Neighbors

Through a thick, deep pasture in a valley on the Chevallier farm grazes a gentle, peaceful herd of Katahdin sheep. Dr. Beverly Chevallier, who practices at her veterinary clinic in Western Grove, Ark., is focused on growing quality sheep for the meat market. She implements grazing and managing techniques, and couples a beef herd as well, to meet her production goals.

Jack and Kay Carmody live in a beautiful and privately located area where their ranch spreads out over 100 acres of spring green pastures and wooded areas near Hartman, Ark. Their home is over 140 years old. “It used to be an old nunnery and when our house burnt, I moved this building out here and made it our new house,” said Jack. “It took a lot of work because I also worked a full time job and broke horses too.”

There are as many ways to run a successful cattle operation as there are people. Eddie and Teresa McCoin of Afton, Okla., are among the more unusual because they run an operation based on cattle trading.

"Kids need to learn about farming and animals. They need to touch the dirt. There are so many lessons to be learned and so many kids are missing these lessons,” said Bob Brandon, director of Runnymede School for Boys and Runnymede Farm.

The Salyers family, of Billings, Mo., is like any other family living in the 21st Century, busy. What is the most important trait that a cow/calf operation needs to have to be profitable and productive when management must be time-efficient? Easy calving provided from stable structured mommas and low birth weight sires. “The female Salers have the largest pelvic area of any cow breed, this quality along with choosing calving ease sires makes the possibility of calving problems very low,” said Gary Salyers.

Father and son, Mac and Wade Hampton, of Westville, Okla., have been working together since Wade's early childhood. Wade remembers driving a '47 blue Chevy truck when he was 4 years old and barely able to see through the steering wheel while his dad was cutting and unloading square bales for cattle. Wade said, "My dad always told me that if it looked like I was going to hit a tree or something, just turn off the key. The problem was one day I was distracted by some nuts and bolts in the glove box and my dad had to hit on the cab of the truck to get my attention. I turned off the key and luckily stopped just in time."

Zack Brown, of Lowell, Ark., decided to bring back the convenience of the milkman when thinking about how to serve the global food movement of people wanting traceable food. He decided he needed to look for an unadulterated product that wasn’t warehoused or transported to reduce cost and get a better product to the customer. He had to go to the farmer. “Farm Box Delivers is trying to get back to our roots and the way we used to buy food,” Zack said. “Consumers need to start taking responsibility for how they buy food and farmers need to take responsibility for how they sell food. There has to be a communal responsibility about how we source food, buy food and sell food.”

As every producer in agriculture knows, starting a new farm is an expensive and complex process. Pauline Thiessen seems up to the challenge. She has worked at Ozark Natural Foods in Fayetteville, Ark., for 16 years, the last four as produce manager. During that time she put herself through college. Being in charge of $2 million worth of produce annually has taught her the value of careful and meticulous planning as well as general management skills.

In 2000 the potential of Ron Locke’s farm, in Long Lane, Mo., grew exponentially after he attended the Annual Southwest Missouri Spring Forage conference in Springfield, Mo., where Ron first learned about intensive grazing.

Brenda Snider isn’t what a person might typically think of when they think of a dairy producer. With a master’s in computer information systems, Brenda has taught at the college level. Brenda owns her own company, Equitech Information Systems, LLC, and works with various state, county and other government agencies aiding them by developing and implementing various computer software programs.