View From the Cab

LANGDON, Mo. (DTN) -- No one knows for sure how the historic term "Hoosier" came to be, except that it refers to a citizen of the great state of Indiana. With that in mind, DTN View From the Cab 2015 is proud to announce the addition of its very own Hoosier, Lane Robinson of Cromwell, Indiana.

Fifty-six-year-old Lane and his wife, Jo Anne, are the fifth generation of his family to occupy their 150-year-old farmstead. While he was growing up in the '60s and '70s, Lane's mom and dad farmed, but they also worked in town to supplement that income. Lane recalls the family had "two, 50-horse tractors, that's all it was... I really had no plans to be a full-time farmer. Those were the dark days when everybody was looking for health insurance and a paycheck."

After high school, Lane went on to attend a university, but not the one Hoosier Aggies prefer. "I'm a rarity" he said, "someone from Indiana involved in ag who didn't go to Purdue (University)."

With a business degree from Indiana University, Lane never looked back. "We were headed to the bottom of the ag cycle; I was looking for a way to get off the farm. I didn't work at ag for 15 years," he told DTN. He took a variety of jobs marketing farm machinery for well-known companies like New Holland, Claas, and Versatile. "I did territory work for all of them, and ran a company store for New Holland," he said.

In 1995, the farm beckoned and Lane returned. "We only had at that point in time about 350 acres. I just started renting ground," he explained. As total acres grew to 1,500, with 450 irrigated, it was time to look for help. "I took on a farming partner who does most of the field work, Eric Strater, who had taken over his own grandfather's farm," Lane added.

In addition to traditional corn and soybeans, Lane and Eric raised seed corn and potatoes until this year when Pioneer cut back seed corn production in the area. Then, his potato buyer concentrated production nearer their processing headquarters in Michigan. "The potatoes kind of alternated with the seed corn acres. That really took the wind out of our sails," Lane told DTN. Production of those two specialty crops has been partially replaced with contracts for non-genetically modified corn and soybeans used by local poultry and egg producers.

Change may not always be comfortable, but it can be profitable. Premiums of $2 per bushel on soybeans and 20 cents on corn take some of the pain away. Corn-on-corn acres are still planted with triple-stack hybrids to keep the bugs out.

Lane embraces the inevitable by saying simply "whatever you want, we'll grow it." It is that attitude that led to one very unusual crop, and the naming of Lane's newest farm venture, Duck It Farm, LLC, because now he raises 600,000 Peking ducks per year.

Lane explains his entry into the duck business: "I bought my 10-barn complex from Maple Leaf Farms. I knew absolutely nothing, I was at zero. It was trial by fire. Maple Leaf is a very good fourth-generation company to work with. Now I'm their biggest producer."

Ducks are raised a little differently than other poultry. Seven of Lane's 10 barns have plastic floors. The other three use litter like more traditional poultry barns, mostly for a source of compost for mortality management. "We don't think the state will allow us to continue that," Lane said. That's not just because of water quality, but the danger of spreading pathogens. That's why Lane has purchased an Ecodrum composter for safer, more economical disposal. "It's one of the very few things NRCS and USDA approve of for mortality management," he said.

Plastic-floored buildings are scraped three times per week into the 1.9 million gallons of manure storage. Lane told DTN he disposes of about 3 million gallons of duck manure each year. Manure is knifed into fields with a dragline or hauled to more remote fields in trucks on about 420 permitted acres. Eight thousand to 12,000 gallons are applied per acre with an analysis of 15-10-15 per thousand gallons.

The whole thing starts with one-day-old hatchlings delivered to the farm by Maple Leaf from their hatchery 2.5 miles away. They also deliver specially formulated pelleted feed from their own pelleting plant. Hatchlings are given a high-protein ration the first 14 days followed by a very high-fat finishing ration. Barn temperature settings start out at 80 degrees Fahrenheit, reduced by 1 degree each day thereafter. Ducklings are fully feathered at 21 days. As the ducks gain their feathers and grow, they replace artificial heat in buildings with their own body heat. That's partly because duck body temperature is 110 degrees. "By the time they're mature, we have to run the exhaust fans continually or they'll blow the roof off," Lane said. A new monitoring system installed this year will allow Lane to monitor barn temperatures from wherever he is.

Mature ducks weighing about 7 pounds are finished after six weeks. Barns are all-in, all-out, with two barns shipping every week, then thoroughly cleaned prior to the arrival of the next batch.

"Ducks are nicer to be around than chickens because there's less ammonia. That's easier on equipment. The United States is the only country in the world that consumes more chickens than ducks. And they're more intelligent," Lane said. While mature chickens and turkeys are picked up and crated by hand on their way to processing, ducks are herded up chutes onto trucks much like hogs or cattle.

A six-deck duck truck holds 3,000 to 3,300 ducks.

Most ducks are processed as HOFO (head on, feet on) for Asian markets, but Maple Leaf also processes and sells products including whole duck, roast duck, duck tenders, duck appetizers, duck bacon, duck sausage, ground duck, and duck fat.

They have an online mail order business.

"There's a 90% chance those ducks you see hanging in Chinatown came from this farm. Most of our stuff is sold to the Asian market in this country and Canada. Sometimes our stuff will go overseas, and the cruise ship industry is a pretty big buyer of duck," Lane said.

Richard Oswald can be reached at Talk@dtn.com

Follow Richard Oswald on Twitter @RRoswald

(AG/CZ)

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