Jordan brothers share Peanut Farmer of Year honors

Three brothers are sharing honors as the 2008 Peanut Farmer of the Year.
3J Farms is owned by Mike, Stephen and John Jordan, and peanuts occupy the lion’s share of the 2,900 acres they farm.
They put 620 acres in peanuts this year, and their average yield was 4,400 pounds per acre. Their best result this season was a field that yielded 5,600 pounds per acre.
They plant Florida 07s, the Georgia Greens and two other varieties, and irrigate 85 percent of their peanut acreage.
They say they have to depend on that strategy to help them do well in what is commonly referred to by area farmers as “Ditty’s Desert,” the area north of Highway 2 in Bascom that rain tends to shun.
The work some rented land, and some of the property they farm is their own.
Some of the land the Jordans own individually has passed down through three generations. Their parents, Pat and Veneeda Jordan passed it along to them, and had gotten it from their parents.  Mike, Steve, and John say they worked the land as children, right alongside their grandfathers, Joe Johnson and Onie Jordan. The grandparents lived within a couple miles of each other, so farming together was the natural and logical thing to do.
When the Jordan boys grew into men, they saw the wisdom in continuing the tradition. Although they do engage in some individual farming efforts, the majority of their time is spent on the joint operation.
If they disagree about a business matter, they have their own way of handling it.
“It’s real simple. We go out behind the woodshed and slug it out,” Stephen joked. “No, really, we discuss it and everybody has a say, and most of the time we come to an agreement just by talking it out.”
One thing they agree on is the benefit of farming together.
John’s wife Cindy summed it up best, echoing many of the things her husband and brothers-in-law had also mentioned.
“When you’re a family working together like this, you can always count on each other,” she said. “If one fails, the other will pick us up. All six of us have each other’s back. You can’t depend on the workforce like that, but there’s people in this family unit that will be there for me, and that means a lot.”
She said that, as the last bride to join the fold, she was a little nervous about how she’d fit in as she prepared to marry John. She needn’t have worried.
“I was the last added, and there was a lot that I felt like I had to live up to, but I was immediately welcomed, and it was just like I was one of them.  I feel like one of them, and that they’d be there for me, no matter what or how.”
The men say their wives are a vital part of the operation. Not that they go out and plant or harvest, but they keep the home fires burning bright. Although they’re all in or nearing their 40s, they all have very young children at home. Mike’s wife Rene, Stephen’s wife Milo, and John’s wife Cindy make sure the kids are safe and healthy while the brothers are out in the field making a living. The children who are old enough love to tag along with their dads as much as possible, but its the moms who provide the primary care. The men say their wives also freeze and can food, making a considerable dent in the amount they have to spend putting meals on the table. The women keep things stable at home all around, they added.
The Jordans say they’ve had a tough but rewarding year. Being named Peanut Farmer of the Year, they say, is a very satisfying accomplishment.
“It means a lot,” Steve Jordan said. “We work 24-7, and this is what we strive for. I say to people sometimes, ‘I’m not a farmer, I’m a producer.’ We strive for maximum yields, because if we’ve made a good crop, we’ll make a go of it. The award is acknowledgement from another source that we’ve put in the work and gotten results.”
John Jordan, the baby of the family, said he agreed.
“It kind of lets us know that people are noticing we’re doing a good job. We try to meet at 7:30 every morning, and it’s usually dark when it’s quitting time in the fields.”
And then, Mike Jordan said, it’s time to take care of the irrigation systems. It’s not a matter of simply turning a spigot or pushing a button, he said, and the maintenance takes time. That work is usually done at night.
The last of the three bothers to join the operation, John said he wishes he’d done it long before he did.
“We’ve been farming all our lives, and we always got along really well even as children. We have to draw a line in the sand sometimes, but we all have the same goal in mind – prospering and taking care of our families. I love the life we lead.”
This year, like in so many others, it wasn’t an easy journey to the end of a successful harvest.
“We’ve seen it all this year,” Mike Jordan said. “Worms, drought, hail…but we’ve come through it. The world out here like to have dried up last year. We even watered the pine trees in our yard to keep them from dying, trees that are really old and established and shouldn’t need water. We’ve worked real hard, and it takes all we’ve got, but to us it’s worth it all.  Fuel now is $2.42, but we saw it go to $4.64 a gallon.  We’ve seen fertilizer skyrocket, I mean big changes from one day to the next, and cotton prices have gone from .98 cents a pound in April to .39 cents right now.  I plan to be here, no matter what. I say ‘you can’t scare me, I’ve seen it all,’ and we’re still here.”
In addition to their peanuts, the Jordans planted 148 acres of cotton, 225 acres of corn, 415 acres of soybeans, 380 acres of cucumbers, and 575 acres of wheat this year.