Missouri Neighbors

We’ve been married for 40 years but we don’t want to be old people,” laughed Mary Dakis of Happy Tails Farm near West Plains, Mo.
“The goats are helping to keep us young,” added Don. “They are a lot of work for us retired folks, but we love it.”

Cattle are a good savings account” for Steve Peterson of Mtn. Grove.  Although there arecosts involved with production, the lifelong cattleman said that unlike with other investments, he can go to the sale barn and sell cattle once a week if need be.  “I know that’s worth something,” he said.

Warren Hoffman won an election without making any promises or even launching a campaign.  Warren was elected to the board of the Farm Service Agency.  The FSA in Lebanon, Mo., in Laclede County, also represents Camden and Pulaski Counties, and the board has one representative from each county.  Living near Sleeper, Mo., Warren is the Laclede County representative. All members of the board are farmers and elected to three year terms.

In American society today a rising concern for farmers is the increasing numbers of agriculture illiterate youth. Young people don’t know where their food comes from. Many don’t know the first thing about production agriculture and unfortunately these kids miss out on the lessons of responsibility, patience and hard work learned on the farm.

Southwest area rodeos have something to spike all five senses, but the main announcer usually gets most attention. And if you've been to many rodeos around these parts, it's likely that voice has once been Jody Lawson.  “No one gets to see me much.  I’m usually up in the skybox,” said Jody.  Over the past several years, Jody has announced at 70 to 80 percent of the family rodeos in southwest Missouri.

A river doesn’t run through Roger Duff’s Newton/Lawrence county farm, but history certainly does.

Freddie Martin has spent a lifetime watching the cycles of agriculture; and he's still growing his dairy herd today

A few are red, most are black, but they are all Angus at Wallace Cattle Company, where Ernie and Tammy Wallace may have compromised on color, but never on the quality of their registered herd.
Tammy loves the reds she grew up with in Iowa, where her parents were pioneer breeders and have been in the business more than 40 years. Ernie is partial to the blacks, a love he picked up while working as a young man on a purebred ranch in Texas. Together, the two have been raising registered Angus since they were married 18 years ago.

In the rugged terrain and the demanding brutal conditions of rural Scotland a particular breed of cattle has been able to thrive for centuries, the Scottish Highlander.
Highlanders began being imported into the United States during the mid to late 1800’s when a “herd book” or national registry was established in 1884 making them the oldest registered breed of cattle in the country.

Brad and Joanna Carter’s registered Angus and Boer Goats may be a small-time operation, but that doesn’t stop them from taking specific steps towards improving their breeding programs.
“We AI our cattle, but we’re not brave enough to AI our goats,” Joanna laughed. The Carters have had goats for five years, and cattle for longer than that. When they moved to their current location, in Dadeville, Mo., Brad said their fields were covered with serecia lespedeza. “The cattle wouldn’t eat it, that and all our brush. So we got goats to take care of it,” he recalled.