Jacob Hudson
Family: Wife, Tara Hudson; sons Canaan, 8, and Hayden, 6; and daughter Harper, 4.
In Town: “I am vice president of corporate banking at the Bank of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark., where I work fulltime as a relationship manager. My client base consists primarily of Arkansas companies with more than $20 million in revenues, as well as real estate investors across the state. I provide a number of services for these customers including loans, lines of credit, international trade services and liquidity management.”
Country Life: “My wife Tara and I have 60 acres on which we support a small herd of Black Angus and Charolais/Limousin cross momma cows serviced by Angus bulls. Tara grew up on an Angus operation and I grew up on a Charolais/Limousin operation so, we decided to have some of each in our herd to represent our respective farming heritages. We sell our calves as yearlings after weaning 45 to 60 days prior to sale. We vaccinate and de-worm each summer and use antibiotics only for therapeutic reasons. We partner with Tara’s brother on labor, land and equipment. He has a larger neighboring acreage and a larger herd. We share farm equipment, run the cattle together (tagging mine and his with different colors to distinguish ownership) and manage his land and ours as one farm.”
“Tara and I also grow 5 acres of pumpkins that we plant and harvest by hand. Last year we harvested more than 6,000 pumpkins, in differing varieties weighing from 1 – 30 pounds. Tara developed a portable pumpkin patch idea in 2007 to educate schoolchildren about agriculture by teaching them about the lifecycle of pumpkins from flower to fruit. This has turned into a rewarding business as she takes the portable pumpkin patch to 3,000 local elementary students each year with each child receiving a small pumpkin and each class a larger one for carving. We wholesale our excess pumpkins to local agri-tourism operations.”
Future: “Farming is my stress relief. In other words, I farm instead of playing golf. Because people continually ask me if I have any beef to sell, we are considering feeding out our calves for local meat sales rather than selling them on the hoof at local livestock auctions. We also would like to expand our pumpkin operation by operating the pumpkin patch on our farm in the future. In the distant future, when my banking days are over, I would like to transition to full-time farming. In the meantime, I am enjoying raising our children on the farm and passing along both of our families’ farming heritage.”
