Three generations of Missouri farmers promote soybeans

Next year will mark 50 seasons of farming for David Durham, 71, who took his father-in-law up on joining his Norborne, Missouri, row crop operation straight out of college in 1974. It was that or go home to the Bootheel and start his own operation from scratch.

Farming with the late Don Heil meant learning from him how to handle both gumbo and sandy loam soils in the Missouri River bottoms, and “learning that if you’re going to be in an industry, you need to promote it and be proud of it and volunteer your time to make that better,” David says.

For Heil, David, and now David’s son, Kyle, that industry is soybeans. David would hold down the farm while Heil traveled to promote the crop, help start the state and national soybean checkoffs, assist in founding the United Soybean Board, and more.

Later, David helped spearhead efforts to develop biodiesel production in Missouri and nationally in his industry leadership roles, while also helping start a local corn dry-mill distillery that produces 65 million gallons of ethanol and commercial alcohol annually.  

Kyle, 43, farms their 2,500 acres of soybeans and corn with his father and has picked up the leadership torch, but that wasn’t always his plan. He didn’t farm actively during high school, even as an FFA member, and after college he worked in ag public relations in Kansas City. But coming home to help with harvest in September 2003 changed everything.

“The bug bit, and I’ve been here ever since,” Kyle says 20 years later. He enjoys the wide-open spaces, adopting new technology, running their own hybrid and variety trials, raising his boys (Simeon, 15, and Elijah, 11), and, yes, promoting soybeans.

“I’m third generation lots of things,” he says. “From having been Carroll County Farm Bureau president to Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council board member to even King Soybean at our Norborne Soybean Festival. Those seeds were planted early. And that’s been the legacy and heritage we’ve cultivated over the years, and certainly hope to pass on.”

Praying for Seasonable Weather

When asked about their most memorable farming seasons, David and Kyle Durham have parallel tales to tell.

For David, it was 30 years ago during the great flood of 1993, when water from the Missouri River took all but 16 acres of the crops he had grown and surrounded his house for three months. The levee broke less than half a mile from where he was trying to combine wheat, the water eventually chasing him out of his fields as it rose.

Kyle says the harrowing flood years of 2007, 2011, and 2019 stick with him — especially that last one, when despite the best efforts of the Norborne community and statewide volunteers who sandbagged day and night, the levee broke again. Floodwaters cut his house off from the roadway and kept seeping into the basement.

What advice would they like to pass along to the next generation?

David: “Keep your eyes wide open. There are always good times and there are always tough times, and the tough will survive. So, keep a level head about it.”

Kyle: “There’s so many things that come at a farmer, and you need to quickly establish, Which of those do I have control over? Control the things you can control, and the things outside of your control shouldn’t keep you up at night. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t worry about whether we’re going to get a rain or not. After ’93, I think guys here quit praying for rain. Now we just kind of pray for ‘seasonable weather.’”