Missouri Neighbors

Earnest Shields is quick to say he’s no farmer, but he does like to raise a few hogs.

Jason Osborn, born and raised on a Howell County, Mo., dairy farm, outside Pomona has continued his family’s tradition of a life in agriculture. And like so many in the Ozarks today, that included work in a local factory for 10 years to sustain that way of life.

To say that horses have taken Charlie Van Dien on a journey of a lifetime is no exaggeration.

“We live in a food desert,” Barry Mullins, resource development coordinator with the Missouri Ozarks Community Action (MOCA) commented recently while strolling through his organization’s Richland, Mo., community garden site. “We may not think of it that way but we have a growing number of small communities here that no longer have a grocery store and that is particularly hard on lower income families.”

No matter how you shake it – surviving in the dairy business is a difficult venture. However one Ozarks dairy remains steadfast in an industry where mega dairies continue to edge out smaller, traditional dairy farms.

Challenges come in different shapes and sizes for Jeff Parrish and his 14-year-old son, Cameron.

William Hutson and his 16-year-old son Collin are passionate about Quarter horses. William, Collin and grandfather Wayne own and operate Hutson Quarter Horse at their 40-acre ranch located in rural Carthage, Mo.

Questions about the Veterinary Feed Directive changes, which will go into affect Jan. 1, 2017, continue to loom.

The Siegismund family has a rich agricultural heritage dating back to 1903 when George “Craig” Siegismund’s great-grandfather, Otto Richard Siegismund, moved to the United States from Germany and settled on an 80-acre tract of land near Rockville, Mo.

Each fall for the last 10 years, truckloads of hay drive down Cherokee Street of Seneca, Mo. The scores of hay bales are trucked in from across the region to help feed those less fortunate in the area school district.