Making agriculture work in a brave new world

The lifeblood and future of farming and ranching in the United States is its young farmers and ranchers. With the average age of a farmer now up to 58 years old and a decreasing base of younger farmers coming into the field, there are serious concerns about the future of farming and ranching. The couples below are some of the best and the brightest in Arkansas agriculture.

Need for feed

Change and trying something different are the norm at Jeremy and Magen Allen’s Bismarck farm. For the third year in a row, their innovative approaches to modern-day farming qualified them as finalists for Arkansas Farm Bureau’s Young Farmers & Ranchers (YF&R) Achievement Award. The award honors young farm families in the state for their hard work, innovation, progress and the general excellence of their operations.

At one time or another, the Allens have run operations for breeder hens, cow/calves, feeder calves and a custom hay business. All have been successful. But in the ever-changing economies in the farming and ranching business, the Allens haven’t hesitated to move out of one operation and change to something better. That’s how they keep their farm going.

Right now, the Allens run a custom feed-mixing and trucking business that provides feed to other cattle ranchers, as well as feeding their own herd of longhorn cows Jeremy is breeding to Charolaise bulls. He bought the longhorns with profit from selling off his feeder calves.

Jeremy Allen, 31, is a deal maker. Whether he’s on his cell phone or laptop computer scanning farm auction Websites, Craigslist or e-Bay, he’s always looking for a good deal. That’s how he started his feed-mixing business. He needed a more affordable feed to give his cows, and he found “gin trash” from cotton gins. The trash contained some seeds, hulls and cotton. A nutrition test showed its nutritional value was on a par with or better than hay, but its appearance made some of Jeremy’s first customers skeptical.

“We assured them we would come back and get the gin trash if their cattle didn’t eat it,” Jeremy recalled. “Luckily, that was never a problem.”
Since then, he’s mixed combinations that have included ingredients like rice hulls, rice dust, rice bran, soybeans, distillers’ grain, milo, corn, corn gluten, bakers waste and even breakfast cereal. With this year’s drought and resulting hay shortage, the Allens can’t keep up with customer demand for their cattle feed mixes.

“What began as a way to feed our cattle in a more cost-effective way has proved to be the best business venture we have ever dealt with,” Jeremy said. So much so, that last year, Magen, 30, left her bank job to put her bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance to work on the farm.

“At this time, the feed business is the life blood of our operation,” Jeremy said. “It’s kept our farm from being one of the many struggling to survive.”

The Allens added to their truck and trailer fleet, built additional dry storage (now totaling 16,000 square feet) for their feed business, added a bigger feed mixer and purchased a new bagging system that’s more efficient and helps meet customer demand for 50-lb. Bags of feed. With the shortage of hay and farmers having to use feed for their cattle much earlier than normal this year, the Allens should beat their sales goal for 2011.

It’s this willingness and ability to adapt and change along with their innovative approach to farming that makes the Allens successful.

Megen Allen believes the willingness to change is critical. “Whether you’re 35 or 65, you have to be willing to change with the times in order to survive farming,” she said.

The couple has served on the state YF&R board and the state board of directors (Ex Officio). Jeremy also serves as YF&R president for Hot Spring County and is on the county board of directors and the state Trade Advisory Committee.

Defying the odds

Dairy farming is not an industry most young people would choose to enter. The work is hard, the hours are long, and the economics are downright brutal. Scott Davis, 31, isn’t like most young people, though.

He became a dairyman in 2000 when he and his father purchased 300 acres and 25 head of Holstein cows. During the past 11 years, the Davis farm, located in Prairie Grove, has grown to comprise 223 milk cows on nearly 650 acres. In 2006, Scott’s wife Cassie, 28, came on board fulltime to take care of the accounting. His dad retired last year.

Growth like this is a feat under any circumstances, but it’s especially noteworthy considering what has happened to the Arkansas dairy industry since Scott started farming. In 2000, there were more than 500 dairies in the state. Today, there are only 120. The volatility of milk prices during the past decade has put more than 75 percent of the state’s dairies out of business.

For the Davises, an emphasis on efficiency – making more with less – has keyed their success. Scott uses advanced milk-testing and recordkeeping techniques to track data on each cow in his herd and monitor things like milk quantity and quality, animal health and feed conversion costs.

“I’ve seen my volume increase by more than 4,000 pounds a month since I started testing and tracking,” Scott said. “Right now, my herd’s producing an average of around 20,000 pounds of milk a month, and that’s low for me. This is just a start. The ultimate goal is to milk fewer cows but get a larger volume of milk out of each cow.”

Scott’s ability to succeed in the face of adversity is just one of the reasons he and Cassie were one of the finalist-families in Arkansas Farm Bureau’s YF&R Achievement Award competition this year.

Scott and Cassie have both been extremely active in Farm Bureau and its YF&R program. Scott has been on the Washington County Farm Bureau Board of Directors since 2003. He was named secretary/ treasurer in 2010, and, this past October, he was elected vice president. The couple has been on the county Farm Bureau’s YF&R Committee since 2003. They served on the Arkansas Farm Bureau YF&R Committee from 2007-2008. Cassie was recently picked to lead the county Women’s Committee.

“It’s important for younger people to be active and promote agriculture as much as possible,” Cassie said. “The further away from the farm Americans get, the less important they think agriculture is. They don’t realize it’s what feeds them, clothes them, shelters them and keeps them alive.”

Blessed to farm

C. J. and Cara Parker of Carlisle will tell you blessings from above and hard work are critical to farming success. For the second time in three years, those factors, along with C.J.’s deft management skills and diversity of crop choices, once again made them finalists for Arkansas Farm Bureau’s YF&R Achievement Award.

The Parkers grow rice – long grain and medium grain – as well as soybeans and winter wheat. The latter two C.J. also grows for seed stock. “Diversity makes for a healthy farm by spreading the risks between different markets,” he said. “Half of our wheat is grown for seed, and the other half is grown as mill wheat. We grow oil and seed beans. The seed beans offer extra value by getting a premium for the seed.”

C. J., 34, thinks the strength of the farm is in its management, a duty he shares with Cara. “Managing is where I think we shine. It’s the most important aspect of our farming operation,” he said. He maintains detailed records on each crop and the ground where it grows. “My wife and I share these duties.”

Cara, 34, works fulltime on the farm now, and handles all the bill paying, bookkeeping and even buys parts for equipment and runs other errands. She also books the hunts for the family duck-guiding service the Parkers run during the winter on the farm. She didn’t grow up on a farm but has come to love the way of life.

“It’s very gratifying. I love the fact we’re raising our kids on the farm,” she said. “I definitely think it teaches you a work ethic.” The Parkers started farming with 200 acres in 1998 and now farm 4,500.

“We’ve been very blessed. We made strides by taking on rough ground and working really hard, and people saw that and believed in us,” C.J. said. “They saw that we worked hard, and we’ve been able to pick up some of the better ground when the opportunity became available.”

C. J. has served on the Lonoke County Farm Bureau Board of Directors since 2002 and is active in the county Political Education, YF&R (county chair in 2011) and Soybean committees. Cara is on the state Women’s Committee and is co-chair of the county Women’s Committee.