Crop Tour Day 2 - An Unconventional Start for an Amazing Trip  

By Laura Bateman, Mac Benham, Matt Brown, & Wendy Campbell

Farm Connection

The first stop of the day (and our tour) was at Farm Connection a family business run by Alan, Mary and their daughter Kate. They are the 7th generation of this unique farm operation with organic approach to modern day farm business. Their main activity is dairy and beef cattle (double-purpose), but they also raise broiler chicken, laying hens, and pigs.

The broiler birds are free range, non-medicated and kept for 9-10 weeks. At the end of this period, the birds go to a USDA certified processer returned back to the farm store for sale. There are also around laying hens on the farm. These birds are also kept in a free-range pen with free choice laying boxes for eggs. All eggs are collected manually, cleaned, and then sold at the farm store

The dairy cattle are on a rotational grazing pasture where they raise their calves alongside still being milked in the 8-cow milking parlor. With around 50 calvings this spring and with their calf raising and milking strategy, it allows them to milk 27 cows daily. They average 3-4 gallons per day per cow. The cows will be dried off during the winter months and with the milder climate, the cows can graze for most of the year on pasture. For the short time the cows are not able to graze, they are fed a grass hay to sustain the animals in the cold. The family breed their cattle mainly focused on dairy traits but they also care about beef. With the beef cattle on the farm, it allows them to diversify even further with their products by adding beef products into the mix. The beef is also processed at a state approved facility and then shipped back to the farm store.  

Another way they diversify their farm is by finishing pigs. They purchase the pigs at 50lbs and raise them to market weight of 300lbs. These pigs are on pastures that rotate every 1.5-2 weeks.  

Overall, the Farm Connection has an interesting business model. They do no wholesale any of their products, everything is sold at either their farm shop or shipped to one of their 4 pickup locations all in Indiana. The vast majority of their customers and sales are in their home shops or one of their pickup locations in Indianapolis. Meaning, a lot of their attractions comes from urban areas, they have found a demand they can fill. At the Farm Connection, the family shows immense pride and love for their farm and animals. The decisions they make are based off of their observations and what they think is best for their animals, land and customers.  

Melon Acres

The largest crop grown at Melon Acres is watermelon. All watermelon is transplanted, and plastic mulch is used for weed suppression. Amongst the 400 acres of watermelon, the majority is seedless but seeded watermelon is also grown. The harvest season for these melons is July 15th until early September. After a field has been in watermelon, they will contract the field out for 2 years for rotational crops returning the field to watermelon again after. The watermelons are harvested from the field into buses and brought up to where they will be washed and sorted. Similarly to the asparagus sorting machine will take several pictures per second and will grade melons based on diameter and weight. Workers on the line use other techniques to manually sort off dump melons. They wholesale all their produce to various corporations.

 

At Melon Acres, the workforce is made up of mostly foreign skilled-workers also known as H2A workers. This staggered workforce is because of government regulations that require more paperwork for foreign workers that include the number of hours they will be working, wages, and what kind of work they will be doing. Once the paperwork is submitted, the workers are only allowed the do work that is stated on the contract unless they are giving bonuses or extra hours that the workers agree too. Most of the workers come from Mexico. Melon Acres offers housing, transportation and food supply for travelling for the H2A workers when they are traveling to the far The crops at Melon Acres are grown on sandy soil, and they have irrigation that is supplied by an underground aquifer which makes the area unique in the ability to grow the crops that they do. The irrigation is also used for the application of herbicides and fertilizers to the crops by a trickle system with some on a center pivot, replacing the need for sprayers. Bees are also necessary for watermelon, which is a cross-pollinated species, so they keep bee-hives around the their fields.

 

The hosts today were very generous in allowing us to see their operations and answer our questions. Both stops interested everyone because they showed us a new side of agriculture that we would not be able to see otherwise. This has been a great start to the trip and got everyone excited for what is to come.