Jennifer James

Newport farmer honored with national award

Jennifer James of Newport holds her award from Field to Market for being named 2017 Farmer of the Year. The award was presented to James in recognition of her farm’s sustainability and conservation and stewardship efforts.
Jennifer James of Newport holds her award from Field to Market for being named 2017 Farmer of the Year. The award was presented to James in recognition of her farm’s sustainability and conservation and stewardship efforts.

For Jennifer James of Newport, being a fourth-generation farmer is a love affair.

And that love of farming was recently rewarded as James received the Farmer of the Year Award from Field to Market, a national organization that promotes a sustainable alliance for agriculture.

“It was a big honor for me,” said James, who works on the farm that her great-grandfather David Hare started. “When you are involved in a family farming operation, it’s not just me. It’s generations before me. It’s my aunts, uncles, my father, my brother and my husband.

“We’ve been doing this for four generations.”

According to its website, fieldtomarket.org, “Field to Market’s supply-chain sustainability program offers America’s farming, food and agriculture industries an essential tool for unlocking shared value for all stakeholders.”

James said the award, the first ever presented by the organization, is based on her farm’s sustainability practices.

“It’s been four generations working toward the sustainability and conservation efforts that we have on our farm to be honored for this award,” she said.

“Jennifer manages her family’s 6,000-acre farm with sustainability at the center of her decision making and an eye toward future generations,” Rod Snyder, president of Field to Market, said in a press release. “Her leadership and commitment to sustainable agriculture are marked by her steadfast dedication to conserving natural resources and instituting practices that provide wildlife habitat while benefiting soil, water and air quality.”

James is the manager of the H & J Land Co. in Newport. The family farms a little more than 6,000 acres and grows rice, soybeans and corn as its main row crops.

“We do a lot toward water conservation in rice or in soybean irrigation,” James said. “With soil conservation, we make sure we have pipe drops at the end of the field where the water goes out so that we can control it, how fast the water is leaving the field so that we don’t have a lot of erosion — soil and sediment going into the ditches. We reuse a lot of water. We have several thousand acres of tailwater recovery systems. We are re-using water so that it’s not all coming out of the watershed.”

James said her husband, Greg, is an avid duck hunter.

“And with that comes habitat management and conservation efforts to provide winter feeding grounds for ducks, geese and all sorts of waterfowl,” she said. “I think farmers have always been really good at doing things like that. We’re still just not very good at telling our story. For me, being the recipient of this award allows me to tell my story, which allows me to tell all the farmers across the country, in particular, the rice farmers because that is what we do.

“We want to tell our story about the good things the rice industry is doing in relation to conservation and sustainability, protecting our natural resources.”

James is a 1990 graduate of Newport High School and a 1994 graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She originally started out as an accounting major, but her love of the farm made her switch majors.

“I started out in accounting, but I knew the farm was here, and I loved it,” she said. “But I didn’t have a lot of interest in it growing up. I guess when I got to Fayetteville, I said, ‘The mountains are pretty, but I want to be back in the Delta,’ and I changed my major to agriculture business.”

She received her bachelor’s degree in May 1994.

“I did summer school and some internships,” she said. “I actually scouted rice for two summers for credit.”

She continued to scout the rice fields on the family farm until she gave birth to her son Dylan in 2000.

“Graduating in May, we were planting rice,” she said. “I spent time, up until I had my son in 2000, scouting our rice and soybeans, taking care of the things that needed to go out on the fields, scheduling flying or fertilizer applications. In the wintertime, I would work, trying to learn about budgeting and marketing.

“Once I had my son, walking the rice fields with a newborn wasn’t easy. I transitioned more into the business side of it.”

Since she originally started as an accounting major, this worked out well for James.

“I’m a numbers person anyway,” she said. “It kind of worked out. I’m doing the things where my strengths lie now, the marking and accounting. But having practical knowledge in the field really helps put it all together.”

The family farm was started by her great-grandfather David Hare.

“My family lives in his home that was built in the late 1930s,” James said.

Following David Hare was his son Marvin Hare. James’ father, Marvin Hare Jr., still works on the farm, having completed his 51st crop season. James’ brother Trey worked on the farm for more than 20 years before his ground-spraying business took off.

“He started out with one little rig, and now he has many,” she said. “He couldn’t do both.”

In addition to the rice, soybeans and corn that the farm produces in bulk, James said, it also raises some specialty crops.

“We do a lot of specialty-type products,” she said. “We have a non-GMO rice (genetically modified organisms) that we produce that goes to Japan for a specialty-food product. We raise non-GMO corn for Ozark Mountain Poultry in Batesville.

“We like to think that we’re really good with identity preservation, specialty products and trying to find some value added for our products.”

H & J has its own grain-drying facility.

“We stay busy,” James said. “The grain facility keeps us busy in the winter.”

The farm sells the vast majority of its rice to Riceland Foods, James said.

“I’m the North Central District Dryer Board chairman,” she said. “I stay involved in a lot of industry committees, including Field to Market, USA Rice and Arkansas Rice.

“I’m the vice chairman of the Arkansas Rice Farmers Board. I stay active. That makes it exciting and keeps it new and fresh.”

Field to Market encourages using best practices.

“One thing they have is a field print calculator,” James said. “A farmer goes online and enters things that they’ve done in the field, from planting to disking, water usage, all kinds of information. From that, it gives you a spider diagram of soil loss, greenhouse-gas emissions, water usage — five or six different metrics. You can compare what you’re doing to other people who are growing rice. You may find other ways to help.

“It’s all about using best practices to continually improve what we’re doing on the farm, in relationship to the environment. That’s what they are all about.”

James said margins are thin right now for farmers.

“The cost of a combine is $350,000 without a header,” she said. “To be able to afford one combine, you have to farm enough acres to be able to cover that cost, not to mention you have to buy the seed, fertilizers and put the crop in. Farmers are doing a lot more, and it takes a lot more time and a lot more labor.

“We really have to watch our costs, be aware of the market and take advantage of the day. We have to be on our toes and try to take advantage when there is a good price out there. You can’t wait around.”

H & J employs 10 people, including full- and part-timers.

“We’ve had some people who have been with us in the 1990s and before,” James said. “We’ve been very fortunate to have a very good workforce with us. We are a family farm, and they are part of our family. That’s the way we look at it.”

James said she doesn’t look at working on the family farm as being a job.

“I think you’d better love it,” she said. “It’s that way with any job, or it’s really going to be work. I don’t look at this as work. I enjoy what I do every day. It’s a little bit different every day, and it’s fun.”

Staff writer Mark Buffalo can be reached at (501) 399-3676 or mbuffalo@arkansasonline.com.

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