Industry’s backbone
Soybeans became a popular local crop in the 1960s and ’70s.
Agribusiness remains a major factor in the Floyd County economy, although largely behind the scenes.
Farmers are generally unheard from unless their fields are burned up by drought or drowned by rain. Motorists pass acres and acres of soybeans but know little of what the crop is used for and even less about the families producing them.
Jarrell Cagle came to Rome from Stilesboro in 1968. His family grew cotton on their acreage in the Reynolds Bend community to start with, but they’ve been producing soybeans on much of it since 1975.
His grandfather worked the acreage that is now part of the family farm way back in the 1930s.
“The house he lived in is still here on the farm,” Cagle said. “Mama said he worked this with 16 pairs of mules back in that time.”
Today, Cagle has one large combine and three tractors to work the 1,100 acres.
John Lowrey also is the product of a longtime local farm family. His father started growing soybeans in 1963 and Lowrey took up the business in 1993.
“I grew up in it, really enjoyed it, and decided that I should be doing something I enjoy,” Lowrey said.
He loves the process from start to finish, starting with preparing the field and planting the seeds.
“Then you watch the seed grow to its fullest potential, given the cards you’re dealt with by Mother Nature,” Lowrey said. “You deal with the weeds and other pests that are involved, just do the best you can, and then, in the end, try to harvest a good crop.”
Mark Braden, another family farmer, has about 125 acres in soybeans out U.S. 411 East toward Cartersville. He said soybeans have a wide range of uses; a generally hardy commodity that can stand up to the heat of a Northwest Georgia summer.
“It’s a good crop to farm,” he said.
What constitutes a good crop? The University of Georgia College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences recommends that farmers don’t even plant in fields that aren’t capable of producing a minimum of 35 bushels per acre.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that in 2013 there were 2,400 Floyd County acres planted in soybeans with an average yield of 49.4 bushels per acre.
But, illustrative of the gamble that comes with farming, in 2014 UGA CAES figures show 3,071 acres of soybeans yielded an average harvest of 40.5 bushels per acre.
“The rain was good early on, but it tapered off at the end when soybeans need it the most,” Lowrey said. “We had some beans on dry land (not irrigated) that got over 60 bushels per acre.”
Cagle said that, for the first time in his long farming career, all 1,100 of his acres in soybeans are under irrigation.
“We’re hoping to get 80 bushels an acre,” he said. “Without irrigation, I’ve seen it run from the high teens up to — several years ago, I made up to 60 bushels. It’s just like going to Las Vegas.”
To market, to market
Both Lowrey and Cagle sell their beans to Cargill, which has plants in Guntersville, Alabama, and Gainesville, Georgia. Braden sells his soybeans through A Grow Star in Calhoun. There is virtually no waste in the production process.
“They press them and extract the oil, then the by-product of the extraction process is soybean meal that goes into chicken feed,” Lowrey said.
A typical 60-pound bushel of soybeans will produce 11 pounds of crude soybean oil and 27 pounds of soybean meal, according to the North Carolina Soybean Producers Association. The high protein content makes the meal a major ingredient in livestock feed.
The soybean oil is used in a plethora of products. A
list from Iowa State University includes anti-corrosive agents, anti-static agents, caulking compounds, diesel fuel disinfectants, dust control agents, electrical insulation, epoxies, fungicides, herbicides, pesticides, oiled fabric products and more.
Soybean oil also is used in a wide variety of foodstuffs such as cookies, crackers, snack food, cooking oils, coffee whiteners, soy milk, tofu, margarine, shortening and mayonnaise. Soybean meal products include a number of baby foods, candy, cereals, diet food, beers and ales, hypoallergenic milks, noodles, meat products including sausage casings, and even in grits. Lowrey said the economics of soybeans have changed dramatically over the 22 years he’s been farming.
“The cost of seed and fertilizer has gone pretty much through the roof,” he said. “The first bag of soybean seed that I bought cost me $8. The ones that I bought this past spring were in the neighborhood of $65 to $72 for the 50pound bag.”
Soybean futures were trading at $8.77 a bushel on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Thursday.
As a rough estimate, seed would cost $100 an acre at $68 a bag — so a farmer producing 40.5 bushels an acre would get $355.18 per acre for the beans at market. If a farmer were to produce 60 bushels per acre, that would generate $526 per acre.
However, that doesn’t take into account the cost of equipment, fertilizer or fuel in tending to the crops.
Lowrey said the seed is more technologically advanced today and the yield per acre is better — but not in comparison to the upfront cost.
“The margins are a little tighter than they were when I first started, but we still enjoy it,” he said. “There’s good times and there’s bad times with everything that everybody does.”
‘We’re hoping to get 80 bushels an acre. Without irrigation, I’ve seen it run from the high teens up to — several years ago, I made up to 60 bushels. It’s just like going to Las Vegas.’ Jarrell Cagle Owner of Reynolds Bend Farm
Braden said that sentiment is pretty much true across the farming spectrum.
“With farmers, you are price-takers. You don’t set your price, you take whatever the market is offering,” he said.
The key to selling commodities is knowing, or guessing, when to sell. Braden said he was fortunate enough to have locked in a price for his beans several weeks ago, before the market hit skids and the price for a bushel started to drop.
“You’ve got to try to make an educated guess; it’s just like playing blackjack,” he said.
The verdict is still out on this year’s crop for all three farmers.
“Everything is looking good,” Braden said. “I got them in at the right time.
We’ve had the right rain.”
Braden does not use irrigation on his 125 acres of soybeans.
Cagle cultivates three different varieties.
“We try to spread it out where everything is not ready to (harvest) at the same time,” Cagle said. “We’ve got some that are still blooming and making little pods, and then we’ve got some that have got the pods on them and they’re putting the beans in them now. So we kind of have them at all different stages.”
Keith Mickler, UGA extension coordinator for Floyd County, said he is seeing more local farmers opting to grow soybeans.
At this point, he said, the cost of production and market price have been better than corn, which has traditionally been the No. 1 row crop.
In other words, soybeans are not a bad gamble for local producers.