Meet The 5th Generation Farmer Who Is Doubling Down On Soil Health To Grow Better Crops: A Q&A With Brandon Hunnicutt

Conversations on leadership, innovation and growing a better future

I founded Terramera to transform how food is grown and the economics of agriculture. But I’m not the only one who’s striving to change the world. In “The Core Question” I’m sharing my learnings and talking to purpose-driven leaders, entrepreneurs and change-makers about some of the most important questions we’re facing today. My goal is to start a conversation, so please read, comment and subscribe! This month…

At Terramera, we’re dedicated to protecting plant and human health and ensuring an earth that thrives and provides for everyone –– but we can’t do any of that without farmers. So, it was a pleasure to hear from Nebraska farmer Brandon Hunnicutt. Brandon has spent more than 20 years on the Hunnicutt family farm, where he has focused on driving change toward more sustainable practices. His farm was an early adopter of precision agriculture and soil moisture sensing technologies. Along with his father and brother, Brandon raises corn, soybeans, seed corn, popcorn and sorghum, using the latest technologies while integrating conservation tillage practices and cover crops. He’s chair of Field to Market , vice-chair of the Nebraska Corn Board , serves on the board of directors for the National Corn Growers Association , and is the former president of the Nebraska Agricultural Technologies Association .?

Here’s what he had to share about the unique challenges those in agriculture face, how technology can help, and what excites him most about the future of farming:??

Your farm has been in your family for 120 years! Had you always planned on following in your family’s footsteps to build a career in agriculture? As a kid, I wanted to be a Major League Baseball player and farm but as I got older I looked into pursuing something besides farming. I considered medicine but ultimately majored in Ag Business in college. I was on the path to managing a bookstore when a crop consulting position opened up. I did that for a year, and then, when some farm ground became available I ended up farming.

From your personal experience and what you hear through your work with Corn Growers, what’s the most challenging part of being a farmer right now? The biggest challenge is uncertainty. We are dealing with high fertilizer prices, high input prices, trying to get a coherent ethanol policy, climate change challenges (drought, excessive rainfall, changing growing seasons), and trade challenges as well.

What are some of the ways you’ve prioritized and nurtured soil health at Hunnicutt farms? What have the effects been? We realize that without healthy soil we can’t have a healthy crop. But often, we end up trying to fix a problem through other means instead of addressing the root of what the problem might be. It is much like my own personal health. If I’m not eating right, exercising, sleeping, etc., I won’t be effective every day. If my soil isn’t healthy, it won’t produce a crop to its highest potential. We are constantly trying new ways of helping the soil out. Our ultimate goal is to increase soil organic matter in order to reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers, support water infiltration, reduce soil erosion and ultimately produce better crops. We are still trying to figure out how to best incorporate cover crops and crop rotations into the mix, and we are using more biologicals and technology to help through this process.

What role does technology play in helping farmers deal with the challenges posed by extreme weather events, pests, drought, and rising input costs? Technology has played a big role, and will play a bigger role, in dealing with challenges on the farm. The term technology can apply to everything from seed technology to equipment technology. Having seed that is protected against pests helps reduce stress on plants during extreme temperature events. The equipment technology helps us do a better job of placing nutrients and crop protection products which reduces the input cost per acre. As we’ve increased our use of technology, we are better equipped to mitigate potentially country-wide disasters like we’ve seen in the past –– especially when it comes to events like drought.

Can you share a little bit about how (and why) you got involved with Field to Market ? I was introduced to Field to Market through a leadership trip with the Nebraska Corn Growers Association. I realized the organization’s potential to help farmers and companies become better at what we’re doing. There has always been strong grower interest in Field to Market to make sure the farmer’s voice is heard in the ever-changing world of sustainability. When the chance came to represent the National Corn Growers Association on the Board of Directors for Field to Market, I quickly volunteered. It’s so important for farmers to be involved with Field to Market to help give direction on what’s going on in the regions that we farm.

What’s the biggest misconception you hear about farmers? What do you wish more people knew? One of the biggest misconceptions is we’re doing things that harm the planet. We hear this regardless of what we’re raising or how we’re farming. Farmers live in the same areas as their neighbors, and many have farmed the same land for generations. We aren’t going to make choices that will intentionally harm ourselves or our neighbors. We can’t build new farm ground if we destroy what we have. And farming is an extremely expensive business –– we don’t make decisions that will have a negative impact on our ability to operate. We do our best to be very careful with the natural resources we’ve been blessed to farm.

Your farm was an early adopter of precision agriculture and soil moisture sensing technologies –– what was the most challenging part of being an early adopter? What was the most rewarding?? One of the challenging areas was completely trusting the technology, especially when it came to soil moisture. I was trained on how to measure soil moisture and having to trust a piece of equipment to tell me the same thing was interesting. As we moved on to newer technologies, the biggest challenge was trying to explain to others what we were doing and why it would work. In the end, when we were able to reduce irrigation and maintain yields, it was very rewarding. Now, trying to find a more efficient way to irrigate is our biggest hurdle, but could have the biggest potential.

What’s your recipe for thriving as a farmer in the current landscape (inflation, drought, etc.)? The recipe now is the same as it always was: making sure we can farm another year and adjusting on the fly. We’re also looking for new ways to maximize the crops we are growing, like non-GMO soybeans or white corn.

What excites you most about the future of farming? We seem to be in another era of exciting technological changes. This is everything from machine learning to robots to biologicals. The more we can understand soil interactions the better we can get at producing a regenerative crop. There is so much we don’t understand below ground and how it interacts with our crop production methods –– the more we can bring technology into the mix the better our farming and the planet will be because of it.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Thank you, Brandon, for sharing your insight from your work. From weather extremes to rising costs, farmers have a lot to contend with. But it strikes me how much there is to learn from the resilience, creativity and adaptability of farmers.?

Additional Nutrients: What I’m Reading and Listening to

• Soaring fertilizer prices are causing problems for farmers, but could they also be an opportunity to envision ways of growing crops more sustainably ?
• Some farmers say three things are needed for regenerative agriculture to scale: independent and data-driven technical support, program alignment and standardization and supply chain infrastructure for crop diversification. Read why these things are so critical .
• Climate change is having serious impacts on every aspect of life as we knew it … even retirement planning .

Thanks again so much to Brandon Hunnicutt for sharing his thoughts for this edition of the newsletter — and thanks to you for reading along. If you found The Core Question interesting, please subscribe and follow me on Linkedin ... or, better yet, share it with somebody you know!