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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, views, and issues, helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
(00:38)
Today’s episode is being recorded live in Memphis, Tennessee. Now, people think about Memphis and there’s a lot of things to do and see here. This is the home of the legendary Sun Studios, the historic Cotton Exchange. Mud Island is a famous attraction, as well as Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley.
(00:54)
But that’s not the reason we’re here today. We’re here for the 70th Annual Mid-South Farm & Gin Show. This is one of the largest trade shows each year. We have growers from as far away as Texas, North Carolina. I even seen people from Illinois just made the trip down. The Gin Show is full of vendors from different areas. We’ve got vendors here from all across the country representing all phases of agriculture. Gin Show’s always an exciting event each year held in Memphis.
(01:19)
Today, we’re going to try to talk to several farmers as they pass through and find out what they have on their mind as far as production issues for next year, things that they’re going to do to overcome these issues, and some opportunities they may see as well.
(01:32)
I’m here with Taylor Butterworth from Bells, Tennessee. Taylor, how are you today?
Taylor Butterworth (01:36):
Doing good. How are you?
Mike Howell (01:37):
I’m great. I’m glad you’re sitting down and talking with us for a few minutes.
(01:40)
Mr. William Atkins. Mr. Atkins, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from, and what crops you’re growing.
William Atkins (01:46):
William Dean Atkins, around Aberdeen, Mississippi. We been farming about 65 years. We grow cotton, corn, soybeans, peanuts, wheat, a little bit of everything. Anything that the market’s the better on, that’s what we look at.
Mike Howell (02:02):
Mr. Ted Kendall from Bolton, Mississippi. Mr. Kendall, if you would, tell us a little bit about yourself and what kind of crops you’re growing.
Ted Kendall (02:08):
I am a fifth generation farmer from Western Hinds County in Mississippi. It’s up between Jackson and Vicksburg. We grow row crops, cotton, corn, soybeans. We also have a beef brood herd, and we do winter grazing with a stocker program, beef cattle.
Mike Howell (02:27):
Okay. Well, every year when we start planning what we’re going to do for the next growing season, there’s always a lot of challenges comes about, and seems like this year there’s all kind of challenges for growers to worry with. What are your biggest challenges you’re worried about for this coming year?
Taylor Butterworth (02:41):
Fertilizer cost is going to be a big one this year. Some of the chemicals, of course. I think we all know Roundup’s gone up. I think we’re going to have a defensive year this year.
William Atkins (02:50):
Well, Mike, right now, we’re looking at all of our input prices. They’re up. Everything you go to buy is double, tripled, and quadrupled, and sometimes it’s non-existent. Of course, fuel prices. Anything you go to buy it looks like right now is going to be very expensive to try to make a crop.
(03:09)
The markets today, we’re looking at the market that’s gone completely crazy. We don’t know what that’s going to do. So the markets and input price is probably the two main things that we’re worried about right now.
Ted Kendall (03:25):
I think our major challenges this year are going to be from the input side. Obviously, the cost of the inputs going into the crop this year, as well as the supply chain issues and the availability of inputs.
Mike Howell (03:38):
That seems to be a common answer. People coming by today, they’re all worried about input prices and the markets.
(03:43)
So the next question goes right along with that. What do you plan to do to overcome these challenges? What things are you going to change in your production system, or how do you plan to get around this?
Ted Kendall (03:52):
Going to be turning a lot towards soybeans, just because of the less fertility. Not going to have any corn this year. Actually, just got to cut it out. I can’t make the fertilizer work for the cost I’m going into it as. I’m a non-irrigated farmer, 100%. I’m all dry land, so it’s a little different for me on the fertilizer side of things knowing I’ve got to spend that much money, I’ve got to back up from corn because I got too much in it. But cotton, I do a lot of rotation. So actually in the past year or two, I’ve had a lot more of my P and K built up, so I’m actually leaning towards this year backing off on my fertilizer some just to try to help me on the big end.
Mike Howell (04:29):
I understand. Sounds like you got a plan in place, and that’s the most important thing. You’ve got to have a plan in place and know where you’re trying to get to.
William Atkins (04:36):
Well, right now, we’re looking at some alternative fertilize deal. We’re looking at maybe some chicken litter on corn. We’re probably going to cut back our corn acreage because of the nitrogen prices.
(04:48)
Grow a lot of peanuts, in which we can get by with less fertilize. So we don’t want to cut fertilize usage. We feel like if we cut our fertilize, we cut our own throat and cut our yields, and we don’t want to do that. So we’re looking at maybe some chicken litter and other ways, cover crops, and different things.
Ted Kendall (05:10):
Well, from the fertility side, we have done all of our acreage on variable rate grid sampling. We will be utilizing variable rate distribution on our fertilizer. Honestly, we’re going to look hard at, I guess, the limits we apply to those programs, try to match them up really good with what we think our attainable yields are. So I guess the answer there is just we’re going to really look at those things a lot closer this year.
Mike Howell (05:39):
Well, I’ve always been taught with every challenge we have, we always have an opportunity to go along with that. What kind of opportunities do you see for farmers this year?
Taylor Butterworth (05:47):
The opportunity this year would probably be pricing, which we’re seeing a little fall right now with what’s going on overseas and everything. But our prices are a lot better. So that kind of makes up a little on the big end, as I was talking about a minute ago.
(06:02)
I think varieties have come a long ways. As long as weather works out, I think we’ve got potential to make bigger, better crops with what we’re dealing with now, versus what we were dealing with 10 or 15 years ago, or even less than that really.
William Atkins (06:17):
Oh, well, right now, if the price, the market stays up like it is with the soybeans and corn prices and cotton, it looks better than it has in the last several years. If we can continue with the good yields, in which we’ve been fortunate to have pretty good yields … If we can continue with good yields. I think things will maybe be all right. Certainly we do need a break, as I said, on some fuel and all the other different input stuff that we’re putting into that crop. Right now, it doesn’t look that bad.
Ted Kendall (06:46):
Well, I think we’re going to learn some things by paying closer attention to our rates and matching up the needs. But I think we have a real opportunity with commodity markets where they are now. If we do a good job and we raise a good crop, I think we’ll be successful this year.
Mike Howell (07:03):
We sure appreciate you taking the time to visit with us today. Hope you enjoy the rest of the show.
(07:12)
Well, I want to thank each of our growers for taking time to stop by and visit with us today and share their insights on the upcoming growing season. I think we’ve learned a lot talking with these growers today. They all mentioned that the higher input costs are going to be an issue, something that they’re concerned about this year. Not just fertilizer inputs, but they’re also looking at chemical inputs, fuel inputs. All of these things are higher this year than they were in previous years, something that they’re all concerned about.
(07:37)
When we talked to them about how we were going to manage those issues this year, we had several different answers on this, but I think if we sum these all up, one grower had it best, we need to really monitor our input costs this year and understand what each dollar we spend is going to be contributing to our bottom line this year.
(07:53)
Need to make sure we’re shooting for optimal yields and not trying to maximize everything this year because of these high input costs. How we go about doing this, we had several options on that. Some growers are looking at changing their crop rotation a little bit, trying to go with some crops that don’t require as much inputs. Changing our source of inputs this year may help reduce some of these costs that growers are incurring. Everything we do this year, we just need to be especially mindful of and make sure that it’s going to give us a good return on our investment.
(08:20)
Finally, we talked with growers about opportunities, and they all seem to be of the same mindset, that we do have a good opportunity this year with the high commodity prices. Hope that’s going to stick around for the near future anyway, and growers are going to be able to have another successful year.
(08:37)
Once again, I want to thank all our listeners for joining in this week. We look forward to having you back with us next time, when we visit with Dr. Larry Oldham and Dr. Clain Jones about the importance of soil pH. This has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.
