Sometimes challenges create opportunities, and Eddie and Lorraine Kinzer of Kinzer Polled Herefords in Hogeye, Ark., this year took advantage of a challenging situation to improve the farm.
Having gone through a dry summer that required leasing property for pasture, the family decided to begin paring down the herd; the economy being the way it was and high cattle prices prompted a restructuring that also included improvement of some of the pasture on the Kinzer land.
Economic and weather conditions “forced us to make some of the best money we’ve made on the cattle in some time,” said Ryan Emerson, Eddie Kinzer’s son-in-law.
“We sold quite a few bulls this year,” said Jennifer Emerson, one of Eddie Kinzer’s two daughters. Kept were four bulls for breeding and the farm uses artificial insemination.
The herd went from 90 to 60, and there are now 40 momma cows along with about 30 yearlings and new calves. The farm raises breeding stock for purebred and commercial herds and sells some animals for showing purposes. With the popularity of black baldy cattle, Hereford bulls are sought after by commercial cattle farmers, said Ryan.
The Emersons live in Prairie Grove, Ark., but make the relatively short trip to Hogeye each day to work on the farm. Ryan is the equipment manager at Shadow Valley Golf Course in Rogers, Ark., while Jennifer works as a certified residential appraiser. She has a degree in agricultural education/extension (which also encompasses agricultural technology and communication) from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Ark.
Eddie and his father built a home on the existing farm property in 1966 so Eddie could move his 12 head of Polled Herefords he owned at the time to more acreage (they had been on 2 acres on Elm Street in Fayetteville, which was much more rural in those days.)
“This was all woods and we cleared it,” said Eddie.
At the time, he had just graduated from high school. It was a few years before he met Lorraine and they married in 1971.
Eddie recalled his first interest in Polled Herefords when he was a youngster. His father had bought him a pony and Eddie says he wasn’t much of a rider. So they sold the pony and he bought a Polled Hereford. He began showing cattle at a young age, following in his family’s footsteps.
While his father managed department stores in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma, Eddie would spend summers at his two grandfathers’ farms in Fayetteville. They lived two miles from each other. After his father got out of the department store business, he went into construction and Eddie worked with him. Eddie has worked for the U of A for the past 35 years in building services; Lorraine is employed in the human resources department at Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville.
Eddie says he likes the Polled Herefords docile temperament. He recalls when Jennifer, started showing cattle while in 4-H and how that docile temperament helped ease his mind. It also eased his mind when granddaughter Jill, 2, showed a bull calf in pee wee showmanship at the Washington County Fair. He said he was impressed with his granddaughter’s showing.
Her mother Jennifer was 13 when she began showing cattle in the American Junior Polled Hereford Association Nationals. She showed until she was 21. “Showing is in this family’s blood,” said Ryan.
Ryan says he knew farming was part of the deal when he met and later married Jennifer. The two were married in the renovated barn where Kinzer Polled Herefords once conducted cattle production sales. Ryan says he enjoys the farm.
The Emersons represent the farm’s future, but Eddie is not ready to give up farming. He says he will farm “as long as I’m able.”
He represents the fifth generation and farming is something he has always enjoyed, and his father recognized that, helping him to make his cattle owning dreams a reality when they developed the property in Hogeye. Now, the sixth generation is helping to improve the farm: Taking challenges and turning them into opportunities that will pay off well into the future.
