Farming now requires more than a strong back
Not so long ago farming was a simple exercise: Plow the seedbed and disc it smooth; plant the seed; cultivate to suppress weeds; harvest the crop; start all over again.
Nowadays it’s more complicated, and requires as much attention to technical aspects as physical labor.
Crops fetch good prices today, and planting is an expensive proposition, from genetically engineered seed and fertilizer to fuel and depreciation of machinery. Farmers also have to consider taxes, insurance and land in terms of cost to own or rent. When all settles into the bottom line, there also are family living costs that have to be met.
DAVID Bedenbender farms about 1,200 acres in a mix of bottom ground and upland north of Neosho Falls. Most years he plants half his acreage to soybeans and a quarter each to corn and wheat, with second crop beans following wheat when weather and harvest timing permits. He also has about 60 head in a cow-calf operation.
He is indicative of many area farmers who stay busy with cattle during the cold-weather months and spend time in fields, on tractor or combine, when cattle can fend for themselves.
Bedenbender enjoyed a bumper soybean crop last fall — his overall average was better than 40 bushels an acre — but with several patches in low-lying fields along the Neosho River and feeder streams, his corn crop lagged behind that of upland harvests where yields ran to 125 bushels an acre and as much as 150. His was about 100.
Corn and soybeans are hardy, but seed scientists have not yet found a way to genetically engineer strains to endure being immersed completely by flooding, which occurred during last growing season on bottom ground.
Scientific advances have improved seed characteristics immensely, though, and the price farmers have to pay tells the story of technology’s influence on farming.
Bedenbender plants conventional corn seed — it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of that at the top of the line — and expects to pay $165 a bag this year. A bag is enough for about 31⁄2 acres, meaning seed alone for each acre will cost nearly $50.
What he plants is resistant to Roundup, a widely used herbicide that otherwise would wilt a corn plant in a matter of hours.
All companies — Bedenbender prefers Pioneer and Northrop King — have several varieties of seed, with maturities ranging from three months to nearly four. All are highly touted and depending on a farmer’s needs and wants can cost up to $235 a bag for varieties that do just about everything but plant themselves.
Typical variations, including the conventional variety, deal with drought stress, stalk and root strength and adaptation to soil types. They have the prerequisite resistance to herbicides and some are engineered to resist attacks by corn borers and other pests.
Once his planter is loaded with budget-stretching seed, Bedenbender has to consider the cost of fertilizer and herbicide — $135 an acre for realistic expectations of 100-bushel corn — and about $35 an acre for fuel and machinery costs. Another $75 is penciled for land cost or rent, either cash or crop-share, Bedenbender said, which puts input and harvest costs at $300 an acre.
“Corn is $3.40 a bushel at Piqua Co-op,” Bedenbender said this week, which would give him $340 an acre for corn making 100 bushels, a target that easily can be missed because of too little rain, too-hot temperatures or ill-timed severe weather.
Cost to plant, raise and harvest soybeans is less than that for corn, but yields also are a fraction.
Seed runs about the same, $50 an acre, and fuel, machinery and land costs are comparable to corn, $110, give or take a few cents, but fertilizer is not as much of a necessity. Herbicide is, and costs $10 to $20 an acre.
“I don’t plan to put down any fertilizer for beans this year,” Bedenbender said, a concession to parsimony he can make for a while. Eventually, as he well knows, the nutrients profile in fields scheduled for soybeans will need rejuvenation. Advantage is it won’t cost as much as for corn.
In a given year Bedenbender expects his beans to make 30 bushels an acre, although the last two years they were better with nearly ideal growing conditions. He figures to sell at about $9 a bushel, meaning the $270 an acre, less costs, will give a little better bottom line return than corn.
But — that contrary conjunction always seems to pop up — beans can be affected more harshly by mid-summer heat and drought than corn.
ADVANCES being made through genetic engineering of seed are a marvel to Bedenbender.
He noted that some corn seed is sold in complimentary portions: One part engineered to be resistant to pests, a small part not. The idea is for the non-engineered corn to attract bugs and keep them from dining so much on hybrid plants that have genes making them resistant to bugs.
“You sometimes can tell a field that has that mix by most of the corn looking good and a strip with the tops eaten out,” Bedenbender said.
His approach is to buy cheaper seed early and get it in the ground so it will pollinate before “the dangerous generation of corn borers shows up.”
Over centuries corn grown in sub-Saharan Africa has evolved to cope with prolonged dry weather, by rolling its leaves to conserve moisture and shield itself from the sun.
That corn is being used as a model to develop highly drought-resistant and high-yielding varieties for the United States and other developed countries, Bedenbender has learned from his ongoing self-education to stay astride of agricultural advances.
“It isn’t perfected yet, the yields aren’t up, but every company is working on drought-resistant seed,” he said.
BEDENBENDER, 56, isn’t a Johnny-come-lately. He’s been involved in agriculture all of his adult life, starting after he graduated from Allen County Community College in 1973.
He developed a strong foundation on the chemical side of agriculture while working several years for an agri-business in Iowa and then managed a hog farm at Beatrice, Neb.
He and wife Diane, raised on a farm south of Kincaid, returned to his boyhood home north of Neosho Falls about 25 years ago, where he has farmed since.
