An Update On Hancock County Agriculture

About the Guest:

Gary Wilson is a member of the Findlay-Hancock County Chamber of Commerce's Agribusiness Committee. With a history of involvement in agriculture, Gary helped start the Agribusiness Committee in 1989. He has a long connection to Hancock County, being part of a family farm that dates back to 1834. 

Episode Summary:

With spring on the horizon, the focal point of this edition of Chamber Amplified is the agricultural sector’s readiness for the upcoming planting season. The discussion sheds light on how Hancock County's agricultural community, the largest economic contributor in the area, is adapting to contemporary challenges, such as fluctuating commodity prices and the implications of tariffs.

Gary dives into the current state of the agricultural domain, sharing insights about the impacts of tariffs and regulations on local agriculture. He elaborates on the significance of exports in sustaining the farming economy, noting how about 40-50% of produce is exported, making tariffs a pressing concern. Drought management and the usage of advanced technologies in mitigating agricultural risks were also examined.

Key Takeaways:

• Agriculture remains the biggest industry in Hancock County, with an estimated total receipt of around $250 million.
• Tariffs and commodity price fluctuations heavily impact the agricultural sector, necessitating strategic adaptations.
• Advanced technologies and practices, such as soil testing and tiling, are essential in managing the inherent risks of farming.
• The Agribusiness Committee plays a crucial role in supporting the local agriculture economy through scholarships and fundraisers like the annual sausage sale.

Take part in the annual sausage sale by clicking here.

Music and sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

Transcript

0:00:02 - (Doug Jenkins): Hello and welcome to the show. I'm Doug Jenkins from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. On each episode of Chamber Amplified, we're examining issues impacting the local business community. Whether it's employee recruitment and retention, marketing could be it issues, really anything that impacts your business, or we want to make sure you know what's going on in the business community itself in different industries. That's kind of what we're doing today.
0:00:23 - (Doug Jenkins): Our goal is to give our members tips each week on at least one way they can improve operations and thrive in the current business environment, or again, know what's happening. So weather has occasionally been a little bit warmer recently, which does mean that planting season is right around the corner for area farmers. So we thought, why not check in on the Hancock County's largest industry, agriculture, today?
0:00:44 - (Doug Jenkins): With that in mind, Gary Wilson, a part of our agribusiness committee, is going to join me. We're going to be talking about tariffs, regulations, the history of the agribusiness committee itself, why it was formed, why it was so important to do that back in 1989, and, and of course, we're talking about our annual sausage sale as well. It's a podcast. If you can't sell your own product on it, that's like what this whole industry's built off of.
0:01:05 - (Doug Jenkins): Anyway, we'll have more details on that coming up in just a little bit. Thanks for tuning in. And remember, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, be sure to rate and review the show. It really does help spread the word. Now, let's get into it. Joining us on the podcast to talk about all things agriculture, Gary Wilson of our Chamber Agribusiness Committee, and. Well, really all things agriculture in the community as well. Gary, thanks for joining us.
0:01:30 - (Gary Wilson): You're welcome, Doug. Glad to participate and help you out with this.
0:01:34 - (Doug Jenkins): Well, there's never a shortage of things happening in the ag community and. And that's no different any year, really. It doesn't matter. Administration, it doesn't matter. The weather's always different. Something's always different.
0:01:46 - (Gary Wilson): Yeah.
0:01:47 - (Doug Jenkins): That we're adjusting.
0:01:47 - (Gary Wilson): That's a guarantee.
0:01:49 - (Doug Jenkins): We haven't. We haven't really done a check in on agriculture here on the podcast in a long time and thought it would be a good time to do that as we get ready to go into planning season. And the biggest reason to do this is, Gary. We talk about this all the time when we do events is that agriculture remains the biggest industry in Hancock County.
0:02:07 - (Gary Wilson): Absolutely. Yep. Probably, my goodness, 250 million thereabouts total receipts. It's huge. We call it Hancock County's largest industry using Hancock County's resources that we are doing.
0:02:25 - (Doug Jenkins): So let's, let's get our finger on the pulse of what the ag community is looking at as you get ready to get out into the fields here in the next several weeks. What, when you talk to people out on farms and when you're at the cooperative and everything else, what are the things that you're hearing that people are concerned about?
0:02:43 - (Gary Wilson): Well, these are tougher times right now. Commodity prices are down and that's never good. Everything else is up. So it really squeezes things and it's also squeezing the retailers as well. They depend on a good year for farmers. And so everybody kind of suffers together from that standpoint. And now we've got this deal with tariffs and yes, agriculture is going to be affected by that. United States is a very unique position. I've always felt.
0:03:20 - (Gary Wilson): We have 5% of the population of the world, but we are the world's largest importer and we're the second largest country in exports, only behind China. Right, okay. So even though we don't have the population, we're very, very important. And there's no doubt that countries have taken advantage of us. I mean, look at all the businesses that have moved to other places because they can do it cheaper. So, you know, that's kind of a pinch.
0:03:52 - (Gary Wilson): And when farmers, they need exports, you know, probably, my goodness, 40 to 50% of what we sell is exported. And so it makes us be in a pinch. And one of the big things, I just think, for example, potash, probably 80% of our potash comes from Canada. I mean, everybody's heard about the news with Canada and so that could make that more expensive. And I happen to be in Washington D.C. i'm active with Ohio corn and wheat.
0:04:26 - (Gary Wilson): And one of the things we learned there is that they're trying to make potash be a critical element because if they can get that status, we can get out from underneath that tariff deal. So if they can pull that off, that would be very helpful.
0:04:42 - (Doug Jenkins): Well, that, that's good news and certainly we hope that that's something that comes about. Have. And there are numerous farm entities and lobbying organizations and, and trade groups and things like that. Does it feel like they're having any inroads in talking with their elected officials, in talking about these issues and relaying?
0:05:00 - (Gary Wilson): Oh, yes, okay. They really are. We've got a brand new Secretary of Agriculture. I happen to be out at Commodity Classic out in Denver. That's been a couple weeks ago, 11,500 farmers and agricultural personnel. She was there and the room filled up so quickly. I was in a side room watching her on a monitor. But she's. She said all the right things. She comes with a good background. She's been involved in ffa. She's from Texas, a big strong agricultural state.
0:05:37 - (Gary Wilson): So we're looking forward to see what she can do for us. And I think there's good promise.
0:05:42 - (Doug Jenkins): Certainly a lot of things to monitor on the national front. Let's bring it a little bit closer to home. And when you look at Hancock county and maybe even extended out into Ohio, what are the issues that farmers are looking for, looking at going into planting season, even outside of inputs, outputs, that type of thing?
0:06:00 - (Gary Wilson): Well, the inputs outputs is always critical. And then there's this little deal called weather. Yes. I mean, it's just unbelievable. I mean, if we can dry up here in the next month or so, the planters are going to be rolling. But sometimes we'll look at the calendar and all at once the end of May pops up. That's not good. I mean, so that's a big risk that we have to deal with every year. And there's a lot of things that farmers are doing, putting in tile and so forth to.
0:06:30 - (Gary Wilson): To make it more feasible. But there's just a tremendous risk. Everybody that farms knows that risk. There's all kinds of things you can do to try to lower that risk, but it doesn't eliminate it. There's still risk.
0:06:43 - (Doug Jenkins): How good has the agriculture industry been at mitigating risk? Certainly you can't eliminate risks, like you said. But just very anecdotally, I think every time we talk at agribusiness committee and things like that, you know, it's. We're either getting too much rain or not enough rain. And then. But come harvest time. Well, how are bushels looking? Well, bushels are looking pretty good this year. It seems that over the years that risk mitigation has become a big part of it or. And maybe it's the technology, maybe it's just the know how, maybe it's a combination of things. But it feels like.
0:07:18 - (Doug Jenkins): I don't want to say there's no risk, but people are. They figure out how to make it work in the end.
0:07:22 - (Gary Wilson): They have to. They would never survive without figuring out there's just tremendous amount of risk. I mean, if the average person knew what was at stake for the average farmer, they wouldn't be able to sleep. The farmers are used to it every year they have no idea. The only thing they know about this coming year is going to be different. That's all they know. And they. And they try to manage the risks that do the best that they can.
0:07:48 - (Gary Wilson): It really helps for us to tile our ground. We've always said that tiling pays for it in 10 years if you have it or not, because you're going to be making that much. So that's critical. But it's expensive. I mean, you can invest up to $1,000 an acre just in tiling and shield. And so the costs are tremendous. The equipment is really, really high. But they've got to have that equipment to get her done.
0:08:13 - (Doug Jenkins): One issue I don't feel like we've talked about a lot lately maybe, obviously it's probably being discussed somewhere. Just hasn't really been on the front burner is runoff into the Blanchard, which then makes its way into Lake Erie. And obviously that was a huge hot topic several years ago. I haven't heard a ton about it lately. What's going on on that front?
0:08:34 - (Gary Wilson): Well, drainage is critical, and we're in an unfortunate situation here in Hancock county is that the city of Findlay was built in the lowest place of the county. So guess where all the water goes. And so some of the things that they're trying to do to reduce that threat on Findlay, not all the farmers agree with, but somehow they've got to attain those benefits. And it's very, very difficult when it floods, and who knows when that's going to happen again. But farmers have also big problems with flooding. And Findlay's not the only one in that boat.
0:09:18 - (Doug Jenkins): Oh, most definitely. And you see it anytime we get a hard rain during the year. Although last summer a hard rain or two would have been appreciated, given the drought. Yes, and we'll touch back on that in a second because we did have a decent amount of precipitation over the winter. But not just terms of flooding, but also the algae blooms always got into the ag industry. I think felt this harder than most industries.
0:09:41 - (Doug Jenkins): And that's one where I haven't heard a lot of discussion. I know we've talked that. Look, it's not like you're not trying to put as much product as you possibly can on your field because it's not cost effective.
0:09:55 - (Gary Wilson): No, it's expensive. And if people think that farmers just freely neely just pour whatever they have and more onto the fields, they can't do that. They can't afford it. So they've got to be very efficient. They've got to have soil test data and all the tools, tools that's available for them to manage that most efficiently. And the whole nutrient problem, we get Toledo news here in Hancock county and they blame everything on the farmers.
0:10:27 - (Gary Wilson): And I don't, I don't think it's all the farmers fault. Humans are also animals. And I, I know all the statistics. 100 years ago we've had, we got, had a lot more animals. Every single farm had a barn full of hogs and cattle. And every house out in the rural area was a farmhouse. That's not the case today. My goodness, only 5% of the farmers even have livestock. And if you look in the rural areas, the housing only probably 5% of the houses are farmers. A lot of non farm population has moved out.
0:11:03 - (Gary Wilson): And I know 100 years ago we had three head of livestock for every one person that's flipped. Today we have three people for every one head of livestock. So there's a lot of factors that go into this. And the western Lake Erie basin is very, very unique in that. You know, before the glaciers, everything, all our watershed went south. Now it goes north and it's very shallow.
0:11:29 - (Doug Jenkins): That's extremely shallow in Lake Erie. Speaking of just where water goes and everything I mentioned, I alluded to the drought from last year. What are the drought concerns as we go into another planning season here?
0:11:43 - (Gary Wilson): There's always drought concerns. We weren't near hurt as bad as down in southern and southeastern Ohio. They just got scorched. We were very dry, but it didn't hurt us near as bad as what it has down there. You know, you always like to get three or four cuttings of hay down there. They only got one and there's a lot of livestock down there. So they're having to purchase a lot of hay to feed those cattle and so forth.
0:12:13 - (Gary Wilson): And when we look at our situation, we had enough water to get us through a pretty decent harvest and it was dry. My goodness. Farmers were pulling their trucks out in the fields. We hardly ever can do that, but it was dry enough that that was able to be done last year.
0:12:29 - (Doug Jenkins): So sometimes there's a little bit of a, there's a flip side of the coin. We get the trucks out there. So that's all right. Let's, let's talk about the future of agriculture. Actually more specific to how the agribusiness committee here at the chamber tries to aid in that and that's through scholarships to area kids going into a post secondary program that deals with agriculture in one way, shape or form.
0:12:53 - (Doug Jenkins): Gary, you kind of the tip of the Spear, when this committee came together and when the, the.
0:12:58 - (Gary Wilson): Yep.
0:12:59 - (Doug Jenkins): Oh, all the tables came together, what was, what was the discussion around the room when, when everything got put together with the committee and the scholarship, what was the need for it?
0:13:08 - (Gary Wilson): Well, it was 1989. I was at the table at a group of us from the agricultural yen. We had farmers and we had egg lenders and we had other elevator managers and so forth. Sat down around the table along with Findlay, Hancock County Chamber, and started the Agribusiness Committee. And it's still going strong and it needs to. We're a big industry. Many times, as people in town, they may not realize it, they certainly can see it.
0:13:38 - (Gary Wilson): There's not as many as involved with ag as there used to be. My goodness, only about 1% of the population are farmers these days. Back when Abraham Lincoln started United States Department of agriculture, it was 90%. In fact, he called that the people's department when they started USDA. So a lot of people don't understand what's going on with the farm. And so that makes relationships difficult when they, when they're not growing up with it and seeing it every day.
0:14:11 - (Doug Jenkins): Well, that's where the committee comes in. And we are in the middle of one of our fundraisers right now as we record this, the annual sausage sale. This is, this is the crown jewel of the agribusiness committee. I know when I started here, it was right after the sausage sale had ended, and it was before we had moved farmer's share to June, which had traditionally been in March. I never actually got to take part in the whole sausage packaging process till a couple of years ago.
0:14:40 - (Doug Jenkins): But this has been just a great fundraiser and a great cause for it.
0:14:45 - (Gary Wilson): And it's. It's a really good product. It's really good. In fact, I had some friends actually of my daughters, they liked it so well last year, Doug, they got 33 packages this year. It was unbelievable. I've got a couple, two or three coolers full that I'm going to be delivering to them. So it's a really good product. It sells itself. I really encourage everybody, if they've not tried it, they need to do that because it's really good stuff.
0:15:11 - (Doug Jenkins): If Gary sells anymore, he's going to need his own refrigerated truck to make all his deliveries. For those listening who aren't sure what the sausage sale is, so each year the agribusiness committee sells whole hog sausage, all locally sourced, all produced locally, all packaged locally and sell it for $15 a bag. You can Buy it on the Chamber of Commerce website in the store. There's a pickup date. I believe it's April 12th.
0:15:34 - (Doug Jenkins): Out at Legacy Farmers Cooperative. Of course, they're doing their big rebrand. We're going to do a ribbon cutting with them this year. So one, it's a great way. Just have local sausage, whole hog sausage on hand at your house. Freeze. Oh, man, it's so good. Throw that on the Blackstone and it's wonderful. Yeah, you've got that. So we make a whole day of it and it's, it's a lot of fun to get our community together. We really rally around it and I've really enjoyed being able to work with everybody on it.
0:16:04 - (Gary Wilson): I do too. It's a great, great activity. It's a great fundraiser.
0:16:08 - (Doug Jenkins): And now every time I talk about it, I'm hungry for a sausage sandwich. So I may have to make that happen a little bit later today. Gary, if people want to follow closely just what's happening with the local ag industry. You and Ed Lentz with OSU Ag Extension office here, you guys do a lot of work on that. Where can they find more information with what you're all putting out there?
0:16:30 - (Gary Wilson): Well, Ed's the guy. I left that position actually 14 years ago. I was there 34 years, Doug, and Ed's doing a great job. You can, anybody can call me anytime. A lot of people know me. I'm from this county. In fact, my son that's living on my farm, he's actually the eighth generation of our family. That farm was started in 1834. So there's a lot of great people on that committee. Talk to any of us and we're glad to help anybody out.
0:17:07 - (Doug Jenkins): Gary, this is an anecdotal and it really has nothing to do with anything, but it's an observation I've made over the last several years as I've learned more about the agriculture community here in Hancock county and, and everybody. Like it's an overwhelming percentage of farmers or Ohio State fans. Tell us about, tell everybody why there's such a big connection between agriculture in Ohio and Ohio State.
0:17:30 - (Gary Wilson): Well, you know, every state has a land grant university. That land grant university is what does agriculture for Ohio. That's Ohio State, Indiana, it's Purdue, Michigan, It's Michigan State. Not University of Michigan, that's Michigan State. And my particular family, of course, when I worked in Ed's position, that was a part of Ohio State. All my children, my wife, in fact, our personal family has nine degrees from Ohio State University.
0:18:01 - (Gary Wilson): This actually is my 53rd year to have season football tickets, so if anybody needs football tickets, they could let me know.
0:18:08 - (Doug Jenkins): Be careful putting that out there. You might get all the time.
0:18:12 - (Gary Wilson): It's hard for us to get to the games these days, but it's a big tradition and a tight relationship with agriculture and it will continue to be Absolutely.
0:18:21 - (Doug Jenkins): Well, Gary, we appreciate it. Thanks for being on the podcast with us.
0:18:24 - (Gary Wilson): Well, you're welcome, Doug. Take care.
0:18:27 - (Doug Jenkins): If you ever want more information about the local agriculture economy or the community in general, our agribusiness committee. It's a really great place to start. Great mix of people that know the history of ag in the community and who are locked in on making sure that it thrives in the future. That's why we do the scholarship program, but it's also why we tie it into things like producing locally or getting locally sourced sausage out into the community at I tell you what, it's delicious. You make the best sausage sandwiches with it ever.
0:18:55 - (Doug Jenkins): You want to make sure you take part in that, but if you're interested in one helping out with that because it's something you care about, or two, really just learning more about the agriculture community, that committee is a, again, a great place to start and you're really going to like the people who are involved in it as well. I enjoy all of our monthly meetings as we go through the year and help continue to make agriculture a big part part of Findlay and Hancock County Chamber Amplified is a free podcast for the community thanks to the investment of members in the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. Because of our robust membership, we're able to focus on providing timely information to the Findlay and Hancock county business community, run leadership programs for adults and teenagers and be an advocate for the area while also providing tools to help local businesses succeed. And if that sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, just let me know and we can talk about how an investment in the Chamber not only strengthens your business, but the community as a whole.
0:19:48 - (Doug Jenkins): That'll do it for this week's episode. If you have any ideas for topics you'd like to see covered on future episodes, just send me an email. Djenkinsindleyhancockchamber.com thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time on Chamber Amplified from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce.