Busy Master Farmers Count on Family

Cox on family

Kevin and Brenda CoxIndiana master farmers aren’t strangers to spending time away from their farms helping their communities or state or national farm organizations. One of this year’s new members spends up to a week every month away from the farm for his role as president of the board of Farm Credit Mid-America.

Kevin Cox is from the Brazil area and he shares a common thread with other master farmers. Family is important to the farm operation.

“I wouldn’t be able to do any of the things that I do without my wife. My folks are with me this evening (at the Master Farmer banquet) and that is exciting for me to be able to have them here. We’ve also got our three children with us tonight. My son farms with us and it’s great to have the whole family here. This isn’t a one man show. I’m not able to do anything without the support that I’ve got at home.”

On the Cox farm they’re always looking for ways to do things more efficiently, control costs, maximize profit potential, but improve the soils too. Tiling has become key to his operation.

Kevin Cox“We farm in Clay, Parke and Putnam counties in west central Indiana and we have very tight, yellow clay ground and so very poorly drained. So we’ve installed on our farm over 2 million feet of tile. We’ve tiled over 2,000 acres ourselves with a tile plow to try to improve the drainage and get the filtration of the water through the soils. Another thing we’ve done in the last ten years is converted from 30 inch rows and narrow rowed beans to 20 inch corn and 20 inch beans to try to increase our population to try to increase the yield potential that we have there.”

Cox tells HAT he is excited about what is happening at Farm Credit Mid-America. Hear more details in the full interview:Kevin Cox

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