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Grain industry challenges for 2022 [PODCAST]

An in-depth conversation with Jeff Jones from MKC on the grain handling industry and what it's facing this year

Steven Kilger 2 Headshot

Jeff Jones, vice president of eastern operations with MKC, and Managing Editor Steven Kilger take an in-depth look at the U.S. grain industry in the first episode of the Feed & Grain Podcast.

Topics include:

  • The worker shortage in rural America
  • Worker training
  • Association memberships
  • Consolidation in the industry
  • Sustainability
  • Plus plenty of tips/advice, reminiscing, fun and more

Transcript:

Steven Kilger
Hello, my name is Steven Kilger. I'm managing editor for Feed & Grain Magazine, and you're listening to the Feed & Grain Podcast. This is our first ever episode. And I want to thank you for kind of listening along with us from the beginning. Once a month, I'll be talking to experts in the feed and grain industries, about things that are happening in the industry. So I will be talking to mill managers and grain elevator managers about what's happening at their facilities. And I'll be talking to experts in some of the leading problems that are facing the industry and what can be done about them. These are the type of conversations you might have yourself in person at a trade show. The first guest on the feeding great podcast is Jeff Jones, vice president and director of Eastern Operations for MKC. He's also incredibly involved in the grain elevator, in processing society, aka GEAPS, where he was the international president last year and currently serves as the chairman on their international board. I want to thank him so much for talking with us today. He's an all-around just a great guy to talk to and has plenty of advice for new people entering the industry, and people who want to increase their careers. We also talk a little bit about GEAPS. So let's jump right in.

We have this kind of cliche question that we used to ask it Feed & Grain during our facility visits, which I've done quite a few of so I actually dropped it from my question list. But what challenges do you feel like your facilities are facing right now? What? What kind of all your hurdles your stumbling blocks?

Jeff Jones
Yeah, it is I understand that cliche part of the question, but it is something that we have to focus on, you know, whether we're doing an interview with a magazine, or whether we're having a conversation with one of our, our colleagues, you know, next door, so labors the big one right now, I think you probably understand that as well, Steven, you've seen that, the news and, and hear those shortages and different things, not only with the pandemic, but that's been going on for a while in ag. We're big on hiring the best, we want premiere talent within MKC. And, and right now you have to fight for them. And that's not a bad thing, because it makes us MKC up our game as well. And I think we have a great opportunity for young folks to come in and, and develop themselves within the company. But I would say one of the biggest challenges right now is the labor market. There's not a lot of kids coming back home to the farm, there's not a lot of kids coming back to where they're from straight out of college and ag school too. So you're really having to put a lot of effort into the recruiting part of that to get quality talent to come back and, and be part of your organization.

Steven Kilger
It's part of a big part of its kind of the divide between rural and urban labor, and how everyone's kind of been sucked towards the cities for an opportunity, not realizing that there are some great opportunities in their own hometown.

Jeff Jones
That's a great point, because I'd like to add something to that too, you know, as we're just talking here, you don't have to be an ag person anymore in, in the elevator, or in agronomy, or the grain business per se, we just need somebody that has a positive attitude that's willing to learn and ask questions, and just come on board and have patience, humility, and learn from the ground up, I think the days of, you know, like I alluded to in the past where the kid that comes in, he knows maybe how to weld definitely the difference between soybean, corn, milo, you know that kind of that kind of individual that can get up there and grade and, and just learn it in two or three days, you don't need to be that person anymore. Technology has changed our world in such a facet that we have the opportunity to change with it to and the people that we bring on board. So I always encourage anybody, even if you've never given ag a look, it'd be something to come in and sit down and talk to us. And here's what we do, because you might fit in with your skillset that you never thought you would have been the past. So I think you bring up a good point there. And I want to add a bit on it.

Steven Kilger
Especially because I've found within the grain industry, there's a lot of ... we'd like to promote from within, right, like we like to build people up. So you don't need to have an agronomy degree, you can come in and you can learn the industry. And if you're willing to learn and to work, the industry is very happy to embrace you and help your knowledge base and help build you up to whoever you want to be within the grain industry.

Jeff Jones
Absolutely, 100%. We've as one as far as to hiring a training and development position full time, you know, along with other HR people that we have, but that's her main focus at our facilities is to train that person provide opportunities to learn and grow for somebody that might not understand exactly how to balloon fertilizer or do things like that. They don't understand potentially chemical CPP makeups and different things like that. So we're gonna do a lot of that in-house train ourselves. There's some experts and subject matter experts that are already in-house so you bet. Give somebody the opportunity to come in with just that attitude of positivity and willingness to learn that you might be a top performer pretty quick, like within our organization or somebody else.

Steven Kilger
Yeah, I've, I've never seen the industry turned down anyone who wants to advance and wants to grow.

Jeff Jones
You know, it's a great point. No, we'll take everyone you bet.

Steven Kilger
Which was very nice for me as a young editor, because everyone was always so willing to talk to me and help me learn and understood that I didn't know everything, which and some other industries, that's just not the case, they expect you to come in out of college, kind of knowing everything. Everything you should know, right?

Jeff Jones
Yeah, I think we both probably learned that real quick, right after college after? Wow, I definitely didn't learn everything that I need to know and started a position. So you bet.

Steven Kilger
So is the late has the labor shortage? Is that kind of the big area that people are talking about when you talk to other people in grain?

Jeff Jones
Yeah, there's quite honestly, you know, we're down probably 20-25 positions. Within our company, I talked to several other cooperative leaders, you know, throughout the Midwest, and, of course, through GEAPS. And I mean, that's a pretty, pretty common theme around the country. I know, there's various different ways people are trying to solve that, you know, technology becoming more efficient, kind of leading the way. But to know that's a that's a big driver right now of where we're at in the in the cooperative world of trying to find help for the future. You bet.

Steven Kilger
Yeah, I've seen some facilities make a big push towards automation, because of labor shortages, they wouldn't have necessarily gone as far as they would have, if they could, if they could have reliably just hired someone in that position.

Jeff Jones
Right now, it's been a big push within MKC as well. We believe fully automated and any new Greenfield sites is imperative for the future. We went back with some of our other older sites and retrofitted with automation. But you're right. I mean, there has to be an answer. As we talked about here, in the beginning, agriculture doesn't slow down. We did not slow down during the pandemic, farmers are still going to be out there every day working, working hard to bring the crop in, put a crop in. And we have to keep up with him. No matter if you have 20 openings or 50 openings, you have to find a way to do that automation has definitely been a been a huge plus for I think myself and a lot of folks in the same boat here.

Steven Kilger
Yeah. I'm sure. Um, I just came back from IPPE, it's the International Production and Processing Expo. Yep. So I just came back from that last week. And the, what everyone was talking about was more sustainability. Are you guys talking a lot about that?

Jeff Jones
We are yeah, you know, what MKC we have what's called our scorecard is how we measure ourselves as a company and our success and, and puts in focus where we want to, to be and kind of gives us a guiding lane to stay in for lack of a choice of better words. But now sustainability is one of those initiatives, carbons a big deal that people are talking about, you know, our agronomy leads are involved with that quite a bit. Right now, I'm actually involved with an initiative around jug recycling. You think, wow, that's, that's not a not real, glamorous type of sustainability initiative. But when you think about agronomy business, you know, even like MKC, that does, well over a million acres of application a year, there's a lot of two and a half jugs and plastic that goes through our facilities. It was mind-blowing that 1000s and 1000s of judge that we use. So I'm actually in a, an initiative with our Director of Facilities, John Brown, who were working on putting a performer together around a shredding and chipping all of that plastic, and actually being able to resell that back to a manufacturer that'll come in and reuse that, you know, if it's properly triple rinsed and taken care of, and it's a sustainability issue that I think has a lot of merit going forward. Instead of taking those to the landfill and, and just piling those up, or whatever they do with them out there. It gives us an opportunity to kind of control our destiny and be able to, to make some positive effect on all that amount of plastic that we're actually using out there. So yeah, sustainability MKC has become a really big, not just a word, it's become an issue-driven by the board and we want to put into action.

Steven Kilger
You couldn't avoid it even if you wanted to. Not anymore to me. A few people are demanding it like yeah, you're right. And your jug recycling. That's a great example, though that, you know, sustainability. It doesn't all it always seems so huge, right? When you think about like, oh, how do you make agriculture net neutral when it comes to resources? Right? That's, it's a big challenge. But it starts with little sorry. Not that I'm saying your jug program because it sounds like you have a lot involved there with your chipping it and reselling it.

Jeff Jones
It's not a moneymaker, I'll be honest with you. It's it's a, it's a breakeven at best to losing a little bit of money. But it's ultimately being able to do the right thing. With those jugs with that practice that actually serves a greater good. So that's kind of the mindset that you have to have around that as times at times as well.

Steven Kilger
Yeah, it's a journey, it's not going to be a sudden leap from where we are to where we need to be.

Jeff Jones
No, and what better entity than the American farmer, you know, in agriculture to drive that? I mean, I, I think we've been the stewards of or farmers have been the stewards of their land for many, many years and done a lot of fantastic things to be sustainable. Now, we just up that game a little bit more and help them and utilize them to continue to grow this word. Like you said, it is a journey. I mean, that was a great comment you made. Stephen. It is a journey. It's kind of a very popular word right now. But there's been a lot of things that have been taking action over the years for sustainability in agriculture. Now, we just need to kind of repurpose that thought process, in my opinion, and keep moving forward with all the great folks we have an ag to, to build on that. So

Steven Kilger
Yeah, I think so too. And well, you mentioned, you know, the American farmer, and you and I have both talked to many farmers in our career and everyone I've ever talked to, there's no denying that they want to keep their land as sustainable as they can. They are every one of them wants to pass it down to the next generation. Yeah, so we just, we people need to get help them and give them the tools and they will, I'm sure do it. So thank you. Yeah, sustainability has been on my mind a lot lately. So I had to bring that in.

Jeff Jones
No, I appreciate that. It's something we're, we're talking about on a daily basis that MKC as well.

Steven Kilger
Yeah, I mean, I think over the next couple years, we're really gonna see a lot of new suggestions and guidelines and equipment, things that will help on that process. What has kind of been the biggest change in the industry? That's happened so far? What have you noticed that's different from when you when you started?

Jeff Jones
Yeah, no, it's great. Great question. I think probably one of the biggest things that I've noticed, is a consolidation. I think, you know, that's, that's something a lot of us talk about on a pretty regular basis. In the past in Kansas, you know, but I started, there was probably 140-150 cooperatives still in the state of Kansas, you know, some of those small one location to location and some larger ones. And, you know, today, I think we're in that 70 to 80 number, so just a consolidation alone in the cooperative world. And in the vendor world, I mean, you know, there's been a lot of big conglomerates come together, your options have definitely shrank a little bit and who the players are in the market. So I think that's kind of done a couple things. It's made relevance be extremely important. In the market, I think relevance is even became more important in the last 10-11 years I've been in this business, you have to strive to be relevant in your market, to those vendors, to the farmer, and to other businesses as well. So I think consolidation is probably played the biggest part in the biggest change that I've seen in the last 10-11 years.

Steven Kilger
Yeah, I would agree with that. I've been in the industry for eight. And it seems like every week, there's a new agreement, merging agreement, deal. Yeah, something that's going through so and part of it is commercial, you know, the big ADMs and Cargills holes and bunges of the world. I mean, they're getting larger too. So with anything cooperatives, I think, are fighting that they need to merge to stay competitive and stay alive. Yeah.

Jeff Jones
I mean, the ABCDs are fantastic. The, you know, that's, that's part of our, our ag history, by all means. But for us as a cooperative the state of Kansas, we have to be relevant to our farmers, and we have to make sure that there's growth and success for them for the future. And that's, that's the important part of being relevant. I mean, you have to be able to bring top notch programs and opportunities for them in an ever shrinking world of vendors and things like that. So I appreciate that comment. Because there's no truer comment that, you know, in a cooperative, a member owned business that I've worked directly for a farmer, I need to make sure that we're relevant, and we're doing the thing that's going to keep this cooperative here for years to come and be successful. So I appreciate you realizing that as well.

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