In the turbulent world of farming, many farmers in the Delta have come and
gone. Farming has become a brutal business, and this year farmers
experienced another bad year which makes three off years in a row.  In
coffee shops and other places around the Delta where farmers gather, much of
the talk centers around what the future will hold for their industry. One
farmer in Inverness, who is well versed in farming who has weathered many
storms, remains optimistic about the future of his calling and, in fact, has
worked hard to ensure that the future of the American farmer is bright. That
person is Bruce Brumfield.
"Farming has changed greatly over the years," says Brumfield. "It is much
harder than it used to be. However, there is still a lot of opportunity in
farming."
Brumfield is one of this country's most knowledgeable and sought after
advisers on farm policy. His insights and ideas have helped to shape farm
legislation and even in bad times, Brumfield remains optimistic about the
future of the industry.
"Times are tough no doubt about it," says Brumfield from his home in
Inverness. "However, I'm always the eternal optimist. I believe that things
will improve and you just almost have to truly believe this to stay in it.
We farmers tend to believe that next year will be the big year and, really,
you have to almost look at it like this."
Born and raised in the southern part of Sunflower County, Brumfield has
spent his life in the ag industry where he grew up working with his father
on their family farm. After high school, he attended and received a degree
in agriculture from Mississippi State University and returned home to farm
with his father after a stint in the military. For the past 30 years,
Brumfield has been farming with his brother-in-law, who is also his partner,
Ed Parker.
 During his business career Brumfield has served as a past president of
Delta Council and remains active in the organization today. He is the
Chairman of the Board of the Indianola based Community Bank which is heavily
involved in agricultural lending. He was also instrumental in establishing
Delta Western­one of the Delta's leading catfish feed mills. Other board
positions beside Delta Western include: Duncan Gin, Delta Pride Processors,
StaplCotn, Delta Industries, and Bell, Inc. Besides his past Delta Council
position, Brumfield is also a past president of the National Cotton Council
of which he is still very active. In short, Brumfield's life has been that
of  heavy involvement in business in the Delta and although he keeps a low
profile, Brumfield is one of the Delta's strongest voices in business.
One position in which Brumfield has served with great importance is on the
21st Century Committee on Agriculture.
Developed out of the 1995 Farm Bill,  appointees have the charge of coming
up with ideas and suggestions of how to better serve the American farmer.
This February they will deliver a report to Congress advising that body on
issues such  as  whether the Freedom to Farm legislation had been a success;
how it affected farm income; and did the U.S. need farm programs in the
future and if so, what outline the programs should take. It was an important
appointment, one in which Brumfield took very seriously.
"I was appointed by Senator Cochran," says Brumfield. "It has been an
interesting group of people to work with. They represent different walks of
life and it has been very rewarding to serve on this committee. Serving in
this capacity has allowed me to be very involved in farm policy. I hope that
the report we have delivered will be of great help to the Congress when they
get ready to work on new farm programs."
Farm policy has never been far from Brumfield's thoughts as he has seen
farming take many turns during his farming life. This past year was another
hard year for farmers. Today, many say that persistence and prayer are two
of the main ingredients needed to survive. However, despite all of the
problems, Brumfield continues to be optimistic about the future although he
quickly states that farming is not for everyone.
Reflecting on what took place this past year, and what the future will hold,
Brumfield says that some of the anxiety was lifted recently due to emergency
farm legislation.
"Going into 2000, farmers already knew that they were going to have
additional marketing loss assistance similar to 1999," says Brumfield. "Into
the crop year, we still experienced commodity prices that were very
disappointing at the beginning of the year and throughout the year. The crop
started very favorably until around the first of July. After this, crop
conditions deteriorated because of the unusual heat and dry weather.
Irrigated crops continued to make progress but dry-land crops did not. Crop
prices have continued to not show much improvement; however cotton on the
New York Board has improved some and the world price of cotton has also
improved. All of this may sound good to the non-farmer, but as the world
cotton price has come up, this has taken the marketing loan gain away from
the cotton farmer, yet the New York cotton price has not increased enough to
make up for this. This situation has kept the farmer in limbo."
ÎTaking all of this into consideration, what is the future of farming?
"We all live on hope of market improvements," says Brumfield. "When you look
world-wide we have not had a catastrophic weather situation anywhere in the
world during the last four years and that is almost unheard of.  Normally,
somewhere in the world every three years we have some kind of catastrophic
weather situation which curtails production in that part of the world
allowing commodity prices to at least raise their heads a little. However,
we have had relatively good weather in the world for four straight years and
this has been one of the largest influences on commodity prices along with
the fact that our dollar is extremely high, which makes it hard for the U.S.
to export anything in that foreigners can't afford our products.  Also,
all of the repercussions and ramifications of the fall-out in Southeast Asia
have helped to  make commodity prices extremely cheap worldwide."
Brumfield says that farmers hoped this year to see light at the end of the
tunnel on the commodity market because farmers have been told that
world-wide consumption for the first time in several years should increase,
particularly in 2001. Worldwide production is also down and if these demand
estimates are right, according to Brumfield, farmers could see some
improvement in cotton prices in late winter or early spring if the recent
speculation that the U.S. is about to enter a recession proves to be only
speculation.
Another potential problem farmers and farm lenders face, besides prices in
the future, is the uncertainty of new farm legislation.
"I don't think that we can expect to have much more assistance out of the
government than we have had in the last several years," says Brumfield.
"Many have not been happy with the current farm bill we are operating under
and a lot of this extra income has come through emergency legislation. Of
course, no one wants to depend on this emergency legislation year after
year; however  it has been very helpful. Farming as we know it, due to
conditions beyond our control, such as a strong dollar, I can say if it had
not been for farm programs, the farming community would be in a terrible
condition.
"Farming is a capital intensive industry and in order to make the necessary
capital investments required for farmers to continue to be competitive
producers in the world, we must have long-term farm policies that allows for
stability in this industry," says Brumfield.
Despite all of the positives and negatives in farming, Brumfield says that
all businesses have positives and negatives and that while farming is
somewhat different from many businesses, it is still one with many
opportunities.
"Farming is a great life and there is still opportunity in it." says
Brumfield.  However, I can see very easily how people can become very
pessimistic about it. In many areas of the Delta, we have recently had a lot
of young people come back into farming and that is a good thing and a good
sign. But, I can understand how some of these young farmers can look around
and see people in other endeavors in other areas that may have more
opportunity.
When asked about where he sees the Delta headed in the future in general,
Brumfield says, "I think we have a very good future. If you look around,
we're  beginning to see more and more industry coming here which is very
good. I think we have many entrepreneurs doing some great things in the
Delta such as Fred Carl at Viking Range in Greenwood, which is a fine
example. One of the wonderful things about Viking is that they have kept a
lot of what they do right there in Greenwood which is outstanding.
"I also think that we are beginning to build our economic base in the
Delta," says Brumfield. "We're getting more distribution here like Dollar
General and we have catfish processing here that provides a lot of jobs. I
think that it would be a positive thing if we can improve the C & G
Railroad. We need this railroad link to the central Delta, and to me, there
are certain types of industry that you are not going to have the opportunity
to attract unless you have rail possibilities. It may be a pipe dream, but
if we could get a railway bridge across the Mississippi, that would have a
tremendous affect on the Delta. Vicksburg currently has the closest railroad
bridge besides Memphis. This would be a big opportunity for the Delta.
Hopefully, there will also be some spin-offs here in the Delta from the
Nissan project."
As the conversation comes to an end, when asked if he could sum up farming
in today's Delta, Brumfield says, "You have got to want this type of life
and this quality of life in order to trade this off a little for some type
of economic opportunity elsewhere. Because I can tell you that there are
other economic opportunities that might exceed farming. Farming is different
today than it was yesterday, but it is still very rewarding in many, many
ways and despite what you read and hear, it is a great life and there is
still a great deal of opportunity."