I just wrapped up a week of being on the road, talking with young farmers throughout the Midwest. I had committed to speaking at three different events this week, all of which catered to young farmers.

During my presentations , I shared with them the questions that consumers share with me, and tips for how they can tell their own farm story.

Without fail, this presentation evokes passion and sparks conversation among farmers, but even more noticeably among young farmers.

This week there were some very clear themes that emerged - realities of farming that our young farmers are dying for you to know.

1. Our family farm is getting bigger - so that I can come home.

We discuss the fact that many Americans are less trusting of what they see as "big" farms and this always gets the same response, "We have to grow! How am I suppose to come back and also raise a family here if we don't find a way to generate more income?"

The often misunderstood reality is that while we are getting much more efficient and can handle more animals and more acres, growth on the farm also happens to allow one, or more, of the children to farm along side mom and dad.

2. I care about all the things you care about!

When I list the top concerns of our consumers - animal welfare, reducing chemical use, sustainability, food safety and nutrition, protecting the family farm- I am often met with baffled stares.

And then the response is always the same, "Of course they care about those things, so do I! How can they think I don't? Why would I be doing this if I didn't care about all of that?"

The problem isn't that we don't care. It's that we forget to explain WHY we farm they way we do, and we leave out how modern farming actually addresses all of those concerns better than any time in our farming history.

3. I love what I do, but this my job.

I share comments left online, where people claim they cannot trust us because we "only farm for money" or are "driven by profit".

The farmers always meet these comments with confusion, followed by anger. "Who out there goes to work every week without getting a paycheck? I love what I do, but we have bills to pay as well, and no one is getting rich out here."

The anger comes because most of the men and women sitting in the room during these conversations either have been before, or currently are, struggling to make ends meet on reduced margins and increased operating costs.

"The public wants to talk about the few years we had good profits. But they want to forget all the years we barely broke even, or the years we actually lost money."

The farmers also want to point out that they, or a spouse, and often both, have to work off farm jobs in order to be able to farm.

"It's not like it used to be. With land and machinery costs I can't afford to farm without having a full time job in town also."

4. It doesn't work like in a textbook.

The conversation always gets passionate when they start talking about all the non-farmers who have told them how they think they should be doing it, because they've read something online. One young man summed it up well this week.

"I was like that too- just like these people who have done 'google research' about farming. I came home from college ready to show Dad and Granddad how to do it. It took exactly one growing season for me to realize that real life farming doesn't work like the textbooks and college professors say it will. Turns out you've got to trust the guys who have been at it for 40+ years."

Many of them share a similar frustration of someone farming on a very small scale, or even someone with a garden, trying to offer up critism for what they do. "A lot of this trendy stuff works fine small scale. But it's not realistic for the typical size farm nor can it meet the demands on agriculture."

They are also quick to communicate how much their educations are contributing to the farm. As an industry, we are returning more young people to the farm with college degrees than ever before.

They are getting better everyday, but you can't just throw out what early generations have learned the hard way because of a college degree.

5. We want to tell you our story.

This generation of farmers is more eager than ever to share their story with you. They are popping up all over social media and stepping up within their communities.

A young woman said it so well, "I know people have all these questions. I just wish they would ask us, the actual farmers. We don't just want to tell them, we want to show them!"

Occasionally, the gap between consumer and farmer seems too large to bridge and I get overwhelmed.

But after a week like this one, of having conversations with dozens of young men and women who are passionate about being the best farmers our country has ever seen, I have no doubt that our industry is moving in the right direction - both in terms of continued improvement in food, fuel and fiber production AND in terms of communicating with an increasingly further removed public.

I have been testing 30 out for about five days and if my initial impression in accurate, I think this decade on the farm is going to trump (no pun) the last one.   Don’t get me wrong – a lot of good happened in the last ten years.  I graduated college; got a big kid job, got married, and our two boys were born.  But it’s fairly evident the next decade is going to be much smoother sailing.   

1. I can cook.
    
   I grew up in an area where you could order ANYTHING, literally anything, you wanted for dinner.  That luxury leads to a lack of interest in developing one’s ability to actually cook.  When I moved back to Matt’s hometown in rural Missouri, where the dining out options were pretty limited, I struggled. 
    
   But over the last years I’ve developed a love for cooking!  Not only can I cook dinner, but I can pack it in the truck and serve it to the family – with all four of us jammed in the cab of the combine. 
    
2. I can deal.
    
   Planting season, spraying season, harvest.  Going  stag to weddings and funerals.  The inability to commit to anything any sooner than a few hours before.  Everything being dependent on the weather.  Dirt – on clothes, in my truck, in my house. 
    
   I’ve chilled out on all of the above and learned to deal with this crazy, insane  lifestyle.   Because it’s worth it.
    
3. I can follow directions.
    
   “When you see John’s old tractor, turn east after the next curve,  but before that farm that Joe use to rent.  You’ll come up on a hill and you’ll see Smith’s grain trucks, turn south there and keep going until you hit the old Johnson farm.  You won’t see us from the road but drive back on that field a mile and you’ll see us…”
    
   Yea, that.  I can decipher that while driving down the road with screaming kids and arrive with lunch still hot.
    
4. I know that cows get out.
    
   That dreaded phone call of “your cows are out”.  At first, I used to panic.  Are we going to lose them?  Can we get them back in?  What if someone hits one? 
    
   Then for a while I was questioning his ability to even have cows.  Why do the cows keep getting out? Does he actually know how to build fence?  Maybe we should just stick with sheep?
    
   Now, I just turn the truck around, text whoever was waiting on us, and tell them we will be late, “The cows are out”.  (Our friends have learned to deal too.)    And then I look at Facebook until he gets them back in.   
    
   Because cows get out.  Or at least ours do.
    
5. This place is home.
    
   For a long time, often during the loneliness of planting or harvest, I felt like a stranger in our house, the town.  I would long for Mom and Dad, and friends back home.  I still look forward to visiting friends and family, but this place, this town, this farm we’ve built – its home. 
   

The largest industry on the island is tourism but agriculture is import as well. Sugar is the largest agricultural contributor to the economy for the island. Most sources estimate marijuana or "ganja" as it's known on the island, as being the second largest crop (but there are no records to know exactly how much the illegal crop contributes to the economy).

When we pulled into Croydon Farm, I was overwhelmed with the beauty and shocked at the rolling hills. Being from the Midwest, I was expecting the farmland to be located in the valleys or flatter areas of the island and was surprised to see pineapple and coffee growing right out of the side of the mountains!

The Croydon Farm, which has been awarded National Champion Farm three times, is a total of 136 acres and has 11 full time farmers working there plus seasonal help.

The temperature range on the farm was minimal, ranging from 78-90 degrees. Average rainfall was 90 inches per year.

In addition to areas of fruit and nut production and some spice production, the main products grown on the farm are bananas, coffee, and pineapples.

Soil conservation is important in Jamaica, just like in Missouri. Heavy rainfalls during the rainy season can lead to excessive soil loss from farming the hills so they use several different systems such as bench terracing, waterways, cover crops, and stilling basins to minimize the loss.

The pineapples shown in the picture below are planted with a grass waterway between. The waterway then runs to a stilling basin. This basin will fill up with washed soil after heavy rains and then will manually be spread back out over the growing areas.

This farm grows 17 different varieties of pineapple and our tour guide indicated there are 27 different varieties grown on the island and dozens more grown world wide.

The different varieties have been developed for different taste, textures, transport ease, size, disease resistance and weather conditions. They have been developed using multiple different breeding techniques.

Depending on the variety, plants will start to produce fruit 12-22 months after planting and will continue to produce for 3-5 years. Along the way they will send up "sucker" plants that can be left to grow along side the parent plant or transplanted.

Bananas are an important crop for the island, and Jamaica is a leading export of them! They require a lot of water - at least 69 inches a year, and prefer acidic soils. (Here in Missouri we only get around 35-40 inches a year.)

The banana plants are often grown along with coffee in Jamaica, as the large leaves of the bananas will offer much needed shade to the coffee plants.

Once the banana is ready to start producing fruit, it shoots up a large red flower. After the fruit is produced, the plant dies. From start to finish it's approximately 18 months.

Like pineapples, the plant will send up several other suckers before dying that will go on to produce fruit. The suckers may be left where they are, thinned out, or completely replanted to other areas.

The bananas are picked green for transport but if they are being served locally (like at our resort) they are picked at their peak and often consumed the same day! It's amazing how wonderful they are right off the tree but it's obviously not possible to get them to Missouri that way! Bugs and disease are the two largest challenges to raising bananas and pineapples.

Nearly all of what is grown in Jamaica needs to be transported carefully and is highly perishable. This is why coffee is such an important cash crop for the island.

Coffee can be grown on the steep hills that cannot grow anything else, can be stored for longer periods of time and is not sensitive to transportation. In many ways, it's similar to corn and soybeans for Midwest farm families.

It is however very labor intensive. Coffee berries are still hand picked as to not harm the plant and keep it in production. The coffee plant makes a red berry and the bean we are used to seeing is inside the berry.

On the farm the berries will be floated in a large vat of water. Any bad berries will float to the top and be discarded. These are berries that were typically infected with some type of disease or pest.

The coffee plant will produce for 3-5 years. Typical planting rate is around 840 plants to the acre, which can yield anywhere from 650-3000 pounds of ground coffee.

Coffee does better at higher elevations, creating a more dense and better yielding bean. The world renowned Blue Mountain Coffee from Jamaica has to be grown within 10 miles of the peak of Blue Mountain or it cannot be labeled and sold as pure Blue Mountain Coffee. We brought some home and paid $45 for a 1 pound bag of whole beans (yes it's that good!). Comparatively, Starbucks sells their coffee on Amazon for $13 a pound.

Jamaican agriculture is as beautiful as their beaches and oceans and rich in history and culture.

The rural people are deeply religious and hard working souls that carry a tangible satisfaction that so often comes with working the land and raising food for the people of your country.

However, It is still very labor intense, and lacking in much of the technology we take for granted here. Farm workers are not often well paid- minimum wage is $1.21/hour or less than $50 per week. It goes without saying that many rural workers are not paid minimum wage.

With interest rates typically running around 35%, it's very hard for locals to make any progress and very few can afford to borrow any money for investment or expansion. Even though the island has a variety of agriculture production, it still imports most of its food and food costs are very high.

The views are breathtaking, the food is amazing. They served us lunch on the farm that words cannot even explain. If you visit the island, it's well worth the time to leave the luxury and comfort of your resort and venture into the country side.

Information for this post was obtained from our time on the island and on the farm and verified with additional sources as listed below.

Nations Encyclopedia

Discover Jamaica

Country Studies

 The corn is harvested!  It took Matt and I, each running a 9500 John Deere combine with a 6 row corn head, about nine hours to harvest the entire 60 acres.  So now that it’s all done, here are my thoughts.

Farming is hard work!

There might be a reason only 2% of Americans do this – it’s hard!  I try to battle that fairy-tale version of farming on my  blog but I don’t think I’ve given enough credit to the physical aspect of farming. 

I see him come home every night  covered head to toe in dust and looking physically exhausted.  But it never really registered with me.  Especially this time of year.  I know working cattle is hard, shearing sheep is hard. But driving a tractor or a combine? 

Turns out, even driving equipment all day is mentally and physically exhausting. When you’re in the combine there are a dozen different things you have to watch out for,  all while constantly monitoring the height of the head, the speed of the combine, your grain tank, and where everyone else is at in the field.

A combine is a huge machine – and it doesn’t exactly ride like a Lexus.  I hit a small ditch I didn’t see coming and at 4mph it felt like I had just driven off the side of a cliff! 

When I climbed out of the combine on Saturday night I was stiff and sore.  The next morning I felt like I had run a marathon!

Hindsight is 20/20.

Who can’t really say this about their job? But it really rings true for farming. When it was all said and done I was disappointed in some of the decisions I had made through the year.

I’ve frequently given Matt grief over missing an event, or refusing to take a break from work. I never quite understood what difference a few hours, or a day could make.

Because I work a full time job, he waited to let me plant #My60Acres on a Saturday. It was the last corn we had in and it turned cold and wet right after planting. When the rest of the corn was already out of the ground and better able to deal with that stress, my corn was submerged in cold, wet dirt.

Because of that my emergence wasn’t as good as I had hoped, especially on the north side of the farm where I was planting into expired CRP fields.

CRP – or conservation reserve program – is a program designed to allow farmers to set aside areas for conservation. Once the 10 year contract expires we can put it back into production.

Matt and I tossed back and forth the idea of spraying the back half of the farm and replanting. This would add time and cost. At the time when the cash flow was looking breakeven at best, I was worried about not being able to recoup the cost of replanting. In the end, I made the decision to not replant. Looking back, it was the wrong decision.

The corn on the front side of my farm was yielding well over 240 bushel to the acre. The corn on the back side, where I should have replanted, was making less than 80 bushel.

My next crucial mistake came in the heat of the summer. Like most summers in Missouri, it had turned off hot and dry. I had been at a conference for work and listened to an agricultural economist tell everyone that farmers needed to be contracting grain.

“Contracting” our corn would mean that we would basically pre-sell a certain number of bushel at a set price. This can reduce risk of price decrease at harvest time. The risk with contracting is that if you do not produce enough grain to fulfill your contract, you have to buyout rest of the contract.

I rushed home from that conference ready to contract my corn because it was over $4.00 per bushel. I told Matt my plan and he replied, “You’d better look at your corn before you decide to do that.”

It hadn’t rained in days. The corn did NOT look good. There wasn’t rain in the forecast except a small chance a week away. If we didn’t get that rain, it was high chance I wouldn’t have a crop at all.

With the weather forecast, and current look of the crop, I made the decision to not contract anything.

As luck would have it, the next week it did rain. And every few days for the rest of the growing season it rained! That rain quickly shifted the corn outlook from bleak to positive, and prices came down in response to the good growing conditions most of the Corn Belt was having.

With my initial cash flow I had projected 140 bushels to the acre. My total operating cost in corn was right at $380 per acre, so I needed $2.72 to break even on operating cost. This is prior to any land cost (rent or in the case of our farm, the mortgage payment to the bank).

Check back soon for a detailed post on the cash flow of #My60Acres!!

On Saturday, the cash price at our local elevator was at $3.02 so I made the decision to sell my corn right as it came out of the field. With an average of 160 bushel to the acre, that resulted in $103 per acre over operating costs, or a total of $6180 left over to cover land expense. For this year, there won't be any leftovers.

It takes a village.

As I was unloading the combine into a grain cart being run by Matt’s grandpa – who is 84 by the way – I thought about all the people who have helped me this year.   Many of us often drive by corn and soybean fields on our way to and from the cities, without much thought of just how many people are employed by those acres. 

Each farmer in our community is running a small business – they bring thousands of dollars of trade into our rural communities, they help to employ dozens of people locally and hundreds state wide! 

There are people that sell seed, chemical, equipment, insurance.  There are bankers that finance our farms.  There are men and women that work on our equipment, our technology, our soils.  There is the plane pilot who flew on my cover crop, the truck drivers who delivered my seed to the farm and delivered my grain to the elevator.  There are the dozens of people who work all hours of the day and into the weekends keeping the elevators open so we can deliver and store grain. 

Missouri corn industry is responsible for sustaining nearly 66,000 jobs!!  The production and processing of soybeans in Missouri  employs 25,000 people in the state! 

All done!
So in about 9 hours my harvest was over.  Matt will be hard at it for several more weeks .  My cover crop, applied a while back by airplane, is coming up nicely and preparing me for 2017 season. 

I told Matt I wanted to grow sunflowers, but he didn’t find my idea all that entertaining.  So we will rotate on to number one produced row crop in the state of Missouri – soybeans!

I’ll have a few more posts to follow up on this season, so please join me again!

In the meantime, make sure and visit our store to purchase your gear to show your support of family farmers across this country! 

I love the emails I have been getting asking about #My60Acres!  The summer has gotten away from me so before we get much closer to harvesting I wanted to share with you some more from the growing season!

If I had to describe this growing season in one word it would be “blessed”.  After the initial cold spell right after planting, we have had rain and temperatures that are ideal for growing corn – at least right here.  Some of our neighbors have had way too much rain – some as much as 10+ inches in 24 hours, and some of our neighbors are too dry.  But we have gotten very timely rains in manageable amounts.

Unfortunately, the corn prices are reflecting the good growing conditions much of the corn belt is experiencing and even with good yields it’s going to be a very hard season financially.

None the less, we still have to farm the best we can.  About a month ago the plane came to visit and applied a fungicide.  We don’t have to use fungicide every year but with the wet conditions and warm temperatures, we needed to protect the corn from fungus that can be very damaging. 

The plane came back to visit us just this past Friday!  He flew on cover crop seed.  The seed is loaded into the plane and sprayed out right on top of the growing corn!   We used a mix of rye, triticale, and buckwheat on my field. 

The cover crop will most likely be emerged before we even harvest the corn.  This means my soil stays protected on the top from erosion from wind and rain AND it means that all the living organisms in my soil stay alive and well too.   

Make sure and check out the Facebook page for a video of the plane applying cover crops! 

Check back in a few weeks to see our harvest update and find out where the corn from #My60Acres will end up! 

​As I watch social media, it's becoming increasingly obvious a line is being drawn between those breeders that embrace the power of social media and those that are oblivious to it.

Here is the truth - if you are showing and selling stock, those animals are appearing on social media whether you intend for them to or not.

It's time to become aware and learn how to use that fact to boosts sales instead of hurting them. Here are some quick tips on maximizing your online presence.


1. Know where the live camera is

If you are at an event that is being streamed, you have to know where the camera is! I cannot count how many shows I watched online this year where the camera was centered on an exhibitor that was clueless about the FREE spotlight they were being granted. The judge wasn't looking in that spot so I spent hours looking at animals that weren't set up or exhibitors were clearly blocking my view.

Ask ahead of time and better yet, watch earlier shows on your own device. Once in the ring, be just as aware of that spot as you are of the judge. You are more likely to have people seeing your animal from their smartphone at home than sitting ring side. So pay attention!

2. ALWAYS be set

My fitter (AKA my husband) was trained relentlessly by his mentor that an animal is ALWAYS set unless in his pen or on the move. He demands the same for our animals now!

Even if the show is not being live streamed someone is taking pictures and posting them!

I was on Facebook today multiple times to get still shots and updates from a show I couldn't be at. In a number of those photos the judge was giving reasons so a few people were using that time as a break - and so were their animals! That means I was getting a pretty poor idea of what the animal actually looks like in the ring!

Just who is seeing those pictures? Other judges, other breeders, your potential buyers. Just do yourself and your stock a favor and make sure they are set all the time!


3. The judge is no longer the only judge

People use to rely heavily on printed results and maybe a few still photos to make determinations on who had successful breeding programs around the country.

Today, people are demanding proof! And they are going to social media to get it. A judge selecting your animal as the best is no longer good enough. Each person (potential customer) will see photos and video of the events and form their own opinions about who deserved the banners. Show for the judge but show for the cameras as well!

4. Your audience is endless

Years ago, you had to travel to multiple shows to make a name for your program. In today's world, you can broadcast your successful animals right into your buyers' palms.

This week we showed at Missouri State Fair. It used to be that we would only get our animals seen by a handful of potential buyers there. This week, only three hours after posting a picture of our champion ram, his photos had been seen by over 2500 people! In THREE hours! Since then the reach has nearly tripled.


5. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a bad picture is worth two thousand

Don't post bad pictures. Just don't.

Be aware of the photos you take and post. I cringe every time I see a post that says something like "This is isn't the best picture" or "This is the best we can get" and following is a terrible picture of what may (or may not) be a good animal. Take the time and get it right!


The livestock world is going through a huge change right now as our world shifts more to digital. Some breeders are catching on more quickly than others but we can all benefit from being more aware of what our animals look like ALL THE TIME!

Finally, if you're a person taking and posting those pictures thank you! All of the people in your sector of the industry appreciate your updates! However, you'll do the most good if you make those in your viewfinder very aware of where you are and what you are doing. Do the exhibitors, the judges, and your audience a huge favor and do your best to get good quality pictures of the animals!

A lot of what is happening in our world of farming is being driven by marketing that happens well after food leaves the farm. Labels are applied, misleading ads are run, misconceptions are often conveniently left to linger in our consumers' minds.

The marketing done by the food industry is often not concerned with the facts and the common practice now seems to be to repeat these lies until they become truth by perception.

This puts farmers in a unique position. We can make the choice to stand up for fact and reason and sell our product based on its true qualities.

Or we can make the choice to join the fear mongering campaigns to try and sell our products by misleading the public.

Nearly all of us are making choices to farm differently than our neighbor. We all mitigate risk in different way, we all have different needs and expectations from our farms. But we all also respect our neighbors and their decisions - so let's pass along that respect to the consumers!

There are some truths about agriculture and farming that we must all bear witness to. It is our duty to speak these freely and frequently because the food industry is not going to do it for us!

1. The quality of the farmer is not defined by the size of the farm.

All too often I see marketing that touts small farms as superior over large farms. As farmers we know that nearly all large and small farmers alike are good at their jobs, dedicated to their farms. So let's share that idea with the public instead of jumping on the bandwagon to judge our neighbor based on how many acres he covers or how many cows he calves.

2. Nearly all food comes from family farms!

In both the United States and Canada nearly 97% of farms are family owned. As farmers we need to stop using terms like "corporate farmers" and start embracing the reality that nearly all of our food is grown by families. Sometimes on very small farms, sometimes on huge farms - sometimes by a single farmer, sometimes by three generations of farm families.

3. All meat and dairy sold is antibiotic free!

It is illegal to send any animal or animal product for processing with even trace amounts of antibiotic. We know this! But we often forget to share that fact with our consumers because we assume everyone knows this.

4. Both conventional and organic farmers use pesticides safely!

The food industry has gleefully allowed the "organic equals pesticide free" myth to perpetuate. As farmers we know that both conventional and organic farmers rely on pesticides and we also know they use them safely and responsibly!

Don't be part of the problem by allowing our buyers to continue to be fooled by that marketing.

5. Modern agriculture is better than ever before in history!

We are growing more food, fuel and fiber, more safely than ever before. We are using fewer inputs and resources, less toxic chemicals.

We are embracing new farming practices and technology every single day to increase our sustainability and reduce our footprint.

We are offering our consumers more choices than ever before in history, all while still maintaining the safest and most affordable food in the world!

Be proud of agriculture. Be proud of our industry. Let's tell our stories and sell our products without using the fear and myths and instead rely on truth!