Proud to be a Farmer: Farming requires a lot of planning

BULLOCH COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - A father and son team who farm Bulloch, Candler, and Evans counties say they face as much work outside the tractor as they do behind the wheel.

Ricky Nevil and his son Lehman say they spend as much time planning as they do planting. From commodity prices to weather forecasts, they use that info to raise more than three thousand acres of peanuts and cotton.

“There’s a lot of reward in seeing that peanut that was planted May 5 and comes out of the ground October 5 and seeing what your yield is,” Lehman Nevil said.

“Peanuts are more profitable than cotton. Just year in and year out, they are more profitable than cotton,” Ricky Nevil said.

Family farms these days study bottom lines more so than any before them. They plant oats in the off season as a cover crop to protect fields from erosion and rotate between cash crops.

You can see bolls and stems from the cotton grown in this field last year. They will plant cotton here this year. The Nevils say most people don’t realize how deliberate they are about what’s planted where and when.

At 21, Lehman says he can’t imagine doing anything else.

“In talking to my friends, there has to be a lot of explanation, but they catch on,” Lehman Nevil said.

His dad says farmers must almost feel a calling to stick with agriculture and keep things going.

“My uncle told me one time if you’re in this for the money, you’ll never make it. If you’re in it because you love it, you’ll make a living,” Ricky Nevil said.

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