Southwest Kansas Day One
Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Submitted by: Mary Marsh
Three months after the first seminar for the KARL XVI class, the class met again to learn more about the culturally diverse, water-limited agriculture powerhouse that is Southwestern Kansas.
The Economic Development seminar began at 11:33 am on Nov. 2, 2022 at the Clarion Inn in Garden City, Kansas, with Eli Svaty serving as the moderator for the day.
To kick off the seminar, Matt Allen, City Manager of Garden City, welcomed the class with an introduction to the history of Garden City presentation titled “The World Grows Here”. Allen gave the class an overview of the history of Garden CIty. Garden City was always an agricultural hub, but as irrigation technology changed, more corn was grown. With more corn grown, came more cattle. With more cattle, came more people and industries. Populations soared to a record high in the early 2000’s hitting 31,000 people. Today, the population now hovers around 28,000, majority of which are non-cacasions.
Allen continued to breakdown the demographics of Garden City and how the different cultures all make their livelihoods in southwest Kansas. The primary employer of these immigrants are in the packing plants. One complication involved in having so many cultures and religions all mixed together is having all the services they need to practice their beliefs. One such example, is the nearest cemetery that adheres to islamic culture for burial is all the way in Wichita. In the local schools, there can be between 25 and 40 different dialects of languages spoken. So, having sufficient resources for all these people can be challenging.
In the mid-2010’s, there was a major scare that shook the entire community to its core. Three men, in an anti-muslim group, plotted to blow up an apartment that served as a mosque where the muslims prayed and some lived. A local man, turned FBI informant, infiltrated the group, gathering intel that led to the arrest of the three men and ultimately saved the lives of countless people. Despite this one major terror threat, Garden City has provided a home for these refugees, and has influenced the whole community’s world view. Folks from Garden City learn how to work together even though they all come from different places, speak different languages or worship in different ways. Allen explained how he and his children view the world in an open way and attribute it all to being from Garden City, saying “you find ways to celebrate differences.”
Following Allen’s presentation, there was a panel discussion featuring Lona Duvall with Finney County Economic Development; Matt Allen; Fred Jones, Water Resource Manager and Dwane Roth, from the City of Holcomb. Troy Dumler, Garden City was the moderator of the panel discussion. Each panelist explained challenges related to their job and what the solutions for those problems were.
Duvall explained the struggle for looking for ways to reduce and mitigate water use and how they won’t permit projects to come into the community that won’t match the city’s water goals.
Jones also said water was the biggest challenge for Holcomb. They struggle with finding acceptable reduction acts. He also says the city struggles with water quality and infrastructure.
To help reduce and conserve water, the city monitors use and uses data to explain to the citizens of Holcomb the importance of conservation.
Roth, a farmer, explained how technology has helped them be more efficient with their water usage on the farm. They were able to save about ten inches of water from each pivot. He has had difficulties trying to get fellow farmers to implement these water saving methods on their farms.
Allen tied up the conversation with an inspiring note on how to find the best solutions to problems: surround yourself with problem solvers and doers.
The second speaker was Ernestor De La Rosa, Assistant City Manager/ Legislative Affairs for Dodge City. He is the son of immigrants who worked in the packing plants and construction. He moved to America in 2002, when he was in the eighth grade. According to the stats, he was supposed to fail. Instead of accepting it, he decided to prove the stats wrong. Through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), De La Rosa was able to go to Dodge City Community College, Fort Hays State University and Wichita State University. He emphasized how DACA allowed for him and countless others to go to college- an option that would not have been possible without it. Then, he explained how much we need immigration reform to help immigrants seek citizenship in more effective and efficient ways.
De La Rosa continued on to address how the packing plants are the lifeblood of Garden City and Dodge City. Surrounding counties and communities are seeing populations decrease whereas Garden City (Finney County) and Dodge City (Ford County) are seeing population increases because these packing plants are bringing immigrants into the area. If it were not for the packing plants, De La Rosa explained, these counties would be facing decreased populations as well. Hilmar Cheese, a cheese plant from California, is going to be the newest neighbor. This latest industry player will provide an additional 700 jobs to the area. De La Rosa explained the packing plants might see employees leave the packing plant to go work in the cheese plant.
An immigration policy discussion panel followed De La Rosa’s presentation. Kyle Averhoff, farmer with Royal Farms; Allie Devine, partner at Devine, Donely & Murray LLC and De La Rosa were on the panel. Eli Svaty was the moderator for the discussion.
Each explained how agriculture got each of them into immigration policy in one way or another.
Averhoff, a dairyman in Garden City, explained their current issue with getting help on the farm. H2A, a common visa program utilized in agriculture, does not work in dairies due to being year long work. He told the class about several other visa programs he has been able to use in the past. One such visa that he had used were TN visas. These help people with specialized technical skills come to America to work; however, this still leaves the milking positions wide open.
Devine explained how this is not a state issue but is a national issue and shared about how she and her partners are trying to change immigration policy from the legislative side.
After a brief break, the class was joined by guests from around the area and had a steak dinner. Ashley Beying gave the prayer and dinner commenced.
As dinner was wrapping up, the crowd welcomed up the guest speaker for the evening. Tony Mattivi, retired Federal Prosecutor, gave a gripping and chilling recount of the bombing threat from 2016. He dove deep into how the FBI had to handle it, the entire timeline of the whole plan, background on Patrick Stein, Curtis Allen and Gavin Wright, and how Dan Day, a normal, everyday guy stepped up to the plate and saved a whole city. The entire crowd was silent as Matitivi provided lesser known details. He played sound clips during the militia meetings that made a person’s blood go cold. It brought the story to life in a whole new, harrowing way.
The first day of the KARL Economic Development Seminar concluded at around 9:00 pm.
Southwest Kansas Day Two
Thursday, November 3, 2022
Submitted by: Carl Clawson
KARL Class XVI began our windy day in Garden City by hopping on the Garden City Community College’s bus and heading to Tysons Fresh Meats in Holcomb, just down the road from Garden City. Tyson had a group of their managers available to answer all of our questions. The first thing that we did was to just start with a question-and-answer session that was very informative
Tyson Fresh Meats employs about 3600 people, and they had between 150-200 open positions on the day that we were there. Tyson has a mobile recruitment vehicle to try and fill their empty positions but this was shut down during Covid. Their employees are organized into 3 shifts a day. A and B shift carry out the main processing aspects, and the third shift cleans and sanitizes everything in the plant daily. They also clean out the coolers twice a year to clean areas that always have product in them.
On the sustainability front, they reuse 100% of the water they utilize on surrounding farm ground.
They harvest about 5,400 head a day from the surrounding 300 to 400 miles. This makes between 40,000 – 50,000 boxes of beef per day. Bill Durkson, the Complex Manager, explained that they do daily, weekly, and monthly animal welfare training with all of the people that interact the cattle. They are also doing in person audits and even camera audits to ensure proper handling. The truckers that haul cattle in are also required to Beef Quality Assurance Trained, and they have to provide their certification every time they enter the plant to deliver cattle. The truckers start showing up at 2 am every morning and start unloading the 160 trucks at three chutes.
Danielle asked about employee retention and upward mobility. Ashley Buyer, the HR Manager, explained that they have high turnover within the first year of employment, but after about two years the employees tend to stay around. At this point, Tyson leadership can really put one of their key philosophies – growing people – into practice. The managers that were walking with us shared that most of them had started working on the line and chosen to grow with the company. The first promotion off the line is assistant manager. They have several programs in place to help facilitate the growing people strategy, including programs to help employees get their GED, college tuition assistance, as well as English Second Language Classes through their Upward Academy. There are 26 languages that are spoken inside the plant with the primary languages being English, Spanish, Somalian, and Vietnamese. They communicate with the employees through in-person interpreters or phone interpreters as needed.
Tyson also works to offer other benefits to their employees. There is always a nurse on staff to help with any issues that may come up at the workplace. Tyson also has a 3rd party clinic in town that they offer to the employees if they need any additional help from a scrapped knee to mental health issues. They also have a chaplain on site for any religious support that may arise.
In 2019 there was an accidental fire at Tyson, and they were back operating on the fabrication side of the house within 2 weeks and back to harvesting within 120 days. While the fire was devasting for many reasons, Tyson was able to use this as an opportunity to make the plant be more efficient as well as leverage some of the employees’ other skills to help with the rebuild. One of the things that the management team hangs their hat on is that they were able to keep all the employees working through the down time at various job so they didn’t have to go out and rehire anyone.
Before we were able to take the tour inside the plant, we watched some safety videos as well as a few general educational videos on Tyson and what they stand for. Then we went on the tour of the plant starting with the packaging side of the plant then to the fabrication area. We discussed the different
boxes that were used for packaging beef and why they choose different boxes. Then we went to the grading area of the plant and talked about how a carcass is graded and the USDA’s responsibility of grading the beef. They use a “camera” that gets a pretty good estimate of quality and yield grade. We then went to the hot coolers where the carcasses go from the kill floor and get cooled down to between 40f and 34F, which takes between 4 and 24. The final stop on the tour was on the kill floor just after the nock box. We got to see how the animals went from having hides and hoof to being sides of beef in the cooler. The next stop was just outside the plant for a picture. During this time, it was shared that the packing plant smell comes from the rendering side of the plant which takes care of the hides and extra fat that is brought into the plant. We then went back to the cafeteria and asked more questions with a better insight on how things are done inside the plant.
The first question that was asked was why we went in reverse order through the plant and the Food Safety Manager explained Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP). We started in the cleanest part of the plant and went to the dirtiest part of the plant, and that there are many checkpoints inside the plant to ensure that nothing hazardous gets into the food supply. The food safety manager also went into how often the knives that are used get sanitized and that in some areas the get sanitized between every carcass. E-Coli, BSE, and exports have made the plant increase their food safety over the last 20 years and they are continuing to get better daily. They now export between 25% and 60% of the Holcomb plant every year.
Jeremy asked a question about sustainability, and it was explained that Tyson is limiting how much chemical they are using, recycling all of the cardboard and plastic, and actively chooses to purchase more efficient electric motors The managers also talked about having branded beef for sustainability in the way that it was raised similar to how Certified Angus Beef is branded beef. We also asked about traceability of product, and the complex manager talked about how they can trace back every piece of meat all the way back to where it was purchased from. Additionally, they periodically do it as an audit to make sure that is fast and easy to accomplish.
We talked about the USDA graders and how they are employed, as well as their daily USDA inspections. The USDA inspector are considered essential workers, and they are not affected by the government shutdowns. Tyson also has workers that are trained in the same way that the USDA inspectors are trained in accordance with the Beef Modernization Act.
The next thing that we talked about was safety and security at the facility, and we learned that they have 24-hour security along with cameras everywhere. They have GPS tracking on the trailers to ensure they’re going to the right place. They have made improvement in safety throughout the plant, which includes increased lighting in low traffic areas and automating dangerous and/or repetitive jobs.
Greg asked how COVID changed how things are done inside the plant. They still have dividers between workers on the fabrication line, but masks are no longer required.
After a fantastic tour at Tyson in Holcomb, it was time to get back on the bus and head to Southwind Country Club for lunch and to listen to Ty Brookover of Class X. Ty first talked about the massive benefit of the KARL network and the multiple ways that it has benefited himself and others. He also stated how much he loved going on the different trips, and how it even changed some of the hiring practices in his company. It even inspired him to join Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). He then gave us a brief overview of the 12 Brookover companies that he oversees with the most visible being the multiple feed
yards that have a combined total of over 100,000 cows. He talked about developing Southwind and sold it in 2009. He shared his thoughts on succession planning for his three boys, the future in family business, as well as possible future viability in the area due to dwindling water resources and greater competition for resources. Ty finished up his talk by saying his biggest challenges are water, people and the market.
He opened it up for questions, and Kari asked how they plan for programs that the packing plants are using. He explained that they sort the cattle into groups that will finish at the same time and can go into the same program at the packing plant. Derick asked how Ty manages his risk. He explained that risk management was his first task inside the company, and he hasn’t stopped learning since. To learn risk management, Ty first went to Sparks Commodities in Memphis which are on par with Warren Buffet as a stock investor. He shared that his time there, the correct mentors, learning to play the game, and staying abreast of current news put him in a position to succeed. Greg asked about sustainability, and Ty explained that they spread all the manure and use the lagoon water through the pivots. They are also using lower input crops, which decreases the amount of fertilizer needed as well as lowers the amount of water usage. Danielle asked about the difference between registered and commercial cattle to the feed yard. Ty then explained that the prices that packers are paying is driven by the retailer’s demand. He also shared that Certified Angus Beef (CAB) is a program that has helped to make a more uniform cattle crop.
After lunch, we headed to the Brookover Ranch with manager Mark Boos. Mark showed us the 15,000ac of grass that is grazed if they get rain, which they didn’t in 2022 due to the drought. There are also 22 circles that provide the feed for the feed yard nearby. They have 5 alfalfa circles, and the rest are used to raise double crop triticale and a forage sorghum which is used for silage for the cattle. They produce about 30,000 tons of silage annually.
As we pulled into the feed yard, Mark pointed out the steam flaker and explained how it turned #2 yellow corn into corn flakes for cattle. He gave us samples of steam flaked corn, Dried Distillers Grain (DDG), and Sorghum Silage. From a staffing perspective, they have one man for every 1000 head of cattle. Typically, yearlings are brought into the yard when they are between 700lbs to 850lbs. However, they have brought in younger calves for the right price. The younger calves are bedded on corn stalks until they are the right size to go to the yard. They cattle are purchased primarily from the south-central USA. When they arrive at the yard, they are sorted into like lots and provided individual ID’s so that the cattle get returned to the right pen after an animal has been doctored. Jennifer asked about the protocols for sick cattle detection and care. Mark explained that a pen rider comes by every day to put eyes on every animal. The feed truck comes twice a day, which is a great time to catch sick cattle. Finally, a manager drives by twice a day also. Once the sick animal is detected it gets taken to the hospital for proper care. They have protocols for the different ailments to ensure that the correct care is administered. Additionally, a veterinarian comes by monthly to train the employees. Mark then took time to explain that there are two ways that cattle are sold to the packers. First, the packer buys the cattle live from the feeder at the current market price. Second, the feeder negotiated a grid which has quality on one axis and yield on the other axis and the quality and yield grade of each carcass determines its price.
After traveling around the feed yard, we headed to Mies and Sons Trucking. Jerry Mies started his milk hauling company in Colwich, Kansas in 1991. He picked up from multiple small dairies in the area to get
started, but he now picks up from 27 dairies around Colwich. He picks up from 20 dairies in Western Kansas, which is about 110 loads a day. With all those loads that his company haul Jerry’s company ends up hauling 1 percent of the fluid milk in the USA with his 130 trucks. Growing up, Jerry dairied by Wichita with his family. AJ, Jerry’s son, manages the Garden City office, and his other son manages the Colwich office. Kari asked what his biggest challenge was when he got started. He shared that staffing was a challenge when getting started, but he now has a waiting list for drivers wanting to come work for him. He pays between 80k to 125k a year with 6 days on and 2 days off. Most of his drivers are local drivers, and trips typically take less than a day. There are a few truckers that haul to the eastern seaboard. Most of the trucks fit the short haul, which is better with the smaller bunk but a few have a full sleeper. He has150 employees with the average retention of 5.2 years, he even hasa couple of female drivers. Mary asked about regulations. Besides the weight regulations, there are no requirements for logbooks or hours of service on his hauls that are within 150 air miles, which are most of them. He still does to keep drivers legal if they ever have to go farther than 150 miles. Nathan asked how hard it is to get a CDL to drive a Semi. Jerry explained that the rules have changed recently and now a driver has to go to a school to get a CDL, and it is expensive to do so, but he thinks that you get a better quality of driver because of it. Once a driver has their CDL Jerry proceeds to train the drivers to increases the quality of drivers. Driving a milk tanker takes more training because there are no baffles in the trailer to stop the slosh of the liquid around the tank. Jerry prefers 13 speed Peterbilt’s which helps with driver retention, because these are nice trucks that still get about 6.7 miles per gallon. He trades 30 plus trucks a year once they get to 500,000 miles.
We walked around the facility and Jerry explained that the inside of the tanker must be washed out between every load of milk and he has an automated machine that takes 30 to wash the inside of the tank out. He also has his own maintenance shop, and mechanics that can fix anything that on a semi or trailer except the barrel of a trailer. None of his trucks match in color so they can be identified easily at a glance, and he only keeps trailers for about 8 years before trading them as well. He also has very tight security on site to keep his dispatchers and equipment safe and secure.
After the fantastic tour of Mies and Sons, Lona Duvall, President of Finney County Economic Development, and Bob Temple of Class XV at Wind River Grain joined us. Bob explained that Wind River was built in 1997 to export wheat. Today it is a grain originator for many local feed yards as well as Conestoga Ethanol. They are in the process of bringing trains of corn into their facility due to the poor crop this year. They usually have between 100 to 150 trucks come through the facility a day. Bob said that most of the feed yards could go about a week without getting a corn truck in.
Lona Duvall then took over and showed us around the TP&L lay down yard which stores a massive amount of energy producing windmills before they get loaded onto semis and hauled to their destination. Right down the road from Wind River is Empirical Foods which is going to make ground beef, but currently is still under construction. They are planning on employing 450 people and have a program in the high school to help train students so that they can have a job once they graduate.
For supper this evening, we went to Larry and Becky Jones of J&O Cattle Company by Holcomb. We had a wonderful meal and Tera Barnhardt, a local mother and veterinarian, gave a talk about connecting with the consumer. She talked about multiple times in either talks that she has given to the public or on social media where she was able to shed some light on a touchy subject inside the beef industry which was very enlightening.
Southwest Kansas Day Three
Friday, November 4, 2022
Submitted by: Jeremy Johnson
For the third day of the Garden City seminar, KARL class XVI started the day at Vulgamore Family Farms (VFF) near Scott City, where they met VFF co-owner Brian Vulgamore. Brian explained that the farm currently has 50 employees working on 90,000 acres of cropland, most of which is rented from nearby landowners. The primary business of VFF is crop production, though there are additional revenue streams from sales of seeds and crop insurance, a manure composting business, and a farm management and consulting business.
Brian described the focus of VFF being on people, sustainability, and technology. VFF (a name they changed to in order to foster a sense of inclusion among employees outside of the family) relies heavily on cutting-edge technology in order to best achieve an environmentally sustainable model, utilizing geotagged photography, precise “see and spray” automated weed control, and a variety of sensor-enabled farm equipment to allow them to use a no-till approach. He emphasized the importance of no-till farming in Southwest Kansas, where water is increasingly scarce and moisture conservation is a top priority for any operation thinking beyond the short-term.
Having such a data-informed approach allows the company to approach farming “like the stock market,” as Brian described it, allowing them to maximize returns for renting landowners, who could potentially seek to make money elsewhere with their property. Data also allows VFF to operate at an enormous scale. This comes with challenges, particularly effectively managing people in a fluid and unpredictable industry like farming, but they have devised a “bus terminal” management system that puts people into small teams with “bus drivers” who help delegate duties each day.
But scale also allows the company to offer benefits that smaller operations cannot, including health insurance, vacation time, matching 401(k), housing, “phantom” stock ownership in the company, and breakfast every morning before work. In a job market where employees are very difficult to find, these kinds of benefits are key to retaining workers.
The group then took a tour of the main VFF campus, including the office “war room,” 1.7 million bushel grain storage bins, and equipment workshops, showcasing some of the technology Brian described.
Class XVI then headed to Scott City to visit Nu Life Market, the largest grain sorghum producer in the United States, and were greeted by CEO and founder Earl Roemer. Earl, who started out as an ag producer and had done research on sorghum for human consumption, explained that when demand for gluten-free products exploded over the last decade, Nu Life was in a position to capitalize on the market growth and supply companies with products and ingredients that met demand.
Since Nu Life was on the cutting edge of processing sorghum for use in human food, they’ve been able to lead and shape the market response. This includes considerable intellectual property centered on the milling of sorghum and similar gluten-free products, such as sunflower seeds. They’ve developed tools that allow them to track everywhere their source grain has been, which gives Nu Life the ability to limit cross-contamination with allergens. They
also test the grain for gluten up to 5 parts per million, which is lower than the FDA’s required 25 ppm, and ensures a quality product. And ensuring quality has allowed them to develop relationships with large food companies–one of the first major products they rolled out was Kellogg’s gluten-free Special K, along with a popped sorghum product for Kashi.
As with many of the discussions in Garden City, sustainability was a key topic. As Earl pointed out, sorghum has a negative carbon footprint. And during times of drought, as this last season brought, location diversity has been important. Nu Life brings in grain from an area spanning Nebraska to Texas, so last year, when Nu Life lost 6,000 acres of sorghum due to drought, they were still able to deliver products to their customers.
Earl was also quick to point out that while Nu Life operates in national and international markets, they also play a key role in contributing to the local economy. Scott County has the second highest per capita income in the state, only behind Johnson County, largely thanks to the kind of entrepreneurship that Nu Life embodies. And as a small county and city, the region depends on these entrepreneurial efforts in order to thrive.
After finishing at Nu Life, the class headed up the road to the Spencer Flight and Education Center just outside of Scott City for lunch and the final presentation of the day. The Center has the only flight simulator between Wichita and Denver, and is largely funded through tax credits. Liz Vulgamore, the volunteer administrator who helps run the Center (there are no full-time staff, as a 501(c)3 nonprofit), told the story of the Spencer family, who died in a tragic plane crash in 2011, and how the accident spurred the creation of the Center.
As Liz explained, Scott city has a very active aviation community, with many people opting to use planes to commute in the region. With such an active community, the Spencer Center provides a key component in the health and usage of the regional airport. The Center allows for people to both earn their pilot’s license, which involves around 60 hours of training, as well as log training hours to keep current on their existing licenses.
After the presentation and lunch concluded, Class XVI departed for home, until reconvening on December 7th in Goodland.
