MOULTRIE, Ga. — Steve Cobb, of Lake Metropolis, Ark., has been chosen as the general winner of the Sunbelt Ag Expo Southeastern Farmer of the Yr award for 2023.
Cobb Farms is a partnership enterprise that started greater than 50 years in the past in Craighead County. As we speak, on a complete of 4,500 acres (2,500 rented and a pair of,000 owned), it grows row crops, produce, and present pigs. Three entities make up the partnership: 1) Steve Cobb and Household Farm is a number one show-pig operation that produces 1,000-plus present pigs a 12 months in addition to breeding inventory for membership pig manufacturing. 2) Cane Island Farms oversees the row crops of corn, cotton, and peanuts. 3) The Cane Island Produce department grows greens, specializing in year-round greenhouse tomatoes.
As well as, Circle L Farms handles all of Cane Island Farm’s trucking wants in addition to Steve Cobb and Household’s grain hauling. The corporate runs eight vans day by day and helps out native brokers as properly.
“I used to be born on a subsistence farm the place my mother and father owned 40 acres given to my mom by her father,” Cobb stated. “Over time they rented one other 200 acres. Our household farm appeared like ‘Outdated McDonald’s Farm’ that you just see in youngsters’s books. We raised cotton, wheat, soybeans, and sufficient corn to feed the livestock, which consisted of two dairy cows that we milked day by day and three brood sows. The barn yard and home yard had been stuffed with chickens that produced eggs, and we planted an enormous backyard yearly.”
Cobb grew up and went to high school together with his future spouse, Terri. They married in 1977, and she or he had a 32-year profession as a second-grade trainer, retiring a few decade in the past. All these years later he’s recognized on the farm as “Papa,” and she or he is understood on the farm as “Gran” and locally as “Miss Terri.”
“One of many largest joys of my life is that she and I dwell on that very same farm the place we raised our three youngsters, Jarrett, Aaron, and Leslie,” Cobb added. “Our eight grandchildren are round each week, working and enjoying on the identical land.”
The Cobb partnership operation is managed by Steve and Terri’s son, Aaron and his spouse Cassandra, daughter, Leslie Lyerly and her husband Erick, and long-time worker, buddy, and now companion, Darin Owens, and his spouse Leigh Ann Owens and their daughter Taylor and her husband, Kyle Outlaw. Their daughters, Emily and Bailey and Bailey’s husband, Caleb Dunbar, additionally pitch in. Steve and Terri Cobb’s oldest son, Jarrett, practices legal, private damage, probate and agricultural legislation. His spouse, Ashley, is a licensed medical social employee and psychological well being therapist at True Hope Counseling in Jonesboro.
The partnership’s crop yields embody: 1,800 acres of irrigated corn yielding 210 bushes/acre; 2,599 acres of irrigated cotton yielding 1,300 lbs/acre; 101 acres of irrigated peanuts yielding 2.5 tons/acre; and greenhouse tomatoes yielding 70 lbs/plant x 200 crops. As well as, the present pig enterprise produces 1,000-plus present pigs a 12 months.
Steve Cobb and Household Farm has set quite a few data in its present pig and boar gross sales and has efficiently marketed successful present pigs throughout greater than forty states by means of eight annual on-line auctions at showpig.com.
“We host a number of ‘preview’ days on our farm earlier than every sale, the place dozens of present pig prospects view our present pig prospects,” Cobb stated. “The pigs are additionally listed on Stevecobbfamily.com. We often supply elite breeding boar prospects on the market on to boar stud companies.”
Cane Island Farms’ cotton is ginned at Southland Gin in Lake Metropolis and is marketed by means of Olam Agri. Additionally they develop non-GMO corn for Ozark Mountain Poultry of George’s Rooster. Peanuts are marketed by means of Birdsong Peanuts for cleansing, shelling, and sizing earlier than they’re shipped to meals producers. The farm has plans to construct
a feed warehouse to enhance effectivity and high quality of feed making. Designs are within the works for an off-site present pig becoming facility as properly.
Cane Island Produce, the most recent endeavor within the partnership, sells by means of a local people community and on its Fb web page. The latter options footage of a wide range of mouth-watering sausage balls, baked beans with sausage, vegetable soup with sausage, half and complete hog packages, do-it-yourself jam, and inexperienced tomato chow-chow. Cane Island Produce has not too long ago branched out from the preliminary greenhouse tomato operation into different greens equivalent to purple hull peas, okra, inexperienced beans, cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, and jalapeno peppers. The corporate has plans so as to add extra greenhouses and develop into flower manufacturing.
On Cane Island Farms, Lyerly stated they’re consistently exploring new concepts and know-how.
“We’re working with Valley Irrigation on automated irrigation risers and wells managed by smartphone,” Lyerly famous. “We’re additionally contemplating the thought of constructing photo voltaic arrays on our farm and leveraging know-how, equivalent to focused therapy with drones.” He added, “Every of our entities holds environmental conservation to the very best requirements. We’re at present targeted on irrigation practices and seed choice in addition to timing and price of enter functions. Via our partnership with NRCS, we’re trying into implementation of regenerative agriculture manufacturing practices.”
“The late Nineteen Nineties principally modified the complete swine business,” Cobb stated. “Earlier than that point, it was principally family-owned operations, however that’s not the case. There was a market crash in 1998 that compelled us to alter our complete mannequin from breeding inventory manufacturing to specializing in present pig manufacturing. We additionally needed to be versatile in advertising and marketing our product and discovering a sustainable buyer base. My son Aaron additionally stepped-up huge time to assist this vital and much-loved a part of our farm enterprise.”
As for Cane Island Farms Partnership, an enormous catastrophe struck in October 2014, when a horrible hailstorm hit simply days earlier than harvest.
“That storm took out 75 p.c of our cotton crop,” Owens stated. “The identical 12 months our grain brokerage filed for chapter, leading to a complete lack of our corn crop. It was a 12 months stuffed with ache as we misplaced one in all our most beloved staff, Glen Eaton, in a tragic accident. We merely got here to a full cease and began reevaluating methods to go ahead.”
That’s when the farms added peanuts to their rotation, a dangerous transfer that paid dividends and enabled the partnership to stay aggressive.
“The peanuts additionally helped us improve yields on our cotton on the years following the peanut crop,” Owens added.
On a extra private observe, in 2010, one in all Cobb’s granddaughters, Scout Lyerly, was simply two years outdated when she was recognized with stage 4 Neuroblastoma, a most cancers of the nervous system.
“This sickness taught every of us extra invaluable life classes than we are able to ever checklist,” Cobb stated. “We grew to cherish one another extra each single day and thank the Lord for his goodness in bringing Scout by means of that ordeal. She’s now a really full of life 14-year-old teenager. We proceed to assist St. Jude Youngsters’s Analysis Hospital in Memphis for his or her fantastic care.”
Cobb is a long-time member of Farm Bureau and a supporter of the native Buffalo Island Central FFA Chapter. He has simply accomplished his second and remaining time period on the Nationwide Swine Registry Board of Administrators and Government Committee. He serves on the board of the American Yorkshire Membership, and likewise judges native, state, and nationwide championship present hog occasions. He’s a member of each the native and state FFA Alumni Affiliation.
When schedules enable, Steve and Terri Cobb love going to the athletic occasions their eight grandchildren are concerned in: baseball, basketball, barrel racing, and different rodeo actions. Their primary getaway spot is a lake home they personal 90 miles away within the Ozark Mountains at Lake Thunderbird.
“It’s simply an hour and a half away, so it’s straightforward to benefit from the space year-round,” Cobb stated. “We fish, swim, water-ski and go tubing and simply have plain outdated enjoyable collectively.”
As for classes discovered from farming, Cobb stated, “In a sensible sense, it’s important to be intense in your work ethic and progressive. Change has been so phenomenal and quick throughout my lifetime that it’s virtually overwhelming. We’ve gone in a number of quick generations from small subsistence farms to massive industrial enterprises. So, it’s vital to maintain up the tempo and keep open to progressive methods, gear, and concepts.”
“On a extra philosophical observe, what I’ve discovered from farming is how vital it’s to understand the cycle of development, whether or not it’s crops, child animals, youngsters, or grandchildren,” Cobb added. “Every part is continually renewing. Agriculture mimics life in that means, being a continuing show of improvement to fruition. And lastly, I’ve discovered how vital the ag business, with its manufacturing and supply system, is to our survival as a species. The size of farm operations has undoubtedly modified however the roots are the identical; they’re everlasting. What we do is important for all life as we all know it. I’m grateful and blessed to be a part of that.”
Justin R. Ladd, senior monetary officer of Farm Credit score Mid-America, nominated Steve Cobb to be the Arkansas Farmer of the Yr.
“At any nationwide livestock present or state honest livestock present in the US, Steve Cobb and his household are acknowledged as business leaders,” Ladd stated. “His hogs are a number of the most prize-winning hogs within the nation. He’s additionally properly revered regionally as a result of he’s carried out a lot for the encircling group. They’ve spent numerous hours giving again to the native FFAs and 4-H Golf equipment and have raised cash for St. Jude’s Youngsters’s Analysis Hospital in Memphis. It’s actually a powerful prolonged household partnership with a monitor document of fantastic farming, integrity, and generosity.”
The brand new Farmer of the Yr was chosen for the dignity by three judges. This 12 months’s judging tour of all 10 state farmer winners passed off through the week of Aug. 14–18. The judges included David Wildy, Manila, Ark., the general winner of the award in 2016; Joe West, retired assistant dean UGA Tifton Campus; and Darren Parker, vice chairman, Massey Ferguson North America. Judges sometimes serve for 3 years earlier than rotating off the crew.
“Excellence in Agriculture is how I’d describe this 12 months’s State Farmers of the Yr. They’re a number one group of farmers and businessmen who signify their states with excellence,” Wildy stated. “Simply as I anticipated, this 12 months’s winner was a particularly tough choice for the judging crew. However, with out query, this 12 months’s winner represents exactly what the Southeastern Farmer of the Yr program is all about. He’s a really humble particular person who goes above and past to assist others and his group. He and his household’s operation checked all of the bins. Indisputably, this farmer has what it takes to make sure that this household operation might be profitable and sustainable. He’ll signify the SE FOY program with a lot distinction, as will all 10 state winners.”
That is the thirty third 12 months for the Southeastern Farmer of the Yr award. It acknowledges excellence in agricultural manufacturing and farm administration together with management in farm and group organizations. The award additionally honors household contributions in producing protected and considerable provides of meals, fiber, and shelter merchandise.
The Farmer of the Yr program has new sponsors in 2023 as Massey Ferguson, Harper Household Holdings, the Alabama Farmers Federation, Arkansas Farm Bureau, Florida Farm Bureau, Georgia Farm Bureau, Kentucky Farm Bureau, Mississippi Farm Bureau, North Carolina Farm Bureau, South Carolina Farm Bureau, Tennessee Farm Bureau, and Virginia Farm Bureau have joined collectively to generously sponsor this system.
Because the state winners of the Sunbelt Expo award, they obtained a $2,500 money award and an expense-paid journey to the Sunbelt Expo from the sponsors. A vest from the Sunbelt Ag Expo was given to every state winner and nominator.
The Moultrie Colquitt Co. Chamber of Commerce gave every state winner an area memento. Moreover, Massey Ferguson North America offered every state winner with a present bundle.
Cobb will obtain a $15,000 money prize from the sponsors. Massey Ferguson North America will present Cobb Farms with using a Massey Ferguson tractor for a 12 months or 250 hours (whichever comes first). He was additionally awarded a jacket from the Sunbelt Ag Expo, a Hays Smoker/Grill from Hays LTI, and a Henry Repeating Arms American Farmer Tribute Version rifle from Reinke Irrigation. A complete of $1,284,000 in money awards and different honors have been awarded to 286 southeastern farmers for the reason that award was initiated in 1990.
