Crawfish & Bayous
by Sidnee Hill
The United States is a rich tapestry of differences in culture, history, culinary appetites, and biomes. Even within one state we can move from deep desert reds, to marshy greens, and strong greys of mountains or city-scapes. Luckily in our industry there is one thread that traverses and connects it all; a passion for production agriculture.
For our second trimester Strategy & Execution Planning meetings this May our team had the pleasure to immerse ourselves in the rich lands and culture of Arkansas. For a week our team-mate, Addison Taylor, hosted our entire group in the beautiful farmland outside of Stuttgart. For some of us it was our first opportunity to see rice levees being pulled and crawfish boiled.
While we are a remote team with members in six states, each trimester we make it a priority to gather in person. These meetings give us the opportunity to check the strategic trajectory of our company, deepen our understanding of agriculture and our industry, and provides a chance to learn more about each other.
Strategically, Scythe & Spade has hereto been focusing on perfecting our high touch- high tech services in farmland investment, farm management, consulting and due diligence. To allow us to do these we have been obsessed with getting the right people “on the bus” and in the right seats. With four high-talent hires in the last year alone, we are confident and excited about the range of talent and expertise we have gathered together. With our team now in place we have now turned our focus to driving Scythe and Spade toward our large, and somewhat audacious, goals.
Water has always, and will increasingly be, a pivotal component in assessing productive capabilities of a farm or ranch. Even in water rich states such as Arkansas, conversations about aquifer health and protection are becoming legislative priorities. In our efforts to better understand the state’s water delivery and protection efforts we visited the Bayou Meto pumping station near Scott, AR. The Bayou Meto is the first step in an extensive, and impressive, effort to pump water from the Arkansas river into canals, natural waterways, reservoir storage and (ultimately) a pipe/ditch system to deliver the water to as far as 30 miles to northeast and 50 miles south back to the Arkansas River. While still in the stages of planning and phase I construction, project managers Ed Swaim and Tony Ramick have hopes of delivering water to the first phase of the project by 2026.
After full days of strategic planning and farm tours; these meetings also provide a great time for us to let our hair down and connect (even for those of us who have no hair….) Anyone of us would tell you that our team dynamic and culture is unrivaled. Along with friends from the area we kicked everything off with a crawfish boil and rich conversation around citronella candles. Our chats were punctuated with staccato rounds of casual skeet shooting competitions, and the fire alarm from the boiled peanuts. We were introduced to fried bologna sandwiches, Mosquitoes from hell, and the surprisingly competitive nature of our GIS team with board games.
After all was said and done, we left the Razorback/Natural State exhausted and excited for these next four months. We have some unbelievable opportunities in both investment grade farmland and vertically integrated ag businesses that we will be presenting soon. Our due diligences have become even more comprehensive with interactive executive summaries that provide a dynamic view of the property. In Ag asset management we are launching new capabilities in our proprietary FarmBase technology that will put entire portfolios at the land owners’ finger tips with real-time access to all of their farm’s data, providing unparalleled insight and communication on your portfolio of properties.
