MOULTRIE, Ga. — Steve Cobb, of Lake Town, Ark., has been decided on as the whole winner of the Sunbelt Ag Expo Southeastern Farmer of the Yr award for 2023.
Cobb Farms is a partnership undertaking that started greater than 50 years in the past in Craighead County. These days, on a complete of four,500 acres (2,500 rented and a couple of,000 owned), it grows row plants, produce, and exhibit pigs. 3 entities make up the partnership: 1) Steve Cobb and Circle of relatives Farm is a number one show-pig operation that produces 1,000-plus exhibit pigs a yr in addition to breeding inventory for membership pig manufacturing. 2) Cane Island Farms oversees the row plants of corn, cotton, and peanuts. 3) The Cane Island Produce department grows greens, that specialize in year-round greenhouse tomatoes.
As well as, Circle L Farms handles all of Cane Island Farm’s trucking wishes in addition to Steve Cobb and Circle of relatives’s grain hauling. The corporate runs 8 vehicles day by day and is helping out native agents as neatly.
“I used to be born on a subsistence farm the place my oldsters owned 40 acres given to my mom by means of her father,” Cobb stated. “Through the years they rented every other 200 acres. Our relatives farm gave the look of ‘Outdated McDonald’s Farm’ that you just see in youngsters’s books. We raised cotton, wheat, soybeans, and sufficient corn to feed the farm animals, which consisted of 2 dairy cows that we milked day by day and 3 brood sows. The barn backyard and space backyard have been filled with chickens that produced eggs, and we planted a large lawn once a year.”
Cobb grew up and went to college along with his long term spouse, Terri. They married in 1977, and she or he had a 32-year occupation as a second-grade instructor, retiring a couple of decade in the past. These kinds of years later he’s identified at the farm as “Papa,” and she or he is understood at the farm as “Gran” and in the neighborhood as “Pass over Terri.”
“One of the most greatest joys of my lifestyles is that she and I survive that very same farm the place we raised our 3 youngsters, Jarrett, Aaron, and Leslie,” Cobb added. “Our 8 grandchildren are round each week, working and enjoying at the similar land.”
The Cobb partnership operation is controlled by means of Steve and Terri’s son, Aaron and his spouse Cassandra, daughter, Leslie Lyerly and her husband Erick, and long-time worker, good friend, and now spouse, 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, non-public damage, probate and agricultural regulation. His spouse, Ashley, is an authorized scientific social employee and psychological well being therapist at True Hope Counseling in Jonesboro.
The partnership’s crop yields come with: 1,800 acres of irrigated corn yielding 210 timber/acre; 2,599 acres of irrigated cotton yielding 1,300 lbs/acre; 101 acres of irrigated peanuts yielding 2.5 lots/acre; and greenhouse tomatoes yielding 70 lbs/plant x 200 vegetation. As well as, the exhibit pig trade produces 1,000-plus exhibit pigs a yr.
Steve Cobb and Circle of relatives Farm has set quite a few data in its exhibit pig and boar gross sales and has effectively advertised profitable exhibit pigs throughout greater than 40 states thru 8 annual on-line auctions at showpig.com.
“We host a number of ‘preview’ days on our farm prior to every sale, the place dozens of exhibit pig shoppers view our exhibit pig possibilities,” Cobb stated. “The pigs also are indexed on Stevecobbfamily.com. We once in a while be offering elite breeding boar possibilities on the market at once to boar stud companies.”
Cane Island Farms’ cotton is ginned at Southland Gin in Lake Town and is advertised thru Olam Agri. In addition they develop non-GMO corn for Ozark Mountain Poultry of George’s Rooster. Peanuts are advertised thru Birdsong Peanuts for cleansing, shelling, and sizing prior to they’re shipped to meals producers. The farm has plans to construct
a feed warehouse to enhance potency and high quality of feed making. Designs are within the works for an off-site exhibit pig becoming facility as neatly.
Cane Island Produce, the most recent undertaking within the partnership, sells thru a local people community and on its Fb web page. The latter options photos of a number of mouth-watering sausage balls, baked beans with sausage, vegetable soup with sausage, part and full hog applications, selfmade jam, and inexperienced tomato chow-chow. Cane Island Produce has lately branched out from the preliminary greenhouse tomato operation into different greens reminiscent of crimson hull peas, okra, inexperienced beans, cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, and jalapeno peppers. The corporate has plans so as to add extra greenhouses and make bigger into flower manufacturing.
On Cane Island Farms, Lyerly stated they’re repeatedly exploring new concepts and era.
“We’re running with Valley Irrigation on computerized irrigation risers and wells managed by means of smartphone,” Lyerly famous. “We’re additionally bearing in mind the speculation of creating sun arrays on our farm and leveraging era, reminiscent of centered remedy with drones.” He added, “Every of our entities holds environmental conservation to the easiest requirements. We’re lately concerned with irrigation practices and seed variety in addition to timing and fee of enter programs. Thru our partnership with NRCS, we’re taking a look into implementation of regenerative agriculture manufacturing practices.”
“The past due Nineties principally modified all the swine trade,” Cobb stated. “Prior to that point, it was once most commonly family-owned operations, however that’s not the case. There was once a marketplace crash in 1998 that compelled us to modify our whole type from breeding inventory manufacturing to that specialize in exhibit 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 large time to give a boost to this essential and much-loved a part of our farm trade.”
As for Cane Island Farms Partnership, an enormous crisis struck in October 2014, when a horrible hailstorm hit simply days prior to harvest.
“That hurricane took out 75 p.c of our cotton crop,” Owens stated. “The similar yr our grain brokerage filed for chapter, leading to a complete lack of our corn crop. It was once a yr filled with ache as we misplaced one in all our maximum cherished staff, Glen Eaton, in a sad twist of fate. We merely got here to a complete prevent and began reevaluating methods to pass 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 build up yields on our cotton at the years following the peanut crop,” Owens added.
On a extra non-public word, in 2010, one in all Cobb’s granddaughters, Scout Lyerly, was once simply two years previous when she was once identified with level 4 Neuroblastoma, a most cancers of the worried machine.
“This sickness taught every folks extra precious lifestyles courses than we will ever listing,” Cobb stated. “We grew to cherish every different extra each unmarried day and thank the Lord for his goodness in bringing Scout thru that ordeal. She’s now an excessively energetic 14-year-old youngster. We proceed to give a boost to St. Jude Youngsters’s Analysis Medical institution in Memphis for his or her glorious care.”
Cobb is a long-time member of Farm Bureau and a supporter of the native Buffalo Island Central FFA Bankruptcy. He has simply finished his moment and ultimate time period at the Nationwide Swine Registry Board of Administrators and Government Committee. He serves at the board of the American Yorkshire Membership, and likewise judges native, state, and nationwide championship exhibit hog occasions. He’s a member of each the native and state FFA Alumni Affiliation.
When schedules permit, Steve and Terri Cobb love going to the athletic occasions their 8 grandchildren are focused on: baseball, basketball, barrel racing, and different rodeo actions. Their primary getaway spot is a lake space they personal 90 miles away within the Ozark Mountains at Lake Thunderbird.
“It’s simply an hour and a part away, so it’s simple to benefit from the space year-round,” Cobb stated. “We fish, swim, water-ski and pass tubing and simply have undeniable previous amusing in combination.”
As for courses realized from farming, Cobb stated, “In a sensible sense, you must be intense for your paintings ethic and innovative. Trade has been so exceptional and rapid right through my lifetime that it’s nearly overwhelming. We’ve long past in a couple of quick generations from small subsistence farms to very large business enterprises. So, it’s essential to maintain the tempo and keep open to leading edge ways, apparatus, and concepts.”
“On a extra philosophical word, what I’ve realized from farming is how essential it’s to understand the cycle of enlargement, whether or not it’s plants, child animals, youngsters, or grandchildren,” Cobb added. “The whole thing is repeatedly renewing. Agriculture mimics lifestyles in that approach, being a relentless show of construction to fruition. And finally, I’ve realized how essential the ag trade, with its manufacturing and supply machine, is to our survival as a species. The size of farm operations has indisputably modified however the roots are the similar; they’re everlasting. What we do is very important for all lifestyles as we realize it. I’m thankful and blessed to be a part of that.”
Justin R. Ladd, senior monetary officer of Farm Credit score Mid-The united states, nominated Steve Cobb to be the Arkansas Farmer of the Yr.
“At any nationwide farm animals exhibit or state honest farm animals exhibit in the USA, Steve Cobb and his relatives are known as trade leaders,” Ladd stated. “His hogs are one of the maximum prize-winning hogs within the nation. He’s additionally neatly revered in the neighborhood as a result of he’s completed such a lot for the encircling group. They’ve spent numerous hours giving again to the native FFAs and 4-H Golf equipment and feature raised cash for St. Jude’s Youngsters’s Analysis Medical institution in Memphis. It’s actually an excellent prolonged relatives partnership with a observe report of very good farming, integrity, and generosity.”
The brand new Farmer of the Yr was once decided on for the distinction by means of 3 judges. This yr’s judging excursion of all 10 state farmer winners happened right through the week of Aug. 14–18. The judges integrated David Wildy, Manila, Ark., the whole winner of the award in 2016; Joe West, retired assistant dean UGA Tifton Campus; and Darren Parker, vice chairman, Massey Ferguson North The united states. Judges generally serve for 3 years prior to rotating off the group.
“Excellence in Agriculture is how I’d describe this yr’s State Farmers of the Yr. They’re a number one workforce of farmers and businessmen who constitute their states with excellence,” Wildy stated. “Simply as I anticipated, this yr’s winner was once a particularly tricky determination for the judging group. However, with out query, this yr’s winner represents exactly what the Southeastern Farmer of the Yr program is all about. He’s an excessively humble person who is going above and past to assist others and his group. He and his relatives’s operation checked all of the containers. Certainly, this farmer has what it takes to make sure that this relatives operation can be a success and sustainable. He’s going to constitute the SE FOY program with a lot difference, as will all 10 state winners.”
That is the thirty third yr for the Southeastern Farmer of the Yr award. It acknowledges excellence in agricultural manufacturing and farm control in conjunction with management in farm and group organizations. The award additionally honors relatives contributions in generating protected and considerable provides of meals, fiber, and safe haven merchandise.
The Farmer of the Yr program has new sponsors in 2023 as Massey Ferguson, Harper Circle of relatives 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 in combination to generously sponsor this system.
Because the state winners of the Sunbelt Expo award, they won a $2,500 money award and an expense-paid go back and forth to the Sunbelt Expo from the sponsors. A vest from the Sunbelt Ag Expo was once given to every state winner and nominator.
The Moultrie Colquitt Co. Chamber of Trade gave every state winner an area memento. Moreover, Massey Ferguson North The united states supplied every state winner with a present package deal.
Cobb will obtain a $15,000 money prize from the sponsors. Massey Ferguson North The united states will supply Cobb Farms with the usage of a Massey Ferguson tractor for a yr or 250 hours (whichever comes first). He was once additionally awarded a jacket from the Sunbelt Ag Expo, a Hays Smoker/Grill from Hays LTI, and a Henry Repeating Hands American Farmer Tribute Version rifle from Reinke Irrigation. A complete of $1,284,000 in money awards and different honors were awarded to 286 southeastern farmers because the award was once initiated in 1990.