By TERENCE CORRIGAN

Tennessee Correspondent

VANNATTA, Tenn. — Tracy Vannatta is the seventh generation of his family to run their farm in the unincorporated community that bears his family name. The Vannattas established the farm here in 1850.

The line of succession was James, George, William, Pete, Bobby, and now Tracy. Most family farm owners today are in their sixth decade of life, nearing retirement age, with no one in line to continue farming. This is not the case with the Vannatta family. Tracy’s two sons, Tyler and Drew, are planning to take over as Tracy eases out.

As the years have passed, the family have adapted, making changes as needed to survive and, as it turns out, even prosper. A half-century ago, the Vannatta farm was 600-700 acres and the family started adding to their holdings. Over the years, as neighboring farmers got older and began to retire, they bought more of that acreage.

Today the farm has 1,500 acres in crops, some of the land owned outright, some leased.

In some cases, the Vannattas bought land to stave off encroachment of residential development. In one instance six years ago, the threat arose right across the road from the main farmstead (Bobby’s home). A developer was planning to buy a prime piece of ground and put in a road connecting the Unionville-Deason Road to Eady Road and sell off lots for homes.

“My dad (Bobby) asked me, ‘What do you think?’” Tracy said. “I said, ‘Well, would you rather wake up one morning and see a bulldozer cutting a new road across from the front of your house, or wake up owing $1 million?’” The Vannattas bought the land.

When the farm was founded, 11 years before the Civil War, the family started out like most farms of that time as a subsistence operation. They grew or raised almost everything they needed: chicken, sheep, pigs, cows, and horses. In the early days, the Vannattas grew enough corn to feed their livestock with some left over to convert to a liquid asset: Whiskey.

In the early 1930s the Vannattas had the first cotton gin in their part of the county. In the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s they grew crimson clover. In the 1950s they established a dairy that continued operating into the ‘90s.

In September 1987, recognizing the dwindling prospects of the dairy business, especially the smaller, family-owned operations, the Vannattas got into the chicken business. “We knew dairy was going to fade out,” Tracy explained. “We were looking for another source of income to take up the slack.”

At one time, the Vannattas had a dozen chicken barns, providing the Tyson packing plant in Shelbyville. Today, that aspect of their farm is down to five barns. Rather than invest $450,000 each for new state-of-the-art chicken barns, Tracy and his sons have begun divining – trying to predict what crops will pan out in the coming years.

Tracy sees the best chance for future success in marketing food directly to consumers. It’s been observed that farm profits are low because farmers buy their supplies and equipment at retail and sell their products at wholesale, with middlemen taking profits on both ends of the equation.

“We’re eventually going to be landlocked, and land’s too expensive,” he said. “We’ve got to figure out how to up the income – melons or strawberries or direct sale of beef to the consumer.”

A new direction

The Vannattas first move to adapt was planting 10 acres in hemp (16,000 plants) this year to be sold for cannabidiol oil. CBD oil is being used to treat anxiety disorders and to ease pain; how much the Vannattas can sell it for, the price per pound, depends on how rich the plants are in the oil. Tracy figures their plants are averaging a pound each, but he won’t know until it’s time to harvest.

The shuttered chicken barns have turned out to be an asset for the hemp operation. They are well-ventilated and are being repurposed as drying sheds for the crop.

Experience and knowledge, combined with perfect weather, have the Vannattas on course for a record harvest year. In his first corn harvest of the year his yield was 205 bushels per acre. Tracy thinks they are on track for an average yield of more than 200 bushels per acre, a record for their farm.

Last year’s winter wheat – the on-farm average – was 95 bushels per acre. “That’s really good no matter what state you’re in,” he noted.

The Vannattas have wealth in their soil, high-quality dirt, which he describes as “silty loam,” highly prized by crop growers. They have also shorn up their bottom line by converting to no-till, which, Tracy quipped, “saves soil and saves oil.

“We used to plow in the fall, disc three times in the spring, then run over the fields with a cultimulcher and a planter,” he said. They made five passes over the ground just to get a crop planted. With no-till techniques, it takes just one pass to plant.

Political considerations

Although the storyline in national media is that President Trump’s tariff/trade war with China is threatening farmers, Tracy thinks the USDA’s Market Facilitation Program has covered most of the losses farmers have been hit with from the dispute. The federal government injected $14.5 billion for direct payments to farmers to ease the pain this year alone.

“It’s getting us right back to where the market would be if we had not had the tariffs,” Tracy said. “It’s really been pretty smooth.”

As the demand for housing increases in Bedford County, the rising price of land and cultural conflicts interfere with farm life. People who move into a farming community often object to the smells from farming. When a farmer spreads out chicken manure, his formerly urban neighbors often complain about the unexpected and unpleasant olfactory assault.

“I don’t like it either. It stinks,” Tracy said. “But it’s got to go somewhere.”

The cultural encroachment goes both ways, even with something as simple as the placement of a mailbox. In Middle Tennessee, it’s popular to encase new mailboxes in brick monoliths.

“They’ve all got these huge brick mailboxes right on the edge of the road,” Tracy explained, and then “here I come with the tractor.” When he encounters one of these mailboxes and there’s oncoming traffic, he is faced with a dilemma: “Do I stop? Do I have time to go around?

“Mailboxes, one foot from the road; that’s the way it is in the city. Out here you can tell the folks that know farming because their mailbox will be at least three feet back from the road.”

TRACY VANNATTA with his fiancée, Vida Haynes, in a soybean field. Forrest the farm dog stands with them.

AT THE HELM of his John Deere “office” – a combine – during harvest season is Tennessee farmer Tracy Vannatta.

(Terence Corrigan photos)