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Mike Howell (00:08):
The Dirt with me, Mike Howell, an eKonomics podcast where I present the down and dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by eKonomics.com, farming’s go-to informational resource, I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research news and issues, helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
(00:37):
Well, hello again everyone. Welcome back to The Dirt. We’re going to continue our series on agriculture sustainability today and we’ve got a really special guest with us. We’ve had a little trouble getting together and making this happen for one reason or another. Main reason is harvest season and we have got a corn grower with us tonight, so you know what that means. He’s been in the field and he’s actually just getting off the combine and able to catch up with us for a few minutes and talk about agriculture sustainability. We’re pleased today to have Mr. Andy Jobman here with us. Andy, welcome to The Dirt.
Andy Jobman (01:09):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Mike Howell (01:10):
Andy, if you will, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from and all the things you’re involved with.
Andy Jobman (01:15):
My name’s Andy Jobman. I’m a fifth generation farmer in central Nebraska, near a little town called Gothenburg. I farm with my younger brother and my dad. It’s a family operation, diversified operation. We have cow calf and finish feed our own calves, but primarily the operation is centered around grain. We’re a little bit unique in that all of our corn that we raise is food grade corn. About 60% of it is yellow corn, but both the white and yellow are food grade and they all end up, at some point in time, in a bag of Frito-Lay corn chips. And so, that’s kind of a fun unique thing about our farm and a lot of the farms around us. All of our friends and neighbors are also Frito-Lay growers.
(02:01):
We’re primarily irrigated, which has been a big help this year as we’ve been through a historic drought. I also serve as President of the Nebraska Corn Growers Association. I chair the stewardship action team for National Corn and am involved in a few other committees on the national level too. I stay pretty busy. I’m married and I have two little kids.
Mike Howell (02:24):
It sounds like you definitely don’t have a lack of something to do every day. Andy, we appreciate you taking a few minutes to talk to us tonight. If you would, tell us a little bit about how harvest is progressing in Nebraska there.
Andy Jobman (02:35):
It’s progressing pretty rapidly, I would say. We had a real long hot dry summer. A lot of the dry land, especially in the western half of the state, is pretty poor to be quite honest. I’ve had some friends even farther west of me, I’m pretty central located, but friends to the west of me, there’s some fields that just flat out didn’t get harvested. There’s just nothing out there, not even worth running the combine over unless you need to for insurance purposes.
(03:00):
On our farm, personally, we’ve had a lot of dry land. The dry land that we do have, it’s not a lot but most of it’s less than 10 bushels an acre. But on the irrigated, we’ve had some pretty good surprises and pleasant finds and good yields. Dry grains, that’s always a bonus. You can take it straight to the bin and cool it off and you’re set to go for the rest of the year. We’re about halfway through corn harvest ourselves. Hopefully, we’ll finish that up in about 10 to 14 days.
Mike Howell (03:30):
We hope everything goes well the rest of harvest season and you keep getting into some of those better yields and more surprises along the way. We’ve finished up corn harvest in the south where I am. Most everybody finished up a couple of weeks ago.
(03:44):
We’ve been talking about this drought all year and it’s widespread. Every day, you turn the television on and it seems like it’s getting worse and worse. The weatherman talks about a chance of rain, but we just don’t happen to get that, so we know what you’re talking about with some of those dry land yields.
(04:00):
Andy, this is a series of podcasts we’ve been doing and we have talked a lot about sustainability over the last four or five weeks. One question I’m asking all my guests is what does sustainability mean to you? We know it means something different to everybody so if you would, tell us in your own words what sustainability means to you.
Andy Jobman (04:18):
You bet. It’s a topic that we talk a lot about as Frito-Lay growers with Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. It’s a topic we talk a lot about when we’re meeting as a Corn Association on a state and a national level. Personally though, I think it means a little something different to everybody, just like what you said.
(04:36):
For me, I think it means leaving the farm and the land and your operation better than what you found it so that the next generation, whether it’s my kids or whether it’s someone else that is eventually farming this ground and running the operation, hopefully they can pick up the ball and keep running with it. I think when you talk about sustainability, a lot of people in and outside of ag seem to focus in on a lot of the environmental issues, organic matter, carbon, energy balances of the whole system. I think a really important thing to remember is that, whatever we do when we’re talking about sustainability practices or sustainability programs, is we got to remember there’s a really big key part of that and that’s the financial portion.
(05:25):
These farms, these ranches, I’m sure we can use cover crops, we can do no-till reduced tillage, all these different conservation practices that are out there and that are talked about. But at the end of the day, if that doesn’t leave your farm in a financially more stable place than what you were before then I really struggle to agree with calling that practice or whatever program or issue we’re talking about sustainable. I think that has to be first and foremost is that we’ve got to make sure that these farms and these ranches are financially viable.
Mike Howell (05:59):
Andy, I’m glad you mentioned that. That’s something that we’ve tried to drive home in the last episodes talking about sustainability. If it’s not economically feasible for the grower to do it, we’ve got to go somewhere else. If y’all aren’t going to be able to make a profit from it, it’s not going to be sustainable no matter how good the practice is.
(06:16):
Andy, you mentioned that you’re on the National Corn Board. If you would, tell some of our listeners that may not be as familiar with it what the National Corn Board is and what they do and what kind of programs they’re involved with.
Andy Jobman (06:26):
The National Corn Growers Association, or NCGA for short, is a grower led trade organization. It’s primarily membership based, but it represents about 40,000 dues paying farmers across the nation. But also, around 300,000 farmers are also represented through the National Corn Growers Association through their state checkoffs programs. We have over 20 states across the US that have a state association that’s affiliated with the National Association.
(06:58):
Primarily, this organization basically works to better the industry for corn farmers. The national headquarters is in St. Louis, but they also have a sister headquarters in DC where, obviously, we need to have a presence there for policy discussions with all of our regulators and our representatives on the Hill. National Corn is a very powerful lobby group and it’s a fun organization to be a part of. It takes about as much time as you want to let it, and sometimes that seems like too much. But at the end of the day, you meet a lot of great folks, a lot of great producers from across the country that are involved that really care about the industry, care about representing themselves, but also their neighbors and friends and family to the best of their abilities.
Mike Howell (07:45):
I know the National Corn Growers Association is involved in sustainability programs and you’re on their sustainability committee. If you would, tell us a little bit about some of the programs that they’re working on.
Andy Jobman (07:56):
The stewardship action team that I lead has a lot of irons in the fire. A lot of it centers around the conservation programs that we have available to us through USDA, but also a lot of programs that we have with other cooperators. I’m talking about some of our value chain partners like food companies or industry partners such as Nutram or seed companies. Basically, anybody that’s out there playing in the ag world has to, at this point, have some kind of programming or policy or position on sustainability. And so, that all kind of funnels down into our stewardship action team.
(08:34):
A couple of the big projects that we’ve been working on, the one in particular I’ll talk about is our LCA, which really tracks the life cycle analysis of corn from a cradle to grave timeline to really put some numbers and figures together on what it actually takes to raise a bushel of corn in terms of inputs, energy, all of that, because we have a lot of our value chain partners that are asking us for that information. They’ve got numbers for their own production systems, whether it’s Kellogg’s making corn chips, whether it’s Frito-Lay making Tostitos corn chips. It could be the livestock sector, pork and cattle and dairy and bird sections to chickens and turkeys, all the poultry. They’re asking us for this information, what does the sustainability look like for corn on the national level? That’s a big one that we’ve been working on.
(09:26):
We’re looking at doing some studies on the critical role that herbicides play in our conservation programs. When we’re asked to do conservation programs or whether we’re enticed to participate in, say, a carbon market, a lot of people think, “Oh, that’s great. We’re going to sequester all this carbon. We’re going to build up the soil. We’re going to do our part to help with climate change.” But a lot of folks that are asking for that don’t also realize that, “Hey, we need a lot of these products that, at the current time and space that we’re in right now, seem to be a little bit controversial,” like GMOs, like herbicides, like glyphosate. Those are tools that we cannot give up if we want to continue to do conservation practices like no-till and have high quality grain produced at the end of the day too.
(10:17):
It’s a balancing act for sure. You know have companies and government organizations that are coming in, asking you for all this information. But at the same time, sometimes it feels like they’re tying your hands a little bit with what tools they want you to use or what they find acceptable. There’s always a bit of this educational part that I think is really important for farmers to realize that I think is always going to have to be going on, these conversations of this is what a family farm looks like. It’s not what you envision or what you grew up with your grandparents on. It’s a business. It has to be financially viable and stable.
(10:53):
It leverages technology to increase efficiencies and that technology is sometimes as black and white as that brand new tractor and planter sitting in the yard, but it’s also not as in your face as a shiny new piece of equipment, but it could be that brand new trait that’s in the seed that you’re planting. It’s not always the first thing that comes to mind when you talk about people that aren’t necessarily living and breathing agriculture every day. There’s a lot going on.
Mike Howell (11:21):
We appreciate the work that y’all are doing with the National Corn Board. It takes everybody working together to make this sustainability initiative work and work for everybody.
(11:30):
Now, Andy, I know you’re a fifth generation farmer and y’all are incorporating some sustainable practices on your farm. If you would, talk a little bit about what y’all are doing, maybe some unique ideas that y’all are working with to make your operation more sustainable.
Andy Jobman (11:43):
Really, in terms of tillage and soil conservation, we have moved our entire farm over to strip till. We used to be primarily ridge till, and a lot of that had to do with historical irrigation practices of flood irrigation with gated pipe. But with the adoption of center pivots and even some drip tape here in the last few years, we’ve moved the entire operation over to strip till. I’ve seen through soil sampling that that’s really increased our soil organic matter, which is really great to see, especially when you’re looking at the arid climate that we’re in in central and western Nebraska where irrigation is so important, every drop counts. Having that extra percent or two of organic matter and soil cover from the residue from the previous year certainly helps with our water usage.
(12:32):
We utilize GMO technology in every single field of corn and soybeans that we plant. We rotate our modes of action with our herbicides to try to stay on top of weed resistance. GPS and variable rate seeding and fertilizer has been a part of our operation for, oh, at least five to 10 years now, depending on the field. We soil sample every year. I think that’s really important. I think that’s a big area of improvement that we could see across the Midwest. I’m not sure everyone soil samples quite to the degree that I do or some folks in our area, but what a great way to benchmark your farm’s nutrient efficiency and soil health through grid sampling and annual sampling of soil.
(13:19):
We utilize a few crop models for nitrogen management and irrigation management too. We’re always kind of dabbling in something that’s new and coming along. I think sometimes the hard part for adopting technology is just the price. It’s just like anything new. It tends to have a pretty high sticker price. You kind of have to be picky on what you want to try, and we do a lot of side by side trials with any new technology that we bring on the farm. I think that’s helpful.
(13:50):
There’s always a great network of farmers around us just like there are across the country too, that you can kind of lean on to say, “Hey, I noticed you guys were doing something different this year. How did that work out?” Those are two things that we’re working on.
Mike Howell (14:04):
Andy, that leads me into my next question. We’ve talked about this several times already. It’s got to be economical for the grower, and you just talked about the price tag on a lot of this new practices. If you would, talk a little bit about how you’re able to evaluate or return on investment from some of these practices you put in and where you get your information before you dive in with some new practice. You mentioned other growers and doing side by sides. I’m assuming you look at a lot of university research and private company research. If you would, talk a little bit about that.
Andy Jobman (14:34):
You brought up university research, that’s a really big one in Nebraska. The University of Nebraska has a really robust and active on-farm research program, and I would certainly encourage anyone in Nebraska to take a look at that. I know other land-grant universities across the corn belt do very similar programming. That’s a great way to do side by sides because you have this university partner with this trial or this program to really help you set it up right so that you’re not getting bad data or bad results and to help you set it up so that you’re not coming out with a false assumption at the end of the day.
(15:11):
Certainly, there’s programming out there through NRCS or USDA to help cost share on some of these new programs. That’s another big thing that we work on with our stewardship action team nationally is evaluating some of that programming and encouraging producers to look at that and find something that works for them.
(15:29):
There’s also a lot of end users and companies in the value chain that are willing and open to helping their producers cost share on some programs too. With Frito-Lay and PepsiCo that my farm does a lot of business with and a lot of our neighbors do, they have a cost share program where they’re helping their producers cost share on new technology. It’s as simple as maybe updating that sprinkler package on your center pivot to increase that water use efficiency, but it also could be cost sharing on some new program that you bring onto the farm that might help you reduce nitrogen or helping you make that purchase on, say, a fertigation pump to help you spin on some fertilizer through your center pivots and increase efficiency that way too.
(16:16):
I think more and more as companies that we do business with as farmers become more engaged in sustainability with their input suppliers and farmers, I think there’s going to be opportunities for them to help us along the way. The important part is to have those lines of communication open to let those companies know, “Hey, I see that you have a water reduction goal for 2050. I use a lot of water on my farm. Here’s a few ideas that I have to help improve my efficiency, that what helps me, helps you.” And so, I think finding those partnerships and aligning ourselves with folks, in the end, is a win-win for everybody.
Mike Howell (16:55):
That’s right. Again, it takes everybody working together to accomplish our goals here. Andy, well, I really appreciate you taking time to be with us today and you’ve shared a lot of great information with us. If you could summarize everything in a statement or two, what’s your take home message that you want everybody to get from our program tonight?
Andy Jobman (17:14):
I’ll be a little selfish and ask that anybody that’s not a member of the National Corn Growers Association to hop on the website and join. It’s a great organization that represents corn farmers very well. Like I said before, you can get involved and spend as much time in the association as you want or as little as you want, but it’s a great organization that’s kind of the face for the American corn farmer and represents us well domestically as well as abroad.
(17:41):
The other thing I think that’s a really important take home is that whether we’re talking to a regulatory agency or a food company or an end user of some kind and they start bringing up the issues of sustainability or regenerative ag or whatever the new tagline of this whole movement is going to be, I think it’s really important that we communicate to them that we need the freedom to operate. No conservation program is going to work across every single broad acre in the United States. Farming even across a county looks different and, even within an operation, there’s things that I do on my fields on one end that I don’t do on another end of the operations.
(18:25):
I think that’s a really, really important message to take to our value chain partners. I know farmers know that, but I think that the folks that we do business with, they can’t hear that enough. It resonates well with them too because they get it. They operate businesses that have different assets and different resources from one end to the next to the production chain, and I think that resonates with them, they get it. That’s a really important take home is that freedom to operate and to reduce that regulatory burden of one size does not fit all.
Mike Howell (18:56):
Andy, once again, we appreciate you being with us and bringing your story to us tonight. I think growers are going to get a lot of good information and things that they can use to help in their own operations wherever they’re farming. Thanks a lot for joining us.
Andy Jobman (19:07):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Mike Howell (19:10):
Well, listeners, it’s that time a week again that we start talking about football. The Poplarville Hornets are on a roll. They’ve improved their record to nine and one. They’re in the playoffs. We’re getting really excited about what’s going to happen in the playoffs. We’ve got a really good team and want to see them go all the way this year. We’re going to talk a little bit about our tailgate menu here in just a moment, but before we do that, Andy, are you a football fan?
Andy Jobman (19:32):
Oh, I am. Definitely. Being from Nebraska, you can probably guess who I’m a fan of.
Mike Howell (19:37):
You’re going to have to help us out a little more than that. I know there’s a lot of football teams in that part of the world. Who’s your favorite football team?
Andy Jobman (19:43):
Well, Nebraska Cornhuskers, of course, for college division one football.
Mike Howell (19:48):
Well, that’s what I thought you were going to say. I know it’s been tough out there for the last few years. Maybe things are going to turn around here. I think y’all are looking for a new coach, if I understand right.
Andy Jobman (19:58):
Yeah.
Mike Howell (19:58):
Maybe they’ll get the right person and get things turned around.
Andy Jobman (20:01):
Yeah, it’s been a tough haul here the last five, 10 years. Oh gosh, almost 20 now. One of these days we’ll get her turned around, don’t you worry.
Mike Howell (20:08):
Yeah. Well, I’m a Mississippi State fan and I definitely understand those hard times. Seems like we’ve been in since day one. Andy, do you have any favorite tailgate foods? Do you get to do a lot of tailgating out there?
Andy Jobman (20:21):
Certainly did a lot more tailgating, obviously, when I was in college down there in Lincoln. Tailgating, anything that comes off the barbecue or the grill is great, especially anything that is easy to handle. I feel like too many times folks try to put these elaborate tailgating parties together, which is great if you’ve got the room, the space and set up. But for the one guy that likes to wander around and meander and meet up with a bunch of friends, the smaller the item is sometimes the better.
Mike Howell (20:50):
I understand. Well, I think you’d really fit right in with this week’s tailgate. We’ve cooked a lot of dishes. We’ve fixed a lot of things on the grill and on the griddle, and we’ve had the smoker out. We’ve even had the deep fryer out a few times this year. But I think what we’re going to do this week is totally devoted to chicken wings. We’re going to do some hot wings and we’re going to marinate those and sauce them with different things. We’ve got some honey barbecue. We’ve got some really hot barbecue sauces. We’ve got some dry rubs. We’re going to cook them a couple of different ways too. We’ve got some that we’re going to put on the grill and cook them slow on the grill. We’ve got some that we’re going to put in the air fryer and cook them that way. We’ve got several different ways that we’re going to cook the chicken wings.
(21:30):
We’ve got several things that we’re going to go along with that. What I wanted to focus on this week is we’re going to have a fruit salad to go along with that. You may think that’s a little strange item, but here in the south where I’m at, citrus is just now getting ready and we’ve got a lot of citrus production. We just happen to have a satsuma tree growing in my backyard, and it is loaded down this year. If you don’t know what satsumas are, it’s kind of like a really small orange but they’re really sweet, a lot sweeter than a regular orange. We’ve got way more of these than we can handle this year so we’re going to make a big fruit salad and have a lot of those in it.
(22:04):
Wanted to take just a minute and talk a little bit about the citrus industry. People in the United States when they think about citrus, they think about California and Florida, and those are two of the biggest states. We also have to throw Arizona in that mix as being one of the top three states. But anywhere along our southern coast, we can grow citrus from one form to the other. When we talk about citrus, we have things like oranges and grapefruits, tangerines, and those are going to be the biggest, lemons are also going to be in that category. When we break this citrus down a little bit and look at it, the US is number one in the world in terms of grapefruit production. And then, when we look at all citrus together, the US ranks third behind Brazil and China in terms of total production.
(22:45):
If we look at this, everybody thinks about Florida and California, and those are our two biggest states, Florida is more for the juice. They grow oranges to go into orange juice. When we look at the other coast over at California, most of those oranges are going to end up in the fresh market, something that we peel and eat. I want to give a shout out to our citrus growers. I know they’ve had a really tough time here lately. They’ve had some disease coming in and the citrus industry is kind of on a decline over the last few years. Hope they can get that turned around and have some brighter days ahead.
(23:19):
Another great week of high school football this week. The Poplarville Hornets concluded the regular season with a 42 to nothing win over the Sumrall Bobcats. Now, next Friday night, the Hornets will be playing the Pass Christian Pirates in the first round of the 4A state playoffs. If you’ll remember, the Poplarville has already defeated Pass Christian once this year. Hoping to get back in action and do it again this Friday night. Until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.
