There's a saying in Arkansas that if you don't like the weather, just wait around a few minutes and it will change.

And though many people use that with a lighthearted comedy, feel behind it, it can also be quite detrimental to farmers because that quick change in weather can be the make or break in their yield that year.

I'm Lauren McCullough and on this episode of Good Roots, we're talking all things weather and how it affects farmers in the natural state.

You have sweet corn this year.

So what's for dinner?

My name is Hallie Shoffner.

I'm the CEO of SFR seed.

We are a 1500 acre soybean corn, rice and wheat farm.

I am a 6th generation farmer.

My dad started farming when he was ten.

I also started working on the farm when I was ten.

I loved growing up on the farm.

It was a it was a huge part of life and it was a unique.

Because there aren't that many of us right.

There's something really satisfying about putting a crop in and getting it out.

I mean, it's a very visual satisfaction.

I think one of the best things is my kid who is totally obsessed with farming.

I mean his first word was tractor.

He just got a combine that is a replica of the one that I have.

And so it's a baby combine and all large equipment is Mommy, Mommy tractor and Mommy combines.

So I take a lot of pride.

In how much he loves it?

So I watched my parents farm for over 30 years before I took over as the principal operator and.

You know weather is always a preoccupation.

When I was a kid my dad watched had a little TV in the kitchen and my dad watched The Weather Channel every single morning.

Wave forming works is you are cognizant that there will be bad years right.

There will be weather events that will hurt.

Your harvest will hurt your yields and you want to save money in the good years.

So you're building equity to kind of get you through these bad years.

But when there's extreme weather and it's happening more and more, then you're having a harder time building the equity to get you through those bad years.

You don't have enough of the good ones to get you through bad.

In 2018 we had a drought during planting and we had torrential rains at harvest and it really affected the quality of the crop all across the state.

2019 was extreme flooding during spring and fall.

2020 was actually pretty much everything that I mean.

That was the year of the wildfires.

The bad hurricanes.

Last year it was a huge drought.

I mean, we didn't get rain for like 60 days.

Last spring to Shea County was hit with 19 inches of rain in less than 48 hours, leading to a devastating loss for the farmers in the area.

This is our brand of the field here.

This is one of our bean fields.

This water is barely moving.

We've got a pretty big loss here.

It's going to be pretty bad.

Do you see any significant trends over the past decade or even recently that could impact the future of agriculture?

I think we see a lot of trends.

Unfortunately, many of them are somewhat alarming.

Our temperatures average about 3.6 degrees warmer than where they did about a few decades ago to pretty small increase.

Maybe you might think that, but really, 3.6 degrees is quite a quite a jump.

The long term implications of that can't be underestimated.

Look at Tornado Alley.

You say you say that term, and you're often thinking Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa.

Well, that's still technically true data over the last 20 years really suggests it's sending a very strong signal that that Tornado Alley, what we traditionally know it as, is actually shifted further east.

It includes a good chunk of Arkansas.

It's it's happening.

It's real, not only re paying the price for it then, nationwide we're paying the price for it here in Arkansas.

At the Miles Farm in Magee, Matt and his son Lane are using technology to collect data to help protect themselves and other farmers from destructive weather events.

They're also installing a new pattern tile drainage system for healthier soil and hopefully larger crop yields.

One of the most challenging aspects for us on weather is flooding.

This field last year and the last part of June.

You know we got 19 inches of rain just a mile north of us in 48 hours, destroyed thousands and thousands of acres of crops that water come down here.

And when it can't get it down South, it's got to come back through all these dishes and flood these fields.

We we partnered with Advanced Drainage Systems and tried to come up with a way to pattern tile this field.

Now that's something that, to my knowledge, hadn't been done in Arkansas before.

If it has, it's been very limited amount.

We put a pumping station into our well it will.

It will reduce the amount of water we put on the field per acre.

Little bit.

If this works like we're planning on it working, we should be able to take care of a drought through the irrigation.

We should be able to take care of some flooding through the pattern TILE.

It could be a game changer for for the you know, the South Delta.

About 2050, we're going to not have enough food to feed the world.

That's a projection, and so we've got to make everything out of every acre we can.

So you know, trying to figure out a way around the weather.

We we recapture a lot of our water.

We we monitor our Wales.

We've got computer programs that tells us when it's cut them off preparation to work around.

The weather, the best you can.

By using historical data that's you know that's about all you can do.

We make all our sales crazy sometimes.

I mean, it's we're we're always looking to try something new.

Always looks looking to push that that envelope we're steady, adding population and and we're steady taking away front way Farm ground.

So there's you know we don't have a choice but to try to make more we pride ourselves in being.

I guess environmentalists.

I mean, we're we.

We do try to do the best we can to the land, save water.

I mean I've got two boys that that are going to grow up and hopefully maybe they want to farm one day too.

And they've got to have the same resources I had.

I have grandchildren and I want this land to be in better shape for them than it than it was for me.

And my dad was the same way.

You know, we can't do anything about the weather, but you know, we try to establish practices that will, you know, help help in the future.

I think that we are going to recognize what's happening.

I don't think that we're going to stop climate change.

I think it's too late.

I do think we can stem the tide I have like.

You know 40 years of farming ahead of me and I have to wonder, you know what am I going to do?

What is my livelihood going to look like?

And I mean I have a 3 1/2 year old.

You know, what am I leaving for him?

I want him to have the life that I did.

Major funding for good roots is provided by Arkansas Farm Bureau, Arkansas Farm Bureau advocating the interests of Arkansas's largest industry for more than 80 years.

Arkansas counts on agriculture, agriculture counts on Farm Bureau additional funding for good roots provided by the Union Pacific Foundation.