Eminent Farmer
County: Minnehaha
Peter H. Ginsbach, 70, Dell Rapids was honored in 1975 as Eminent Farmer by the South Dakota Board of Regents and South Dakota State University.
Ginsbach has been a trail blazer in purebred cattle and conservation and labor-saving crop handling systems on his farm near Dell Rapids.
After taking over from his father in 1936, Ginsbach developed his polled purebred Hereford cattle to the point that in the last 20 years they have been sought as seed stock in at least 40 states as well as three Canadian provinces. One of his bulls, GPH Perfect Aster-155, calved in 1961, was awarded international gold trophy sire status through the American Polled Hereford Association. It’s been the only bull produced in South Dakota so far to receive such recognition and numbers among only 42 others with that distinction in the nation.
Ginsbach was president of the American Polled Hereford Association in 1959-60 and was president of the South Dakota Hereford Association in 1971-72.
Soil conservation plans in Minnehaha County officially were written in the early 1940s; however, Ginsbach already was involved in a modified contour system as early as 1937. Later, his farm also was designated as an official tree farm because of its wildlife tree projects, winning the Fertilizer and Ag Chemical Association award and a 25-year conservation district supervisor award, both in 1972. He was on the board of directors of the Minnehaha County Conservation Board for 12 years and the Moody County Conservation District Board for 14 years (his farming operations overlap into the two counties). He also aided in the organization of the Lake County Conservation District in the mid-1940s and the Moody County district.
Crop rotation, contour farming, terraces, grassed waterways, dugouts, stock dams, shelterbelts and tree plantings earned him a state Soil and Moisture Conservation Award in 1948 and recognition from the Sioux City Chamber of Commerce and the Journal-Tribune for outstanding contributions in the development of agriculture in 1947 and 1948.
His farm was used to grow some of the parent stock for hybrid seed corn in the 1930s. He also was a 4-H leader when his children were growing up, receiving a Gold Clover award from SDSU in 1962 for 10 years of leadership for the Linger Longer 4-H Club.
Ginsbach and his wife, Florence, are semi-retired and live in a new home on the Ginsbach farm. They have six children, all of whom are married.