Successful Farming Podcast: Recent Episodes
Successful Farming
From the Editors of Successful Farming Magazine, hear from experts and leaders in the ag industry. Email podcast@agriculture.com
Eric Sarff, President of Murray Wise Associates, LLC from Champaign, Illinois, talks with Lorrie Boyer on the factors that drive the price of agricultural land. Eric goes into detail in how land is valued and what investors need to consider before purchasing or selling land.
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Hay testing is a crucial practice to ensure optimal nutrition among livestock. On this podcast, Lorrie Boyer talks with Shelby Filley, Regional Livestock and Forages Specialist from Oregon State University Extension Service. Shelby discusses the hay testing process and livestock nutrition.
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Sudden death syndrome can decimate soybean yields seemingly in the blink of an eye. SDS can also be hard to identify, often being mistaken for other diseases in the field. AgriGold agronomist Nick Frederking sat down with Successful Farming editor Chelsea Dinterman to discuss how to identify and manage SDS risk.
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Brighten The Corner Where You Are is a hymn we may not hear as often today as we used to, but its message is one that resonates with the Brown family. After touring around the globe for 22 years, the musically gifted family decided it was time to find a home base. That dream brought them back to their hometown of LeMars, Iowa, where they revitalized several historic buildings and created a unique draw for the community.
Read the full story here.
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Grain storage and maintenance is a crucial step to maintaining a successful farm operation. On this podcast, Lorrie Boyer talks with Ron Meyer with the Colorado State University Extension, who gives advice on keeping grain bins always in their best condition.
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As herbicide resistance continues to impact farmers, ag machinery companies are thinking outside the box. Successful Farming editor, Chelsea Dinterman, sits down with University of Missouri’s Kevin Bradley to discuss new approaches to weed management, from electrification to weed seed destruction.
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Planter maintenance is essential to ensure the machinery is running smoothly in the field. Lorrie Boyer talks with Kevin Kimberly of Kimberly Ag Consulting, about his recommendations so farmers can prepare during the winter.
Check out Kimberly Ag Consulting here.
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Drone technology is ever-evolving to help farmers combat weeds on their operations. Successful Farming editor, Chelsea Dinterman, discusses the approach with Jared Roskamp, a BASF technical service representative, and Ben Johnson, a territory sales manager for Rantizo Drones.
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Choosing the right adjuvant can give you an edge over hardy weeds. Successful Farming editor, Chelsea Dinterman, sat down with Bryan Young to discuss how adjuvants can complement weed management systems and potentially save you money.
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Justin Zahradka, a young farmer from Lawton, North Dakota, has always wanted to farm and raise cattle for as long as he can remember. Editor, Lorrie Boyer talks with Justin to hear his advice on beginning a farm operation in North Dakota.
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Successful Farming Editors, Laurie Bedord and Chelsea Dinterman, discuss how farmers may not have the time to wait to address weed issues. Instead, farmers need to become their own R&D department to address troublesome weeds on their operation.
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Post-harvest weed mitigation is a crucial practice for any farm operation. Editor, Lorrie Boyer, talks with Dr. Aaron Hager, who is an Associate Professor of Weed Science with the University of Illinois Extension. Dr. Hager gives his advice on weed management following harvest.
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Alisha Schwertner has many roles from being a Product Manager with John Deere, certified crop advisor, chairwomen with the National Young Farmer & Rancher Committee, and mom to her three young boys. Alisha also farms with her husband on their farm in west central Texas. Successful Farming’s Natalina Sents Bausch, talks with Alisha about the importance of building up a team and other advice from her experience being a young farmer.
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Maple Drive Farms in southern Michigan have introduced ancient, specialty grains into the crop rotation. They’ve also built a gluten-free, 2,400-square-foot processing facility on site that churns out high-quality teff, millet, and buckwheat. This business unit of the farm, Tenera Grains, sells the processed ingredients to the Smiths’ daughter, Claire, who uses them to produce and sell granola and other packaged goods through her company, Teffola.
Learn more about the operation by visiting eatteffola.com or contacting Claire Smith at claire@teneragrains.com. Read more about the Michigan century farm here.
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Considering your seed selection for the following year can be a difficult decision depending on your operation. Editor, Lorrie Boyer, talks with Nathan Johanning, Extension Educator with the University of Illinois, about important reminders and tools for the upcoming planting season.
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Successful Farming Editors, Laurie Bedord and Chelsea Dinterman, discuss the importance of a fall herbicide application. As the weather cools down, weeds will always find a way to germinate. Learn what you can do in the fall to reduce the impact of weeds on your operation.
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On a ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills region, the Robert and Susanne Jones family continues a century old passion for beef production. Our Century Farm series highlights the history and legacy of America’s family farms. These multigenerational operations have overcome many challenges and have lessons to share.
Read more about the Diamond Bar Ranch here.
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Weeds Playbook is segment of the Successful Farming Podcast where agronomy experts discuss strategies to manage weeds on a farm operation. The premise of harvest weed control systems is to stop weeds before they start. These systems started in Australia, but hold promise in the United States. Kevin Bradley, Weed Management Specialist from the University of Missouri, discusses the Seed Terminator, and the goals for it.
Read more about the Seed Terminator here.
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Ed Terry of Northfield, Minnesota, has celebrated major milestones in the past year. In addition to his family farm reaching its sesquicentennial, Terry retired after 51 years teaching agriculture and serving as an FFA advisor. In 1974, Terry’s father, Chester, retired from farming. Terry, his wife, Carol, and his brother David formed a 50/50 partnership to take over the farm that had been in the Terry family since 1871.
Read about Terry Farms here.
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It can be difficult to develop a harvest maintenance checklist. Editor, Lorrie Boyer, talks with Extension Educator in Agronomy with Penn State Extension, Andrew Frankenfield about machinery maintenance reminders before major issues arise.
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Terren Moore never planned to become a farmer. In high school, he signed up for an agriculture class to fulfill an elective requirement. It didn’t take long for Moore to transition from an inexperienced agriculture student to a first-generation farmer. As Moore built relationships in the agriculture industry, he came to realize how farming and insurance go hand-in-hand. Today, Terren is the owner of Moore Farms & Insurance Services, LLC. His farm and office are located in Greenville, Texas, where he grows peas, okra and turnip greens. He also specializes in auto, home, farm and ranch, and life insurance.
Read more about Terren Moore here.
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For nearly 75 years, Eleanor Arnold has been discovering and documenting the history of the family’s 200 year old Indiana farm. Every farm has a history, but the story of Arnold farm in Rushville, Indiana, is preserved better than most. From letters, diaries, and photos to a saddlebag medicine kit and furniture, the Arnolds believed in saving every slice of their history. For nearly 75 years, Eleanor Arnold has been discovering and documenting the family’s story that spans seven generations.
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Editor, Lorrie Boyer, talks with Mani Iyer, CEO of Solectrac, about the growing industry of electric tractors. Read more about Solectrac here.
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Successful Farming's, Lorrie Boyer, talks with Hannah Fuller with the Farmers Market Coalition on how farmers can diversify into farmers markets.
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This 130-year-old farm spans just three generations. The Bateses are the third generation to farm this place in Mitchell County near Beloit, Kansas, and they are relative newcomers to the operation. They moved to Beloit in 1998 to raise their family, and Jeff and Jeri began helping her parents on the operation. They never missed a chance to learn from Bill and Louise, who were just one generation from the hardships and toil of first-generation farmers. Successful Farming's Bill Spiegel talks with the Walter family about the early days of the farm and where they intend to take it today.
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Jane Marshall’s knack for putting together triangles and squares into beautiful quilt patterns is only trumped by her ability to piece together people, resources, and opportunities in her community. Natalina Bausch talks with Jane about her childhood and her involvement in the community.
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Cindy Southern Marion’s family farm near Dobson, North Carolina was built on a foundation of cattle, tobacco, and music. Her three children all work professionally around the country as musicians and songwriters, but the pandemic brought them home, and together, the family is paving a new path for the century farm.
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Joe Dickie:
Let's start with the ranch itself. So talk about the history of the ranch here and how you guys went from probably less than full time to working a little bit more on the ranch.
Bruce:
By trade, Joyce and I are both bankers, but about 32 years ago we made a decision to buy a quarter of ground and probably run 15, 20 steers on that ground to get us away from, at least for me anyway, to get myself away from my desk and outdoors, which is really where my heart is. So that's how we started. Basically we had a quarter ground that had an old fence, so we tore it all out and built a corral system to load and unload cattle and to hold them in a pasture. That's where we started. Since that time, we've expanded our ranching operation into Edmunds and McPherson County. We now have a pasture located from where we sit today, which is south of Hosmer, South Dakota, up to the North Dakota border, to be honest. So we've spent the last 30 years plus pounding in a lot of fence posts, building some corrals.
Bruce:
We're now running a cow herd at about 350 cow/calf pair supported with about 17, 18 Angus/Simmental cross bulls. We do some back grounding as we pull those calves in the fall. We also sell directly to the market. So we do some of both. So basically when we started the ranching operation, we probably spent 5% to 10% of our time related to the ranch, the other 90 plus percent of the time at the bank, which was really our day job. Since that time, that's evolved quite a bit the other direction. Maybe at times Joyce and I have both been involved at the ranch doing work or ranch-related activities. But a lot of the time when Joyce maybe has been involved, I've been able to stay at the bank. And maybe just the opposite as I've been able to get out to do some of the ranch work, Joyce has been able to take care of the bank, which is a huge deal.
Bruce:
So it's been a joint effort. Now we probably spend, I wouldn't say 50% of our time, but a whole lot more of our time related to the ranch and the cattle side of things. At least as I get older, I won't speak for Joyce, but as I get older, I rely more and more on younger legs, which is our son, Joel, and our real ranch manager, who is Bill Johnson, both here in Hosmer. They take care of a lot of the work where my feet don't carry me anymore, but it's been one of the most enjoyable things I've done outside of my family and my day job also. So it's been a learning experience. I think from my perspective, Joyce and I do not come from a ranching or a farming background whatsoever.
Bruce:
I guess I would be a fourth generation banker. Joyce has been a banker 40 plus years. So since we've known each other, we've always worked in the same facility in earlier days in Aberdeen, South Dakota for about 10 years, but the last 34 years here in Hosmer. So we are truly a partner in life, a partner in business. And I've said this before, and I'm proud of it, and I'm going to say it on today, Joyce is also my best friend and always has been. It makes life really good for me. So I'm a blessed individual to be able to be outdoors and to be able to run our ranch, or how we run our ranch together is maybe not the same as others do, but we do believe in conservation and we do believe in doing the best job we can, even though our backgrounds probably really relate more to banking.
Joe:
Conservation wise, you guys have made some changes on the ground here. I know that we were on a pasture that two years ago was cropland, right?
Bruce:
That's true.
Joe:
So talk about transitioning back to grassland. First of all, the change that you've seen and also why that's important to you and why that might be important to others.
Bruce:
Well, like I said earlier, we started with 160 acres of grass, but as we expanded our ranch, we purchased some acres that involved some crop acres as well as grass acres. We tried to make the purchases probably more towards grass than crop because we do not farm ourself. So in the process, we've had a neighbor that is a really good farmer that does a really good job in what he does, so we've leased some of those acres to him, but as a whole, over the last 20 plus years, we've converted a lot of acres away from crop into grasslands, with the help of US Fish and Wildlife. We worked with Ducks Unlimited and soil conservation and others to get that accomplished.
Bruce:
One of the main individuals we dealt with over the years was Al Olson from US Fish and Wildlife. I think 25 years ago, I met Al and he guided us through the early process, but we've utilized many others to help us make good decisions. And we did transition a lot of crop acres into grass. That really was for many reasons, a lot of it to do with conservation, but a lot of it to do with the ranching side and our belief that grasslands are not only good from the ranching side, but they're good for outdoor interest.
Bruce:
They're also good for, I think, diversity and economies and all the rest that goes with living where we live. So the most recent project we've done on our own is we converted about 21 acres of crop land that's near our second location where we do our calving, from crop land. It was soybeans with a different operator to a grasslands. We did it on our own. We actually did it with not a real sophisticated method, but I think we had a good technique and a good grass base to get it to work.
Bruce:
Two years later now we turned our cattle into that grass for the first time and hopefully get some weed control from the cattle as well as also from our efforts to make that viable grass units. So we've done a lot of those projects. We also worked with Chad and others to convert about 214 acres into a grassland and a wetland easement program. We seeded back about 100 acres of crop land and reseeded some acres that were in alfalfa, some old alfalfa and going to convert that into another grass unit.
Bruce:
So we believe in good guidance, which we've always received from all the people that support us in our activities. So it's been a transition process, but we still do keep some crop acres. We have some just to the east of us right now. We'll use that in the fall to take cattle from grass into those corn stocks or residue, soybeans, whatever it might be. We can utilize that forage along with our ranching and our grassland operation. So it's a multiuse scenario. We try and capitalize where we can on what's here.
Joe:
Changes that you've seen since you are transitioning. I know that we were out there and there were birds singing and we saw duck eggs and deer running out of there. Have you noticed an increase in wildlife? I mean, obviously you can just assume that healthy grasslands means healthy wildlife, right?
Bruce:
That's true.
Joe:
So talk about that. And also why that's important to you both as a rancher and as a sportsman, right?
Bruce:
I think healthy grasslands makes for a healthy ecosystem, especially as it relates to wildlife, and that isn't just deer and pheasants and all the things that probably most people would associate with. I think it also means good for songbirds and for other activity. I think the transition from cropland into some of these grasslands has really helped support that. And myself, Joyce, Joel, our son, Kayla, all the rest really enjoy the outdoors, maybe myself as much as anybody. But I think it's true across our family.
Bruce:
So we have really noticed over the years in doing this that the wildlife really has been much more sustained in these locations than maybe some of our other locations that were there previous. In the mornings, my hearing isn't so good anymore after all these years and shooting too many guns, but I can sit out in those areas, especially early morning, and hear all kinds of songbirds singing and all kinds of activity. You can see it, you can hear it, and I think you can live it. Outside of my family, that's one of my favorite interests. So I'm very thankful we've done what we've done.
Joe:
Tell me about the landscape here. Obviously it's flat, you've got some water out here. You've got a drought. There's a lot of water topics that we could talk about both the ponds that you have here and then your land retaining water, right, especially on a year like this. So talk about water a little bit, and then describe the landscape here.
Bruce:
Where we live is probably in a Prairie pothole region. That's how I would view it anyway. We live in a rolling area, some hills, but more rolling. As a result, there are potholes too. So we do, in wetter years, hold a lot of water in this country, but in drier years, such as this year, we are in a severe drought area, at least in my opinion. I think it shows that on the map too, as far as South Dakota goes. So what happens, I think, is you will lose water, but you can also retain some water with having these grasslands in place.
Bruce:
And then even if you lose the water, you can gain some additional habitat and some additional grasslands, and some areas can do develop themselves, which I think is really important to the ecosystem and the future of those areas, going back into potholes or holding water or whatever the situation may be. I think that shows in, especially in a year like this year, where you get to some of these areas where you get the rolling and we still have water holes that have water, and we have habitat for ducks and geese.
Bruce:
Some of that water could even support livestock if it needed to, at least to a degree. So I think it's really important to manage. Sometimes you have to stockpile a little bit to get all that to work, but I think good management practices also go right back into good conservation practices, and that's what we try to accomplish.
Joe:
You have some tanks out here. Did you have to run some water line out here?
Bruce:
Yep.
Joe:
And then was that part of the equip?
Bruce:
Yeah, what we have here is we have a web water system. But basically when we started the ranching operation, there was no web water. Web water is a rural water system that supports our area here, which came later than when we started. So we do have some shallow water in some of our locations. So we've done some of that with pipeline and with shallow water and tanks. When web water came to our area, we hooked onto that into most of our locations where we do have livestock and that's helped sustain some of the lack of water when we can't utilize it. But we do use dugouts. We use some natural water scenarios.
Bruce:
We use pipelines to move water ourselves, and then we use web water to support all those systems if we can. It's a dependable source of water. It's maybe not always the cheapest source of water or the cheapest way to do it. But we use a combination of both, I think a lot like how we manage this ranch. We have a diversity of ways to get it done. And then we have sometimes where even the best, what we can do, doesn't allow for us to maintain our cattle all year round and we do have to move them. But that's one of the main reasons for stockpiling and keeping things in good shape so you can do that.
Joe:
How do you handle it, your rotations out here? I mean, how long do you sit on the pasture and how long do you rest them?
Bruce:
As far as our grazing practices, there are more structured grazing processes than what we use. I think there are some cross fencing in units and some structures that allow for certain days, certain amount of acres and so forth. We do a lot of cross fencing ourselves, and we do utilize pastures in the same type concept. But what we've done maybe a little different is we have a little more flexible approach, I think, and maybe a little less structured than some, whereas we will use some grass acres fairly hard at certain times of the year.
Bruce:
We may not use any grass for certain times of the year. We have learned over the years, I think, where not all grass is the same, especially when you're going from here to the North Dakota border. Some of it more native, some of it more warm season, cool season, depending on where we have our cattle. So we learned over the 32 years of how we can best use probably, in our opinion anyway, the acres we have. So we have lots of cross fencing. We do rotate our cattle. There'll be times where we use acres more and then maybe for a year don't use them at all.
Bruce:
So we have kind of our own system that we learned over time and it seems to treat us well. But I think we learn every year a little more about it, especially now this year when you get into a drought year. Last year, the road that we went to town on was underwater because the lakes on both sides were high. This year both those lakes are dry. So I just think every year is a new year and especially where we live and our unstructured, maybe more flexible system, I think, is supportive of what we've done and it works well for us.
Joe:
Let's talk about crops. You said you have some corn. Are you guys doing no-till, any cover, anything like that?
Bruce:
The truth is we don't farm. Our farm acres are leased to a neighbor just a couple miles to the east of us. He has never really owned any livestock and we've never done any farming. So what we've done is in the past is we've leased some of his grass acres, because he didn't have livestock. And then he farms what acres we don't have in programs or we don't utilize for grasslands. And then most of those acres are just located to the east of us, and the residue from either the corn or the soybeans or whatever crop he raises will support our cow herd later fall when the harvest is complete. We'll bring all our cows back to this location. We obviously have hay and feed here as well as we do use just corn, but we'll get those cattle out in that residue and then utilize our grass and that residue to support hopefully, if weather allows, our cow herd for usually anywhere from a two week to a six week period, and it really helps cut the cost.
Joe:
I am interested in the banking side of things, because we've never sat down with bankers. We always hear the story of that farmer or rancher going to the bank and trying to convince them that they need money for something. And I think some of the challenges in the past have been doing cover crops. I think it's become more the norm now. So maybe it's not as much of a challenge as a banker, but can you talk about banking and farmers and ranchers and how that all works together? Obviously you work with a lot of farmers and ranchers.
Bruce:
Yeah. As I mentioned earlier, both Joyce and I are both bankers and have been for 40 plus years. Basically banking is our day job. That's what we do more hours probably than even on the ranch side, both important. But as far as the bank is concerned, Farmer's State Bank is located in Hosmer. We're an independent bank. Joyce and I own the bank ourselves and have for a period of time now. Basically our charter started in October of 1919. So the bank has been there a long time.
Bruce:
I would be a fourth generation banker, or our children who are both in banking also would be fifth generation. So we've been there a long time. We are the smallest bank in South Dakota. We don't have any branches. And like I said earlier, we're independent. But I think when this 32 years ago or whatever it's been now where we decided to buy a quarter of land and buy some steers and start the ranching side of things, I think has also really helped at least myself and I, and I believe Joyce the same. I'll let her speak on her own.
Bruce:
But I think it's really helped us understand you get your shoes in the same shoes as the people that are walking in the front door doing some of the same things. We don't farm necessarily our acres, but we get out on those acres and you just get a firsthand look at what our customers are dealing with day to day. I think it's really helped our bank probably have a closer relationship with our borrowing base and our customer base actually in total, at least it has for me. I think it's been a real good thing. This is pretty much how I dress when I go to the bank each day too. I haven't had a suit coat or tie on for the last 34 years. I don't have the best to feed anymore. So I might even have my tennis shoes on when I go to the bank.
Bruce:
But you know, when the people walk in the front door of our bank, most of those customers aren't wearing suits and ties. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because there is absolutely not, but that's not how they come in. Every now and then, even though you might manage the bank, we clean up a little bit of cow manure that might fall off of people's boots and that's fine. It's who our customer base is. We're obviously a very small community in Hosmer of 150 people give or take. and that's how we operate our bank. But I think the ranching and the banking together has, I think, done a lot of good things, at least for my own sake in knowing how people might come in and make their requests and run their operations. Even though each operation is done completely different and managed the way it needs to be, I think it's made us a better bank.
Joe:
Joyce, do you want to talk about family, grandkids, raising kids on a ranch?
Joyce:
We have two children, Joel, who is 40, and Kayla who is 33, and we have five grandchildren ages 14 to five. We have our two children and our five grandchildren living in Hosmer. We get to see them often, which I love. I know some families aren't as lucky. They live thousands of miles away from each other, but I'm loving it. Have a good life. The grandchildren love being out here. They're free to run around. They love it. They love being outdoors.
Bruce:
We do spoil them a little bit and they do have a lot of acres to roam, and they'll walk into those trees and maybe get ticks on them. We got to pick them off at night, but they love having a little bit of freedom and they love the calves in the spring of the year. Right, Joyce?
Joyce:
Yes, they do, and they love the calves.
Bruce:
Yep. We usually have a bottle calf or two maybe from a set of twins or whatever, and they just love being around them. So it's funny how that naturally happens.
Joyce:
And even with the grandkids, they love coming up to the bank. It's small enough they can run around. I don't know if you'd be able to do that in a big city bank, but it's fun to come in because both of our children are there. So they love that too.
Joe:
What one thing have you done that has been most important to the success of your operation, if you were to say one thing?
Bruce:
I think one of the things that we've done that probably has led to the success of our operation is we started small and we started very simple. And even though that was not in our backgrounds, we took small steps along the way. But I think one of the most important things that's happened, especially after we started expanding a little bit and converting some acres and doing those things was getting good guidance, good information and good support from the outside, such as from soil conservation to US Fish and Wildlife. We've worked with Ducks Unlimited programs.
Bruce:
We've been really fortunate to meet some really good people and get some really good guidance. And then that's helped us then convert to what we have today and to grow over a period of time. I think if we would've been on our own and would've had to start the way we did, and if we had expanded to where we are now, even though we're not big, but we're bigger than where we started, without that guidance and without that support, we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today.
Joe:
Can you recall a moment or a time when the light bulb went on for you to change the way you were grazing?
Bruce:
I think from the grazing aspect, I think what's happened is we've evolved over time. I think when we first started, we had bigger pastures and maybe not as diverse locations and grasslands as we have today. So I think as we've gone forward over time, we've again stayed somewhat flexible. We've made some mistakes probably where we started compared to maybe where we are today. We still are making some mistakes and we're still learning. So I don't know if it's been any one thing that's really helped us, but I think staying flexible in our approach and still staying structured in how we manage and run our operation has been very important.
Bruce:
And then I think using somewhat of a stockpiling method maybe where we've conserved some acres, been able to probably even reduce our herd to allow that to happen probably in the last five years or so, I think is one of the most important things we've done. At one point we ran about 600 cows over the same acres we're running now. We did have some leased acres, but I think the reduction in that cow herd to 350 head or thereabouts where we are today, has allowed us to operate on our own unit, to also stay conservative in how we use that unit. And then as we've learned over the last 30 years, how to move those cattle and use acres accordingly has probably helped us the most.
Joe:
What's the big surprise when you go from the way you formally grazed to where you're at now?
Bruce:
I think one of the biggest differences from where we started was we used our acres probably not very efficiently. So as we've gone into our current situation, I think what's really happening and what's probably as best is we get to a year like this year where it's drought related. We're able to have some pastures that have been untouched, even though we're in drought and we have short grass and short supplies of grass, we still have some acres we haven't utilized and may or may not even use this entire year, even in a drought year.
Bruce:
I think that's allowed for grasses to diversify, stay healthy. We have some growth out there, even though it's very short and not what you'd hope for in a dry year. But I think the most important thing is we have acres available and we can use some acres harder in places where we know we can manage it that way, but then we can also leave some acres untouched or at least don't utilize the acres as hard. Because hopefully there's another spring next year and another year to operate on and we need those same grass lines and those same acres to support our herd, may it be larger or smaller in the future. Maybe weather will dictate some of that. But I think that's been the most important thing.
Joe:
What would you say is the biggest misconception people have who are not managing their grazing system for resiliency and soil health?
Bruce:
In our case, we do what we do, and we certainly are not the best at what we do. It just works very well for our operation. But I think if you look around and if you see some other acres, not that they're managed poorly or not managed efficiently, but if you look around, you can see where maybe the diversity and maybe some of the different varieties of grass maybe don't support the unit like it maybe once could or should. I just think taking that conservative stockpiling, flexible process has supported us well.
Bruce:
And not that other operations are any different, because there are some extremely well managed operations all around us and some very good operators. I've said for many years maybe I'm not a rancher. I think some of the true ranchers are the people that are around us. But I think if you manage what you have and if you learn over time, you can do a good job in conservation, as well as managing your operation.
Joe:
Is there something you'd still like to do that you haven't done yet to improve your soil health or grazing system?
Bruce:
Yeah, I think the process of improving and the process of conservation and improving what you have is ongoing. I think it's like life. I don't think you ever, at least I hope I never stop learning. I think there's always new techniques and different ideas out there that can help you. So I think it's an ongoing process. I told my kids I'm going to live to be 142. So if that's true and I'm 64, I got a long ways to go and I'll bet you if that were true, I'd probably be learning every day of my life until I got to be 142.
Bruce:
So I think that's really what's important. I think you have to look where your efficiencies are, look where your benefit will come from to your operation as well as to the outdoor interest as well as everything else, and you keep learning, you keep adjusting. That's why I think that flexible system is good for us and it's really helped us.
Joe:
What advice do you have for someone who is considering changing their grazing system to one that's better for building soil health?
Bruce:
You know, if I could give somebody some advice for the future, I don't know that I'd be the one to do it, but what I would say to anybody is go to the experts. Go to the people that live and work with soil conservation and outdoor conservation and grassland conservation, and easements and water and all those things, because those people are out there. They're in our counties, they're in our cities, they're in South Dakota. So if I had to give anybody advice, it wouldn't come from me. I think I would send them to the people that can best help them. And then if somebody would ask for any advice, I'd tell them what I know, which is very little.
Bruce:
But I just think there's a great network of people out there that support conservation and wildlife and all these things we're talking about. I think those phone calls are not far away and they're easy to get to. There are a lot of really, really good people out there and they're common sense, they're easy to talk to, they're easy to be around. They're not afraid to come out and spend some time on your land or spend some time with you. So I think it's a great resource and I think that would be my advice.
Joe:
When you walk across your grasslands, what do you look for as an indicator of healthy grasslands and healthy soil?
Bruce:
Well, I think some of the indicators of healthy grasslands vary a lot because I think soil types vary a lot. Even if you convert cropland into grasslands or if you just have natural grasslands, they aren't all growing and sustained on the same type soil. So I think getting out there and getting your shoes wet, dirty, spending some time out there looking at what you have, I think gives you the best indication of the health of the soil as well as the health of the grasslands themself.
Bruce:
And I think if you can sit down in a one-yard circle or just look at the different grasses that are there, I today cannot even identify all the different grasses that are out there, but you can see the diversity in what's growing. You can see June grass and you can see alfalfa and you can see some weeds. You can see some other things out there that are all growing. And I think a sign of healthy soil and a healthy grassland is that diversity of plants and what it can support, even though soil types aren't the same.
Joe:
What change have you made that you had first thought wouldn't work?
Bruce:
I think some of the change that we made over the last 32 years came from experience and time. Honestly, when we first started grazing, we just had a pasture. We put cattle out there and hoped for the best. That's probably how we started, because we didn't have a lot of knowledge, a lot of background, and you have to learn somehow. But I think, again, time and paying attention to what's happening out in these grasslands and out on these managed areas and having some rotation and having some structure in what you do with pastures, but also staying flexible as change occurs, may it be from mother nature or otherwise, I think ensures your future.
Joe:
What are the signs that your land is resilient and what does resiliency mean to you? And this is a great year for that question.
Bruce:
I think, again, going back to looking at your land, a year ago in our area, we had adequate water. We had good growing conditions. It was probably not perfect, probably not all favorable at all times of the year, but we had really good growing conditions. So this year, transitioning from a year where there was good growth, good crops, all that, to having a fall last year that got fairly dry to having a winter last year that had some snow early, but really no snow cover for the most of the winter and a very mild winter at the same time. And then coming into a spring where it got very dry and has been dry ever since, we got 30, 40 hundredths of rain here in the last couple of days.
Bruce:
That's the first rain of any consequence we've had for a long time. So I think when you miss that moisture and it's not there, especially in the earlier growing season, to me, which is kind of May/June timeframe, if you manage what you have effectively, you can have some grass that still stays green, even when a lot of grass is turning brown. I think you can have some growth, even though it's not what you hope for or would like in a good growing year, but you can sustain some acres and you can sustain some livestock in periods of time where otherwise, if it's not managed that way, I think can turn around and really hurt you.
Bruce:
If you look at our landscape now, were dry. So I think all those things are important. I don't think there's any magic in how you can do it or what you do. I just think you have to pay close attention to your pastures. You have to know your soil conditions. You have to know what grows and what doesn't grow. I think you have to be flexible in your approach and it'll work.
Joe:
There are five important R words, R grazing management words, important to resilient range lands. Which of the five do you relate to most and why? They are rotate, rest, recover, rate and roots. What's the most important, do you think, for your operation?
Bruce:
Well, I think of all the five Rs that there are to consider when you look at the grasslands, it's hard to pick one. I think there's a component in all of them that are important, if it is rotation or resting or recover or roots. But if I had to pick one, I think the most important to me would be being able to rest a certain amount of acres and then probably as a result of that rest, you can have recovery and you can have roots and then you can rotate. So I know that's not answering the question like I was asked, but I really believe that's how it works. So if I had to pick one, that would be it. But I think one leads to the other four Rs. And I think when it comes to end of the day, they're all important, and I think that's what ensures good grasslands.
Joe:
Explain realty specialists.
Chad:
What I do is I work with landowners like Bruce, who are interested in conservation easements and help put conservation easements on the ground. I met Bruce because he's worked with the Fish and Wildlife service for a long time, I think longer than I've been around, I know that. I was fortunate enough to get to work with him on easements at McPherson and Edmunds County. It's been a lot of fun being able to come around the ground and seeing what Bruce is doing, seeing the restorations he's got going on, seeing land that was cropland that is now grass. It's one of the most rewarding parts of my job. It is the most rewarding part of my job.
Joe:
Why is it important to you what he's doing, both for him as a rancher and then also for others, even like people downstream, because we're talking water quality too?
Chad:
I mean, there's so many reasons that it's important to do what Bruce is doing. It's hard to even begin to know where to start. It's important for Bruce because it's helping his operation. It's helping the cattle in his operation. It's important for ducks because it's keeping grass in the landscape. It's important for the American people because it's keeping a natural resource out here.
Chad:
I mean, Bruce and I were talking about this. The native Prairie out here, the grasslands of the Great Plains, it's like the Rocky Mountains of the middle of the country or the ocean. It's a natural resource that's going away. And if it isn't for people like Bruce that are out here preserving it, it's going to be gone. It helps in just endless opportunities from cleaning up watersheds to having these wetlands that are holding flood waters and preventing flooding events we see downstream to helping sequester carbon for clean air. I mean, you could just go on and on. For wildlife, for songbirds, for pollinators, the list is nearly never ending of the benefits.
Chad:
It's people like Bruce and Joyce that's the reason we're here. And without conservation minded people like Bruce and Joyce, I dare not to guess what this world would look like. It's a huge benefit, like Bruce was saying, to Hosmer, but also to the counties, to the state, to the whole nation really. This grassland easement program that Bruce and Joyce have looked into and done, it's supported by waterfowl. And this area is hugely important, the waterfowl. It's the heart of the Prairie pothole region. Bruce was talking about the Prairie potholes that are out here. And specifically this area, our data has shown this area can support more than 100 pairs of nesting waterfowl per square mile. So not only is it the Prairie pothole region, but it's like the heart of the art of the Prairie pothole region, and the duck factory of North America.
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Jodi:
Tell me the history of your farm. How'd you get it started?
Jeff:
Yeah, so we started... I think it's my sixth season farming. So started in early 2017 and basically, I don't have any farming background to speak of. Just started learning some stuff and I was working a corporate job and we bought some land in the country. Bought about nine acres and decided I want to start growing some vegetables or start a little garden. I bought 25 chickens and I built a little chicken tractor, a little covered house that I could move around in the backyard, and it would keep them safe. And I raised them until they were big enough to harvest. We harvested those chickens, and I gave some to friends and family and people just told me that it was the best chicken they ever had and you could really taste the difference because they're eating a lot of grasses and bugs and living the natural life.
Jeff:
They're getting fresh air and sunshine. They're much healthier and you could taste the difference in the meat similar to grass fed beef, kind of has a richer flavor. It's healthier for you. These are kind of like grass fed chicken in a way. And so, we had those chickens and they tasted fantastic. They're healthy, they're clean. We didn't have to use any antibiotics and that kind of stuff. And I said, hey, maybe there's something to this. It wasn't long after that I started growing and raising more birds. And then I got into raising ducks and maybe six months later I had like 300 ducks in the backyard. Wife's like, "What happened?"
Jodi:
How big is your backyard? Did you have enough room? Describe the area that you're living in.
Jeff:
So the property we have is about nine acres, but I was only farming initially on about two acres because most of it was wooden and not available to farm on. So we cleared about a two acre section pasture. It was a lot of pine forest that we logged the trees out and turned it into pasture. And then we quickly outgrew that and leased some property across the street from a gentleman who has another five to seven acres, roughly. In all, were farming on about seven or eight acres. And we found a way to make it work on a small scale.
Jodi:
You also have developed your farm into kind of a silvopasture-type of environment. Can you explain what that is and what's all involved with it and what made you decide to do that?
Jeff:
Yeah, so the pasture raised poultry was kind of the initial impetus, I guess. The first thing that we started with on the farm. And so I started raising these birds and because we had logged that section, which is about two acres of pine forest, we took out all those pine trees, which didn't really provide any habitat for wildlife or any much value other than two by fours, we took those pine trees out and then we were seeding out our pastures and trying to turn it into new pasture for our poultry, but we left the stumps behind or the loggers left the stumps behind. So it was very uneven grounds, very rough, kind of rough ground initially. So using a model such as a chicken tractor that can move across the ground wasn't going to work in our situation. It was too many logs on the ground, too many holes, stumps, things of that nature.
Jeff:
So what I did is we bought these electric netting. We used that to keep the birds safe. It's about a four-foot-high netting that we can set up in a perimeter and it's electrified from a solar charger and that keeps the predators out so foxes and raccoons and that sort of thing don't eat our birds. And because of that, I can set it up around those stumps and around those obstacles. And then I realized that we can actually do this in wooded areas. We have some other areas of the farm that have standing trees that are more wooded and we can set this net up and carve out a section to put our poultry in. So that gives us a lot of opportunity. And I started thinking about it. Hey, maybe I can plant some trees out in this pasture.
Jeff:
We have now what's called a silvopasture system, which is essentially trees incorporated with livestock in the same land space. And so we have planted out our pastures with different fruit and nut trees. We can set the netting around those trees and those trees are wildly spaced enough that enough sunlight still hits the soil, allowing our grasses and small grains to grow. So I can grow small grains and forages for our poultry, grass and grains, I'm growing poultry, and I'm also growing tree crops on the same land space. So basically, three different products off the same land space.
Jodi:
What kind of grains are you growing for them?
Jeff:
We have experimented with just putting out different seed. You know, one of the big costs of raising poultry is our feed cost. And we have to buy them a lot of feed that's mostly comprised of different minerals and corn and soy. And I thought to myself, well, what can we do to try to minimize our inputs? We want to be a regenerative farm and try to minimize our inputs and our expenses as much as possible. I thought, well, maybe we can grow our own feed. And so we started seeding out our pastures with different species such as clover. We planted wheat and oats in the wintertime. We'll also plant things like millet and these small grains. It just makes sense, let's let these grains go to seed and just move the animals to the food rather than buying the food and shipping across the country to our farm.
Jeff:
And we can just let the animals harvest it right off the stalk. It made perfect sense. And so we're able to reduce our feed bill and to reduce our carbon footprint that way, which is fantastic. It does take a little bit of playing around with it and try to get the timing right. You know, get the birds in there at the right time when the grains are going to seed. So we're still trying to figure out that perfect timing, that perfect amount of space for the birds, but it's something that we're going to continue to work with this year.
Jodi:
You mentioned predators before. What kind of predators did you have and how big of a problem were they?
Jeff:
Predators have been probably our biggest challenge on the farm because we're using the netting system. It works pretty well to keep a lot of the four-legged predators out, but the birds are exposed to any aerial predators. So, raptors. We're having a lot of hawks and eagles and at nighttime we have owls that will come. So one thing that we've done to help minimize our predator pressure is we've added geese and we found the geese... It's interesting. You have to either use one goose or a lot of geese. If you use two or three geese, it doesn't work, because then they kind of just pair up together and do their own thing, leave the birds to be the sacrificial lamb, so to speak.
Jeff:
If you have one goose and they kind of look at all the young birds as their own, they protect them. They'll squawk and flap their wings and make a bunch of racket. And they'll chase hawks out of there and keep them out during the daytime. We still do lose some poultry to birds at night, we'll lose them to owls. Occasionally we'll get a fox that'll dig under the fence or jump it or something like that.
Jeff:
Ideally, we would have a dog, a livestock guardian dog to keep our poultry safe. But I haven't found one yet just because we have a lot of neighbors and that sort of thing. But the geese have really helped our predator losses dramatically.
Jodi:
I've been chased by a goose before. I understand how vicious they can be. So, with your poultry, you also incubate your own eggs. How does that work?
Jeff:
We keep a laying flock and I was raising chickens in the beginning and then I started raising ducks. I saw an opportunity there. There weren’t really any farmers doing pasture raised ducks and where we are in the southeast close to the coast here in Charleston, South Carolina, we get a lot of rain and it's very low land. It's very flat, and so ducks are happy. When it rains and it's soggy out in the field... The wetter, the better for them. So the ducks worked really well. Plus, when we move them every day, they can kind of herd in one direction. We've actually moved four or 500 birds at a time down the road, just steering the lead duck in the right direction, have 500 birds falling behind it. And it's quite comical when they're walking down the street and they're holding up traffic.
Jeff:
But we do hatch all of our own birds on farm. We have a laying block about 200 birds with males and females. And so we'll get the fertile eggs and we'll hatch all the birds. And what that does is a couple of things. Not only reducing our cost, but not having to purchase those chicks, but they're healthier when we can hatch them on farm and keep them warm and happy. And then we can also select for certain traits that we might want in the adult birds. So whether it's growth ability or temperament...
Jeff:
In fact, I would say that for someone that's looking to start a pasture poultry operation is starting with the proper breed. Whether you want to do it for meat or for eggs, there's a lot of birds out there and summer market is dual purpose, but if you're going to do meat birds, for example, you need focus on that. If you're going to do eggs, you need focus on that because farming’s hard enough as it is. There's so many variables out there. And so you really need to kind give yourself the best advantage.
Jeff:
In fact, I'll put together a little template that just has some recommendations for the top breeds, so it's ducks and chickens, for people that are interested in getting into this for meat and for eggs.
Jodi:
You're kind a DIY-type of guy too and you've built hoop houses, solar powered systems, and tinkering around with other things on your farm. Can you give me examples of some of that stuff?
Jeff:
Yeah. So as a regenerative farm, some of the things that we want to do is we want to minimize our inputs and part of that comes with trying to build a lot of our own infrastructure and to be successful, and to be profitable, the way I approach the farm is I didn't want to spend a ton of money on a whole bunch of infrastructure and all these parts that you can buy. And a lot of times what I've found is for someone that wants to do pasture poultry, for example, if you want to raise a handful of chickens in your backyard, you can find feeders and waters and these sorts of things at a big box store. You can do that easily.
Jeff:
But if you want to scale that up to a few hundred or few thousand birds and make it a small commercial farm, there's really not a lot of infrastructure out there. There is some stuff that's made for the big poultry farmers who are doing millions of birds a year, and if you want to invest a half a million dollars, that's your choice. I didn't have the means to do that. So I started building a lot of different infrastructure to try to save money and make these designs that were really custom fitted for our farm and our size and our situation. One example would be our feed. We bought feed in bulk and we need a place to store that. And so I could buy a feed silo, which might be five to $10,000 to store three to 10 times a feed at a time. Or what I did was I found an IBC tank, which is international bulk container and said, they're coming up these 300- gallon plastic tanks. And I cut a small door at the bottom.
Jeff:
And so the feed can go in the tank. It's stored in there. We just lift the trap door open at the bottom and we can store about a ton of feed in that. I can make one of these for about 75 bucks. I now have seven of them and so as I scale up, I can store more and more feed and I can purchase in larger quantities. And I think that's key is to try to minimize your expenses in the beginning when you're farming to try and stay out of debt, I think is very key.
Jodi:
But you have gone into debt. What happened?
Jeff:
Yeah. So in the beginning I was trying lots of different things, trying to throw everything on the wall and see what would stick. I was buying the shiniest tools and I was trying poultry, we raised pigs. I was raising multiple types of poultry. We did a garden, we did several dozen pigs and tried to do that. And that was kind of a fiasco and, just trying so many different things and changing designs. And basically, I was just getting distracted and wasting a lot of time and a lot of money trying to throw a lot of stuff on the wall to see what would stick. Long story short, I ended up spending close to $75,000- $80,000 on a credit card, which was bad.
Jodi:
Oh boy.
Jeff:
Bad choice. Yeah. And so it was a really tough time. Fortunately, I was still working off the farm to support the farm and keep going, but that debt is really, really a tough hurdle to try to overcome. And so part of what I've been trying to do is put together a program that people can follow and say, hey, here's the infrastructure you need. You don't have to spend $75,000 like I did. You need to have a plan. You need to follow a certain plan so you're not getting distracted and buying certain things and you need to make sure you don't go into debt. And so that's part of the reason why we built our own infrastructure and we follow a strict schedule in order not get out of hand.
Jodi:
Yeah. And you've sold your ducks to restaurants and so forth. And then COVID hit. What did you have to do to pivot, to make up for that?
Jeff:
Most of our pasture is poultry. As you mentioned, we were selling to restaurants. We're doing about 98% wholesale. I really tapped into the wholesale restaurant market and learned how to market the chefs, and that was very beneficial. When COVID happened and all the restaurants shut down, I knew that we need to make a change and we had to pivot. And so we started pivoting to direct consumer. So we started attending one of the local farmers markets. We quickly grew and started attending three different farmers markets within a three-hour drive of the farm. And since we were raising ducks, I learned that not a lot of people eat a lot of duck. You know? There's some people out there that love it, but they might have it on occasion or for Valentine's day or something like that, for example, but they're not eating it every other night, like chicken.
Jeff:
So I was trying to think of how can we make this work? How can we sell this direct to consumer? And so one of the things we did was we started adding value to our products. So instead of just selling whole birds or leg quarters and breasts, we were now adding value to it. So we would take... If we part out a duck and we have the carcass that's left with the bones, we could make a bone broth out of that. And so we're utilizing all the parts. We'd sell the feet and bones as a bone broth. We could make different flavored sausages and [inaudible 00:12:54] and prepared products, such as do confit. We had a chef that we're partnering with and he was making duck confit and we're selling that at the market. And so we're able to expand our offerings.
Jeff:
But the other benefit of that is we were able to really increase our profit margin. So instead of selling a bird wholesale and after expenses, we'd have $10 left as our profit from selling one bird to a restaurant, now we could add value to that same bird and we can increase our profit margin by seven times, and you take home $70 for that same bird. And what that means is that now we can raise fewer birds on smaller acres, and so we're only farming on about seven acres in this pasture. We grossed close to $200,000 on those seven acres.
Jodi:
Wow.
Jeff:
So approximately $25,000 per acre, and we don't even own a tractor. So there's ways to do this and be profitable and successful on small acreage.
Jodi:
I'm going to talk about some of the educational things that you're doing. You're offering some classes and very freely giving your advice to people and how they can do a lot of the same things that you do. So, for someone interested in starting a regenerative farm, what would you say are the key aspects?
Jeff:
There's a lot of different approaches to farming. And I think small regenerative farms are really the future because you're in control of your destiny more. You can minimize your expenses and you're not at the whim of commodity pricing, right? And it doesn't just have to be poultry. There's lots of different options. But in terms of regenerative farm, the keys for me, I saw three important things, three important steps if we wanted to be a regenerative farm. The first was to minimize our inputs. And so the way we've done that, I've alluded to a little bit how grow some of our own feed, patching our own birds. We also use solar power for heating for our birds. We're trying to minimize our inputs and minimize our expenses as much as possible. The second thing we want to do is we want to have no waste.
Jeff:
We want to recycle things. We use all of the manure as we move the birds across our fields, all that manure is getting distributed across the field and it's becoming an asset rather than a liability. So that manure is full of nitrogen. It's adding fertility to our soil. In just three years, we've increased the organic matter in our soil by 3%, which is pretty dramatic. Most farmers know that organic matter is really a great measure of how well your soil can hold water and hold carbon and how productive it's going to be. The other benefit of that is all that organic matter comes from carbon from the air. So, we're sequestering carbon. We're helping the environment. We're increasing our soil fertility and we're recycling things such as the manure. Also, if we have like a dead bird or if we have cracked eggs that we can't use, things of this nature, we'll put these in a bin and this might sound a little gross, but we put them in a bin and we keep them in the pen with our birds.
Jeff:
And there's a fly called the black soldier fly, which will feed on food waste and dead animals and that sort of thing. And so these maggots will hatch in this bin. They grow very large and they're about 40% protein, 50% fat. They're very nutritious. And they'll actually crawl out of that bin once they're about to pupate, and then the birds can just eat them right there. And so we're recycling any waste product that we might have had. And then the third thing that I believe is key to regenerative farm is integrating and using diversity. Like I said, in our silvopasture, for example, our birds are integrated in with our pasture and these trees. So the birds act as our fertilizer program, our lawn mowers, and our pest control for the trees. The trees provide shade. They provide a wind break. They provide protection from aerial predators.
Jeff:
They keep our soil cool and shaded in the summertime. There's long-term carbon storage in those trees. And then the roots of the trees also prevent flooding. Someone's seen a pasture when we've had a really heavy rain and it's just soggy and you get your tractor stuck. Those trees will help soak up that excess water and so the fields aren't as muddy and wet. And they also help to moderate the temperatures. So when we utilize livestock and trees and grains and things together, you can really get a really nice synergy. And that's what's important to us is to grow food that's healthy for the animals, healthy for the consumer, and also is good for the environment. And that was kind of what laid the foundation of our farm.
Jodi:
How many years have you been doing this now?
Jeff:
This will be our sixth season.
Jodi:
Wow. You've come a long way in a short period of time. Takes some people generations to do what you've already done in a half-dozen years. All those synergies kind of go along with profitability too. Especially for small farmers, what advice do you have for them to increase their profitability?
Jeff:
First of all, don't blow a bunch of money on big, expensive equipment. We don't own a tractor. The few times that I've needed a tractor, I've used one, or just rented one from somebody or hired somebody to do what we needed to do. You can minimize your expenses by building your own infrastructure that you need. You can lease land. So we were only farming about two and a half to three acres and then we had a neighbor who has about seven acres that I had approached, because he wasn't doing anything with his land. It was just lying fallow and said, "Hey, could I bring some birds out here? I'll keep your grass cut for you. They'll kind of be your lawnmowers and adds fertility to it. You won't have to mow." And he said, "Sure." And I said, "What do you want?"
Jeff:
You know, I'll lease it. I'll pay you whatever you want. He said, "Nothing." He said, "I'm just happy to see it go to use." So we lease seven acres, basically free of charge, which is pretty incredible. And I think there's a lot of opportunity to do that. I think there's a lot of land that isn't being used. So as said in the beginning, don't even worry about buying land. You can lease land, you can use land that's not being used and you need to have a plan. So the other thing is I didn't have a plan. I was distracted. I was watching YouTube videos and reading all kinds of books I could find and trying the next best thing. And I was really just wasting a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy. And so I think you really need to be focused in on what you're doing and have a plan for that.
Jeff:
And then you also need to figure out your marketing strategy. At the end of the day, you can have the most regenerative farm, you can have all these great things going on, but if you can't market and you can't sell it for a profit, then there's no point. You're not going to be farming for very long. And so that was key for us. Our marketing strategy was to go off to those wholesale markets. So with restaurants, we still do a fair amount of wholesale and also the direct consumer, you know, utilizing those value added products and increasing our profitability that way.
Jodi:
So is it just you working on your farm or do you have other help?
Jeff:
Yeah, in the beginning it was just me. Now I have someone that comes and helps a few days a week on the farm and then I also have some help with the markets as well. But I'm the primary person on the farm here.
Jodi:
What future plans do you have? Any expansion or adding anything to the livestock realm?
Jeff:
In the future, I don't think we'll do any more livestock species per se, but we're going to plant out more fruit trees, try to fill out our pastures that way with more fruit and nut species. And then this year we really want to try to push the envelope as far as agriculture's concerned and see what's possible. Doing things like experimenting with reducing our feed bill, trying different alternatives sources of feed, planting out more grains and also innovating and also educating. And so, I'm trying to put a little more focus this year also on sharing some of the things I've learned and helping other people not only be profitable, but learn how to scale up and start a small farm and be successful doing it.
Jodi:
And where can people find that information if they want to learn from you?
Jeff:
I'm on Instagram and YouTube. Farmer Jeff Siewicki on both of those channels.
Jodi:
Excellent. Jeff, I think that's all the questions I have for you. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention that listeners should know?
Jeff:
I appreciate you bringing me on and I would say for folks that are already farming and let's say you have a tractor and you're growing corn and soybeans and they're thinking, oh, I'm past this. You can start now. You could raise some livestock, you could raise some poultry, cut off a few acres that you have. In fact, I would say if you have a tractor and you're growing corn and soybeans, you've got an advantage, because here you can grow all your own feed, and one of the biggest expenses are feed costs and you can really hit the ground running. So I'd say anybody can do this. It's simple. And if you're interested in learning more, feel free to reach out to me.
Gil Gullickson, Executive Editor of Crops Technology talks with Tom Farber about his mission to build community spirit.
Farber has put community first since arriving in 1982 in this northeastern South Dakota city of 1,276 residents. He’s a renaissance man of sorts, splitting his time between:
• Working as an agent for Farmers Union Insurance in Britton and as a loan officer at First Savings Bank in Hecla, South Dakota.
• Serving as president of the Britton Economic Development Corporation that has attracted several manufacturers to Britton.
• Starting a community theater.
• Refurbishing dilapidated buildings into business and apartment units.
• Recruiting medical professionals to practice and live in Britton.
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Jodi:
Tell me a little bit about Burns and have you lived there for a long time? Big town, small town?
Larry:
Burns is a small town. I think population's about 250 people. We're in a rural setting. Our closest grocery store is 20 miles away basically. We are right on the west edge of Flint Hills. And so one side of Burns you get into farm ground. West of Burns you get in the farm ground and east of Burns is mainly prairie grass. A beautiful place to live.
Jodi:
Has your family been there for a long time?
Larry:
Yeah. My grandparents were raised in this area and then my parents were. And my parents moved away for a few years after they were married and then when I was about 12 years old, we moved back to this part of the country and I've lived here ever since. And then we've raised our family here.
Jodi:
Talk about the family business. How did you get started with a line of smokers?
Larry:
Everything like that happens by desperation. You get to where you need money, you need work, you need a product and it's something that just happens. You can't necessarily push it along. My dad and I started this business in 1981 and I was still in high school. Then in the eighties, the farm economy was pretty tough and things got pretty tight around here with the agriculture work and building agriculture equipment.
Larry:
So Dad ended up designing a smoker and it was popular with his friends and with the people that used it. And it just grew from there. Then we built a business and sold that business in 2006. We still build a few smokers, but the big smoker business we had, we sold it off and that allowed Dad to retire.
Jodi:
Okay. So then Larry, you took over and kind of continued with a welding shop, is that right?
Larry:
I have had ownership in it since '86. I've owned the manufacturing myself since '86 and Dad had the sales end of the business. And so when he retired, it wasn't necessarily me taking over, it was him giving up his part of it.
Jodi:
And so then you went to a tech school in high school to learn and welding, is that correct? Or did you learn it from your father?
Larry:
I learned welding mainly from my dad, but when I was in high school, it was an option for us to go to the local tech school and to take classes there while we were junior or senior. And I took a Vo-Ag class my junior year, which was mainly welding and stuff. And it helped me learn different parts of welding and things like that.
Jodi:
And that has served you very well over the past few years. So you guys have expanded to other models of smokers, corn header sweeps, and other custom metal work. What are you doing now? And we'll get into the toys here a little bit.
Larry:
Right now we are doing some custom work for other companies. We build a product which is a loading shoot, which mounts on the back of a cattle pot, and you can load and unload cattle right off the ground or right to the ground with it. And we build it for another company. And then we have a product that is a Longhorn squeeze chute and it's a little different design than a regular squeeze chute because of the horns on the cattle and we build that for another company also.
Jodi:
What's different with that? The horns, obviously they're going to stick out the side. So, do you account for that so no one gets impaled?
Larry:
No, you just got so much mass in horns that they won't go through a regular squeeze chute. So you have to have panels that come together in different ways and the horns stick out the panels. It's something new for us because we've never been around that either.
Larry:
And then we do a lot of repair work. A lot of one time jobs, we call it job shop work. We don't do the same thing every day. Then we've got into the toys.
Jodi:
Yeah. The toys. And Zac, I think this is where your part of the story comes in. Tell me about the very first idea for a toy. How did that come to be?
Zac:
I think I was pretty young and Dad and I built a set of toys, set of panels and never quite worked right, so we kind of benched the idea. And then I went to college and when I come back over Christmas break, there wasn't a lot of work for me to do here in the shop. So we pulled that idea off the shelf and really put some time into making a product that we thought we could sell and expand the business with.
Jodi:
What was your first toy? Oh, the panels.
Zac:
It was the panels.
Jodi:
And what did you do with them?
Zac:
We just made them more manufacturable, easier and more profitable to produce in mass quantities.
Jodi:
What other toys are you guys making right now?
Zac:
We have gone from the basic panels to a full working facility, 16th scale. We've got straight alley, sort alley, loading chute, squeeze chute, and we've got tanks and bunks. And we've also moved into the equipment. We've got a pickup with a bale bed and a cake box on it. We've got trailers, a semi, mixer beds. This year we just added a dump truck and a grain truck to the semis. I think the direction we're kind of moving with that is a little more into the construction. Around here a lot of the farmers are buying construction equipment to help on the farm, gaining popularity in our area.
Jodi:
Toys though, they probably can't do a whole lot of digging and stuff like that, but they're fun to have.
Zac:
Oh, they do have a high loader, so they can play in the sandbox.
Jodi:
Oh, excellent. Walk me through the process. Pick one toy and walk me through the process of how it's made.
Larry:
We start out with the four by sheet of metal. And the first step is it goes to our computerized plasma cutter and we cut all the parts out with the plasma cutter and then the parts go to our sander and we sand them and clean them up. And then they go to our metal break and we put all the bins in. Well, then we take the pieces and put them together and we weld them. So we weld them together. And then we take a hand sander or grinder and we sand all the rough edges or corners off of everything to where they're round and it gives them a finished look.
Larry:
Then after that we wash them, wash the grease off of them, the dirt off of them. And we take them to our paint system and we powder paint them. It's a powder coat finish, which is plastic powder granules that are sprayed onto it. And then we hang them in an oven for 10 minutes and heat them up and it melts that powder into a coating. And we paint them that way, which gives them a durable finish.
Larry:
And then we bring them back to the shop and we assemble our tires on them or windshields. We use vinyl stickers for windshields. And put our flat beds on them and the bale loaders and the feed boxes. And that's pretty much a process on that.
Jodi:
How long on average does it take to make one toy?
Larry:
We don't build anything one at a time. The pickups or anything, we're to the point, we usually build 25 at a time. So it's hard to have an exact estimate or guess. But I don't know. What would we have? We build a couple pickups in a day from start to finish, maybe.
Jodi:
So you guys have quite the production now, but Zac, after you started making your panels and everything, when did you guys start selling them and how did you sell them?
Zac:
My grandpa and my brother were going to farm shows, I just kind of threw them in the truck with them. And they went and showed them at farm shows. And once they took off, we really decided that we needed to expand from our starter kit. And it just added one piece at a time from that.
Jodi:
And these are heirloom quality. These aren't stickered with “Made in China”.
Zac:
No.
Jodi:
Now I understand Larry, you have four kids, two sons, two daughters, and you have some grandkids too. Are they your quality control on the toys? Is that how it works?
Larry:
Well, we call the three boys in one family, they're my R and D department, that stands for “wreck and destroy”. If they stand up for them, they're good quality. And that's just joking.
Jodi:
Oh, I bet they love them too. After the farm shows and everything, where are you selling them now? Are they going cross country? Around the world?
Larry:
We have toys in Alaska. We have toys that we've shipped this year to Alberta, Canada. I've heard of people buying toys and sending them overseas to family members. Otherwise our main area is just in the United States here, but we never know where they end up at. The farm shows and the craft shows that we hit are right here in the central, in the Midwest. We hit Oklahoma and Kansas, Missouri, that's our main area for the show we hit. We've got a toy store in Nebraska and we just do what we can.
Jodi:
Is it just the two of you that work on them or do you have other employees or family members?
Larry:
It depends how desperate we are for having the product at the time. Anymore I try to do a lot of it myself. Zac has some parts of it that he does. Our truck beds, it's kind of his responsibility. When we're building pens and corrals and stuff like that, he does more of that too probably. But typically his brother and him are busy doing the regular shop work and so I try to do as much of the toy work as I can.
Jodi:
How many toys are you up to now? Do you have a count of how many different types you have?
Larry:
Well with the trailers and everything that has wheels on it, I think we're about 13 different items. And then with the pens, we probably have another 12 items there on different parts of it.
Zac:
The nice thing about these is they can all go together. They all matched. It's a set that you just can keep adding, you can have your full farm.
Jodi:
So what are your future plans? Are you going to be adding anymore to your miniature farm? What's coming up? Can you give us a hint?
Zac:
Like I said, we're kind of going into the construction side of things. In the next few years we're possibly looking at an excavator and some more equipment in that area. Usually we do our work on producing new models when we're slow. So if we get a slow time this summer we'll really put some time into them.
Jodi:
Would the excavator have moving parts?
Zac:
That's the plan.
Larry:
We're planning on it, be able to use your hand to dig with it and load a truck.
Jodi:
What fun.
Larry:
It's a challenge.
Jodi:
Heck I wouldn't mind playing with that. Sounds like a lot of fun. Is there anything else that you two would like to chat about? About the way your business is going and so forth?
Larry:
Well, I think one thing we have to say is that it's not our greatness that has made any of this happen. A lot of it is just the grace of God that has given us what we have and the abilities and the time and the thought on what to do. Our faith is very important to us in this.
Jodi:
Excellent. And is this a business that you plan on, Zac passing down to your children?
Zac:
If they want it. We'll see.
Jodi:
If they want it, that's just the way it always goes. If they want it.
Zac:
It's kind of generational, I think.
Jodi:
Yeah. Tell me where can people find you if they want to find your toys online?
Zac:
You can find us at Facebook with Goodwin Miniatures. We do have a website, it's Goodwinindustries.net. You can find us there. And those are two main sources other than shows is the website and our Facebook.
Jodi:
Okay. One other question I had, what is the price range of the toys?
Larry:
We range, like our feed picked ups, we are looking at $180 on a two door pickup with a bale loader and feed box. I always tell people that's the cheapest feed pickup they'll ever buy and it'll last the longest. But then we get up into some of our products up in the $500 range at this point. It's good quality stuff, so we can't just tell you how cheap it is, but we can tell it's the best quality you'll find.
You invest a lot in a heifer with the hope that she will produce quality calves every year. Heifers are only about 80% of their mature weight when they have their first calf, so they’re still growing themselves. They need special attention to prevent a lowered body condition score, delayed re-breeding or a smaller calf.
Phillip Lancaster is a research assistant professor with the Beef Cattle Institute at Kansas State University. He says a first-calf heifer is the hardest animal to get re-bred so it’s important to keep her in good body condition to weather the stressors.
"You need to keep her separate from the main herd so that you can feed the first calf heifer differently because she’s probably going to need some additional supplement depending on when you’re calving, of course," says Lancaster. "But let’s say we’re spring calving. She’s going to need some additional supplement compared to the cow herd to make sure she stays in good body condition between calving and breeding."
The heifer will need good nutrition with higher protein and higher energy after giving birth, even if turned out onto lush pastures.
"In a cow-calf operation we typically use the term TDN, or total digestible nutrients to refer to our measurement of energy of the feedstuff," he says. "So, if we have the opportunity, we may want to give those heifers some higher quality hay and if not, then giving them some additional supplement. If we’re using a range cube, maybe they get an additional pound or two per-head per day."
Be sure to keep a close eye on the calves. First-calf heifers don’t produce as high of quality of colostrum which can leave the calves vulnerable to disease, such as scours.