With its roots in Canada, Silent Shade Planting Company continues to grow, evolve and make a difference in the agriculture world. The Jack family, father Willard and mom Laura Lee left their native Ontario, Canada and headed south, with son Greg and daughter Stacie in tow, to Humphreys County. The Jacks bought the existing Silent Shade farm, and with his background in farming vegetables north of the border, made a commitment in row crops down South. Their third child, Jeremy, was born in the States and these days has moved up the ladder to co-run the farm with his wife, Elizabeth, and his sister. Older brother, Greg, took his green thumb to Florida to work in the golf industry. The farm now extends into neighboring Holmes and Leflore counties but has a huge Delta imprint. A separate business under the Silent Shade umbrella is Willard Jack Trucking Company, which hauls everything the farm needs and works locally for other farmers and businesses throughout the year. The family affair at Silent Shade recently culminated in the operation winning Farm Journal’s 2023 Top Producer of the Year Award. The family was honored during an award presentation in Nashville in January. Employing nearly two dozen local folks, Silent Shade continues to grow and meet the challenges in the agriculture industry. “One of the biggest challenges we’re facing right now is inflation – its hitting us on all sides – inputs, labor prices, fertilizer prices, cost of equipment. It’s one of those things, can you get it? And if you can get it, what is it going to cost? Will it be 25% in price or 150%? Some of those thigs are getting pretty expensive for everything we touch,” Jack said. “Interest rates are also very important to us as we borrow money for equipment. Margin protection is what we’re looking for. We’ve got good prices (for commodities) but our margins are shrinking. We just don’t have a lot of wiggle room.”The “international” farmers have to keep an eye on the international landscape, as all farmers do these days. “A lot of things with the war in Ukraine with Russia, there’s a lot of variables that come into what we do,” Jack explained. “A lot of our fertilizer comes out of Russia. If they quit shipping fertilizer and fuel, our costs skyrocket. On our inputs its similar to some of our crops. We watch the markets every day to see what our commodities are. We watch where fertilizer is being traded in ports across the world and we make a decision on when to buy ours. How you buy your inputs can make the difference on making money or losing money.”Farmers borrow and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and make it all back and hopefully break even.“Someone once told me they know there’s a lot of money in farming because they’ve put a lot of it in there,” he said laughing. “You look at the prices and it’s easy to think farmers are printing money but a lot goes to the price of inputs.”The way farmers fight that challenge is to add acreage. “Farms have had to grow in size to cover overhead and the cost of machinery. The machinery is more efficient so you need more acres to cover the cost,” he said. Automation is moving quickly and helping farmers do more with less. And with less qualified help available, farmers are forced to work their acres with less hands. “We’re not losing jobs. We’re being forced this way because we cannot find the people to do the jobs. We have less people so we’re being moved that direction. The less maintenance you do with equipment or the more automation you can have with equipment, the easier the job gets and the more productive you can be.”He gave an example with his high-speed planter. “We can plant up to 10 miles per hour but with the old planter, we’re planting at four-and-a-half miles per hour. If you can go twice as fast you can get out there and get the job done more quickly. Even though we’re having less jobs, we’re having better jobs for those who want them.”Another high-tech implement is the “see and spray” sprayer. With technology that can tell the difference between a weed and a commodity, the sprayer pinpoints the weed to kill, making it an efficient piece of machinery. “What I found out is that at 12 miles an hour it can see a weed the size of a pencil eraser and they can tell the difference between that weed and a soybean plant next to it and it doesn’t spray the soybean,” he said. “It’s a self-propelled sprayer that John Deere has come out with. All these tools allow us to have more flexibility.”The farm added a corn dryer to help at harvest.“We harvest the corn a little bit earlier to get it out of the way before we start our rice and our beans. At one time we were trying to harvest rice, beans and corn all at the same time and that was a nightmare. We put the corn dryer in and it helps stretch out the harvest,” he said. Jeremy and his staff continue to build the farm and bring in folks who want to do more than just “chop cotton.”“We really want to find someone who enjoys working and wants to have a better life. Not just a regular job. We try to map out a path for them to move up in the organization and move around. The more productive they can be, the more money they are worth every day,” he said.Currently, there are five farm managers who specialize in different parts of the operation. Each of those has a person under them and then Jack brings in workers from South Africa under the H2A program.“I’d rather have more local guys but it’s really hard to find them.”The farm acres go to soybeans, corn, cotton and rice. They have put in peanuts but the market went south and they got back out. And even as Humphreys County is the Catfish Capital of the World, farming them didn’t appeal to the patriarch when he came south. “When my father moved down this direction, he had the opportunity to get into catfish. He had been in livestock and grew vegetables. But the idea of staying up all night and not being able to see how many fish are out there was an uneasy feeling for him and he stayed clear of it. His background in vegetables helped him grow all these crops. I think it was a good move,” he said. The trucking business handles the Silent Shade harvest and also “brings our own lime and fertilizers. Today, we’re hauling some seed to distribution points for Simplot, Nutrien, Green Point Ag and we’ve got another truck hauling dry fertilizer. We have one hauling liquid fertilizer. And we moved dirt for another Dollar General because every town needs another Dollar General (laughing). We’re really diverse with our trucking company so if anyone needs anything in this area, we try to haul it for them.”The trucking business has eight truck drivers and a manager and is always looking for more qualified personnel as well. When Jack isn’t busy with his hands in the dirt, he enjoys traveling with his wife and two kids, ages seven and five. And he tries to take them on farm errands and such to help them learn the business.“I’m not saying I’m the world’s best father but I’m trying to teach them life lessons and expand their horizons. If I can show them everything there is, then one day they might want to farm or they might not. My goal in life is to make sure they have manners and a work ethic so whatever they want to do with it, they can do.”He's been blessed that his mom and dad decided to move to the Delta and the youngest Jack still doesn’t look at what he does as a job. “It’s a fun job for me. I get to work with my family but I’ve never worked a day in my life, I just go and play on the playground every day,” he said.
