Agriculture is huge business in Missouri. Latest numbers from the state show that agriculture, forestry and related industries contributed $93.7 billion to the economy in 2021, but numbers tell only part of the story. To find out more about farming in Missouri, you need to go to the source, and Ozarks Public Broadcasting did. Today, we take you to a farm south of Bolivar, Missouri, where generations of one family have been growing crops and raising cattle.
It's a windy day, and as you stand not far from the house where John and Sheila Samek live with their teenage kids, you get a gorgeous 360-degree view of open fields. It's here where John grows crops and Sheila raises cattle with help from Ellie and Garrett.
"I like being out here in nature, that every year I get to plant my corn and plant my beans. I watch it come up. I watch it all summer as it grows and matures and produces its grain. And to me, that's just satisfying. I like experimenting and messing around with different things. What I'm onto now is cover crops, soil health, regen ag, seeing how I can improve our soils. That's part of what I like to do," said John. "But I would say every farm is unique in its own way. I have a wonderful wife, Sheila. Her family actually grew up across the fence from us, so I always joke I would have been divorced very soon if I had married just a city person, maybe, because she understands what farming is like. And we have two kids, and I have found that being a parent is so much easier when you really like your kids. They're just really nice and they're fun and funny and they're smart and they like to come out and help.
"I'm a lifetime farmer, grew up on a dairy farm. We were about a mile that way. You can actually see part of my parent's farm behind me. We connected our farms. Eventually I had dairy, cattle, horses, chickens, pigs, goats, you name the animal. Growing up, I had just about everything, and so, with that, I always enjoyed being around animals and knew that I wanted to have a farm eventually," said Sheila. "My favorite part of being a mother and a wife is raising the kids on the farm. They are hard workers, and I think it's just very important to teach them that from a young age growing all the way up."
Ellie is going off to college this fall. She was recently elected FFA Missouri president, a role she'll fulfill over the next year. Right now, her plans are to eventually come back and work on the farm.
"I would love nothing more than to come here and raise our next generation up on this operation. It may take a few years getting there, but in the end, I do hope to come right back here," she said.
Running a farm certainly isn't always easy. There's weather and lots of other things to think about.
"The worst time of the year for me is when I harvest that last bit of corn or beans, and then I go, well, now I have to go sell all this stuff. And that is the hardest part because markets can move so fast and for sometimes no rhyme or reason. When the president said he was enacting all these tariffs, the price of all our crops plummeted. And you sat there and thought, why didn't I sell all my corn when I had a chance? And then just a rumor that the tariffs were going to be lifted against China, all of a sudden everything was up," said John. "And you have to try to take advantage of those places. But probably the biggest thing is that you've got to have some kind of a plan. You have to know how much it costs you to produce a bushel of corn or bushel of beans. And when you see a chance to make a profit off it — there's an old saying that a profit is never a bad thing, so you have to have to be mindful of that and be ready.
There's a new tick-borne illness in cattle called theileria, and we were talking about that with some of the guys around here. They've lost a lot of cows and calves from it. There's another one coming out of South America, new world screwworm. There's always a flood. There's always a drought. There's a war going on now that's affecting our fuel prices and fertilizer. It's never ending. There's always something. The perfect year is a very rare thing. One thing that's good about farming is that over time, you really learn resiliency. People always ask me about, man, how can farmers do this? And I said, go to the store. There's always milk and cheese and butter. There's always pork and eggs. And this, someone's going to figure it out how to make a living doing this. And it might as well be you. So, it's a cliche to say that the only constant is change, but it's true. Just in my lifetime, farming has changed a lot. I just this year finally got up with the times, and I have an auto steer and guidance on my tractor so I can sit in there and enjoy the countryside while I'm doing things. But every step of the way, it's going to be a little different. But the nice thing about farming is that ultimately, it is about putting a seed in the ground and letting it grow or having a cow have a calf and raising that calf because they used to say there's an art and a science to farming, and you kind of have to have a little bit of both to be able to do it well.
Dax Bedell and Nico Burasco with Ozarks Public Television provided production support for this series.
Find more in our Sense of Community series at this link, and view companion documentaries from Ozarks Public Television at OPTV.org.
