During Soy Connext, four U.S. farmers sat down to share insights about this year’s crop and talk about on-farm practices, how those evolve, and the drivers behind their decision-making.
Meet the Farmers:
Roberta Simpson-Dolbeare — Located in Illinois, she farms about 2,400 acres (971 hectares) with her husband and son-in-law. This is a mix of irrigated and non-irrigated land with a crop mix of primarily corn and soybeans with some winter wheat.
Josh Gackle — Located in North Dakota, he is a 3rd generation farmer and farms with his dad and brother. They grow primarily soybeans in rotation with corn, barley and wheat.
Steve Reinhard — Located in Ohio, he farms with his brother. They grow soybeans, corn, malting barley, and hay.
Lance Rezac — Located in Kansas, he is a 5th generation farmer and farms with his brother, two nephews, and his son and daughter. Together they grow corn, soybeans and wheat, and have a farrow-to-finish swine operation and background cattle.
Questions & Answers
Q1: How does your crop look?
Reinhard: My soybean crop looks like it’s going to be a record crop on our farm. We put soybeans in first this year. However, the eastern part of the state has been in a moderate drought so the crop there is under some stress.
Simpson-Dolbeare: We planted our soybeans in a timely manner but received a lot of rain, forcing us to replant about 10% of our acres. Overall, the crop looks good. We won’t see yields like we did last year — a record for us — but they will be good. I expect we’ll start harvest in the third or fourth week of September.
Rezac: Kansas has been in a drought for the past three years, and this year we’ve come out of it with some very beneficial rains. In the southern and central part of the state, farmers have started harvesting corn. For my farm, this could be our best soybean crop ever. The potential is there, but we need a little more rain to finish it up.
Gackle: This year, my part of the state has received decent moisture, so things are looking good. We are most nervous about an early Fall. Corn, and especially soybeans, need more time to reach full maturity.
Q2: What determines where you sell or where your soybeans go?
Reinhard: In my state, many farmers grow non-GMO soybeans which started when Honda came in and began shipping beans back to Japan. For high-oleic, a key driver is the location of the crush plant and how far farmers have to haul the beans from their fields. For me, there are about 100,000 sows located in a 30-mile radius, so I’ve got strong local demand as a feedstuff.
Simpson-Dolbeare: We deliver quite a bit of soybeans to an ADM facility about an hour north of where we farm. These soybeans are crushed into animal feed, and then loaded on barges and rail and shipped from there. We also have access to several elevators along the Illinois River and the Mississippi River, so that gives us options, and we can compare bids.
Q3: How do you manage risk?
Rezac: Diversification and sustainability. With the livestock, we have manure, which is essentially recycled and used as nutrients for the crops and building soil health. Because of the limited rains in our area, we also practice no-till and do grid sampling. Everything is put right where it needs to be. We have a very circular system.
Gackle: Strategies vary from region to region and can be dependent on planting cycles, the ability to store crops on the farm, and price hedging and risk management on Chicago Board of Trade. In times such as this when soybean prices are down, these strategies are even more important to maintain profitability.
Simpson-Dolbeare: We need to be as efficient and as cost-effective as we can. When prices go down, the cost of production doesn’t go down with it. That’s when we really look at what we can do to improve how we operate and minimize expenses.
Reinhard: About 20 years ago, we started grid sampling with 5-acre samples. Now we’re down to the acre. This means we’re getting fertilizer put right where it’s needed and not doing a general application. Making use of the soil maps and integrating those with yield maps and the nutrient management plan, this means we are planting seeds precisely where we know we are going to get the most production, which allows us to cut back in other places.
Q4: What does technology on the farm mean to you?
Gackle: It allows us to do more with less — fewer financial resources and less inputs — and to be more efficient. That competitiveness and quality is one of the strengths we offer. It’s certainly changed the crops we grow. When I was growing up, we planted about 10 different crops. Today, we plant mostly soybeans with a mix of a few others. And while we’ve been here in San Francisco, I rode in a taxi that didn’t have a driver. I think autonomous tractors will soon be on the farm.
Rezac: Global positioning systems is the technology that has changed everything and allows us to get to that precision level. Now we use drones that can spray and allow us to scout. Think about the changes over the last 100 years; I remember when my grandfather would wrap burlap around steel wheels to keep the mud from sticking. I can’t imagine what changes and technological advancements are ahead for the next generation.
Reinhard: Adaptation. We are growing crops now that we wouldn’t have grown 10 years ago. We are growing malting barley and the primary reason for that is it gets harvested two weeks ahead of wheat and allows us to double-crop soybeans.
Simpson-Dolbeare: Technology allows for new ideas to be adopted on the farm. Every generation comes back with new ideas and that keeps things evolving but also progressing.
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This story was partially funded by U.S. Soy farmers, their checkoff and the soy value chain.
