WHIN in their voices... Ag Alliance Member

WHIN Region Farmer, Tom McKinney

WHIN: Thanks for talking with us, Tom. I know that you run a family farm. Could you share a little bit about your operation?

Mr. McKinney: When my parents were married, they merged two family farms, the Kirkpatrick farm in the small town of Kempton in Tipton County and the McKinney farm on the other side of the Clinton County line. We’ve since grown the family operation to a few thousand acres. We also farm some relatives’ and trusted landlords’ ground in Hamilton County, close to Sheridan and north to the south edge of Kokomo.

WHIN: What do you grow?

Mr. McKinney: Corn and soybeans. All of our soybeans are identity preserved, meaning that we grow soybeans with different characteristics and keep them separate throughout their production for their various markets. 60% are seed beans, about 15% are non-GMO and exported as whole beans, and the balance are high oleic, which is a rapidly growing market. 60% of our corn is non-GMO serving the poultry market and the rest is used for ethanol and starch processing.

WHIN: What made you interested in WHIN?

Mr. McKinney: Well, you don’t know what you don’t know, so maybe you better listen to somebody that is trying something new. I knew Johnny from Senator Braun’s advisory committee and I knew Greg’s sister from school. I was interested in what they were trying to do with technology and agriculture.

WHIN: Have you used some of that technology?

Mr. McKinney: I don’t use all of WHIN’s services because we have our own in-house staff, but we use Intelinair and we’ve used Solinftec. What Solinftec is doing with their sprayer application is invaluable and we can really help them develop their database. I like to see the reports at the end of the year. In fact, we had one of the highest sprayer operation scores of all of their customers because our sprayer operator was wiling to buy into what we were doing. He confirmed what we have always done, which is to start at 6:00 am when there’s no wind and stop when the wind speed hits 12mph. Did it make us money? I don’t know, but we sure didn’t get in trouble.

WHIN: Let’s talk about Intelinair. What does their product do for you?

Mr. McKinney: Intelinair is an eye in the sky. If we were farming truck crops of maybe fifty to a hundred acres, I would be covering every square foot every day. I can’t do that. And none of my staff can, though we do have the skill set and the license to fly a drone. But to cover our acreage with drones, our high value employees would have to be out there all day, every day. Intelinair flies thousands of acres in half a day and those images are beamed right down to us in just a few short hours. It helps us know when the ground is the right temperature to plant. We can get an idea of how our weed control translates into yield. As they develop their analysis, we can hopefully see where we might need additional nitrogen. Precision application of nitrogen is becoming even more important with the war in Ukraine. Prices were already rising rapidly, but we get a lot of fertilizer from Russia. We are going to be studying that very carefully and so is everyone else.

WHIN: You are also a leader in the ag industry. Please tell us about that.

Mr. McKinney: I’ve been active in 4-H since my high school days. I recently cycled off the 4-H Foundation Board. I was also state chairman of the CARET group, the Council for Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching.

WHIN: From all of those perspectives, thinking ahead for the industry and for the state, how important is it for producers to use more technology and to digitalize?

Mr. McKinney: Well, my personal opinion is that we need to use more technology. But keep in mind you’re talking to a farmer and there’s nobody more independent. Farmers don’t like to be told how to do their jobs. But I see economics forcing a lot of this. Back to nitrogen, it’s really expensive now. And so I think there’s going to be more people paying more attention to better ways to apply fertilizer. I have to

be very honest and say that I am not at all anxious to go out and spend a $6 or $7 for every acre I farm. I have to pick and choose and, in my case, I choose to monitor the non-GMO corn and the non-GMO soybeans because they are more vulnerable. And I’ve got a couple of agronomy major graduates and it keeps them on their toes to go out and do some scouting on foot.

WHIN: Do you have any other thoughts on how agriculture and technology are evolving together?

Mr. McKinney: I’m very heavily involved with the Farm Bureau’s energy committee. We have our own solar farm, about a third of a Meg, and we do net meter. And so I really have no electricity bill. We’re looking into what can be done with methane digesters, like gathering up our cornstalks as an input. There are several larger contract finishing barns within a couple of miles of my house. Maybe I need to collect the methane off those hog barn pits and create power for my little region of four counties. We’re looking at carbon credit programs. And it does look like it’s going to take technology to do that, right? If there is going to be more burden on the farmers to figure those things out, then there needs be some technology to keep it at the scientific level. Help us by presenting the facts. And make it really easy for us to do it.

WHIN: What are some obstacles?

Mr. McKinney: I think that farms are going to continue to grow in size. I think our labor pool is going to be very, very difficult. It’s already to the point where we can’t find skilled people to run sprayers, larger big combines, and larger planters. I’m not sure we’re not going to use more autonomous or robotic technology. Driverless grain carts and tractors are already being used out west because they have no population.