing tile lines for drainage and planting all of the corn by way of becoming familiar with a planter.
"I've been on a learning train so far," she said. "Farming is a fast-paced environment. We're constantly doing something and never slowing down. I'm a quick learner, so that helps; but it's just remembering how to do it every single time."
Ayer and her brother plan to take over the farm when their father and mother, Traci, retire.
She has found interacting with others in the field in a number of capacities is needed in her continued growth.
"You can go a variety of ways in agriculture," Ayer said. "Just the people you meet and the different backgrounds, they kind of help build your knowledge on different things and help you see the different sides of all the industries."
Since coming back to the farm, Ayer said the passion is still present.
"I like it more now than I did a year ago," she said. "Since I've grown up around it, it's in my blood.
"It's kind of just what I've been around and known all my life."
