America's Best Young Farmers and Ranchers

Andrew Eddie looks for value in real time. Telemetry data from his Hesston big square balers tell him that the last bale had 50 flakes in it. But, it should have been 40. That 3- x 4- x 8-foot bale weighed 1,100 pounds. It should have been 1,300. "If you pay attention to those numbers, you can make minor changes," he says. The harvest will run more efficiently, and in the end, the farm nets a better-quality product.

"That data gives me a way to be hands on all day long," Andrew says. "How efficient we are? What are the crops telling me? We go through each of these steps, and our buyers are going to want to buy our product year in and year out, because they know what they are getting. We've built this business on quality, with pride in consistency," he adds. "Consistency is good marketing."

Think of it as stress-testing the business. "You learn more when you take yourself out of your comfort zone. Make yourself think different," Andrew says. "Look at different areas of your operation. Try something new. Experiment a little. Diversify enough without taking too much risk. Try to run the business better today. Use the data. It's all a huge benefit to your operation."

Eddie, 31, from Moses Lake, Washington, is a forage grower and operations manager, working about 1,200 acres of rocky soils in the Columbia Basin. The basin is 250,000 square miles of arid lowland covering the south-central portion of Washington, eastern Oregon and a sliver of northern Nevada. Water is an abundant resource provided by the Columbia Basin Project, the largest water reclamation projection in the U.S. It supplies water to 670,000 acres in east-central Washington and to the center pivots of Andrew's and his father, Brian's, RNH Farms.

IT'S IN THE NAME

Along with the acreage, RNH Farms has a sizable custom-farming business focused on putting up alfalfa and bluegrass straw. It produces alfalfa (8 to 9 tons per acre, 4 cuttings per year), timothy (6.5 to 7 tons, 2 cuttings per year) and orchardgrass (6.5 tons, 3 cuttings per year). There is also a bit of corn, about 105 acres, Andrew says. The stalks are grazed by a neighbor's cattle.

Funny story about RNH Farms. Andrew says it once stood for "Rocks 'n' Hay" because the ground is rocky. Amusing, but father and son soon found it communicated a notion that the farm was selling hay with rocks in it. The letters RNH, only, appear now to have resolved any apprehension about the quality of the farm's production.

Andrew is the second generation of an operation that traces its roots back to his grandfather, Jamie. He owned a couple hundred acres but also did time as a lumberjack, a fireman and quality control specialist. Farming never topped his resume.

Andrew and his father see themselves in transition. Brian wants to transition out of the day-to-day farming operation, as much as a farmer can, and focus on "living off the land," more specifically, collecting income earned off land rent from the farming entity.

FROM RODENTS TO COWS

Most of RNH Farms forage and grass is compressed, containerized and delivered to end users in China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea to feed a Noah's Ark assortment of animals -- gerbils, guinea pigs, rabbits, goats, camels and cows. "Most anything you can think of," Andrew says.

Alfalfa stands are productive for four to five years. Grass lasts three or four years, although one timothy field is now on year 15. Forage is gentle on the terrain. "We don't want to work the ground much. Work the dirt and pick the rocks," Andrew says.

He did not see farming as a career as he neared high school graduation. "Growing up on the farm, sometimes you get tired working with family, to be honest. The jobs can be hard. Working with family can be even harder."

Andrew told his dad he was leaving to do his own thing. His own thing earned him a journalism and advertising degree from the University of Oregon to do -- what? The job field wasn't screaming for warm bodies.

There was the farm, and Andrew soon reconsidered his original decision. "Why did I leave?" he remembers asking himself. "Yeah, you work every day. But, you see progress every day. You cut it. You bale it. And, it's growing again. Every year, you get chances. You get a second [cutting] or a third chance, fourth chance. First crop did not grow well. But, I have a second crop or third crop. By the end of the year, you're hoping the fourth crop goes well. This was a challenge that looped me back in."

FIND THE DOERS

That was 2014, and Andrew quickly connected to the forage community. He has been an eight-year member of the Washington State Hay Growers Association and today is its president. He also is involved in the National Alfalfa and Forage Alliance.

Andrew has built a community of confidants. "My inspirations are the doers," he says. "Those in the industry that are constantly striving to be better and better, day in and day out. These individuals test the status quo and are constantly improving to build better and more economically sound businesses."

Andrew has found one stream of self-improvement by his investment in TEPAP (The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers), operated by Texas A&M University. "This program is one of the best in the nation to attend with hundreds of top-level ag producers from a variety of businesses," he says. "It is giving us a financial analysis of our operation -- financial trend analysis looks at the functioning of the business overall and makes me a more well-rounded manager."

Andrew explains: "We've started to pay more attention to our breakevens, to our input [costs] down to the dime. Here's what we have. Here's what we need to get out of the crop. Let's figure out how to get there," he says. "We are getting down-to-the-minute details. If we limit how many passes we make in the field, how many miles we drive down the road, how much fuel we are burning, how much more efficient we are, then how much more profitable we are."

BOSS FOR A DAY

Employee management is evolving, as well. Andrew pushes responsibilities down to his employees. For example, "boss for a day."

"A crew member is boss for a day. Making decisions -- bale, rake or cut? They become more confident in what they are doing." It's a management approach giving the crew skin in the game. "It's a mentality. How do we improve our business every day? In our operations, practices [like boss for a day] pay huge dividends as employees begin to understand the decisions being made, both from a financial and operational standpoint," Andrew says.

Visitors to RNH Farms often quiz him about the future. So, Andrew, what about it?

"I hope to still have a job in 10 years," he says, sarcasm noted. "I don't think the robots will completely take over. If I see Will Smith from 'I, Robot,' we might have a problem, though.

"But, we've evolved," he continues. "We've upgraded our equipment. We are more business savvy and more well-rounded. We have the production part and agronomy part [worked out]. Overall, we are more proficient in what we are doing in the office and out in the field, combining those two -- understanding data, better communication, production efficiencies, logistics, all of that. If we can just keep moving forward progressively, that's going to be the biggest thing."

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