BY NANCY COTTEN HIRST
Contributing Editor, Delta Business Journal

Kenneth Brown Hood, the newly elected president of the Delta Council, hardly needs an introduction to anyone involved in agriculture or agribusiness in the Delta.  For years he has contributed his time and expertise to agricultural organizations, focusing primarily on those centered around cotton production.  Through these organizations and the many awards and honors bestowed upon him as a result of his efforts, Hood is well-known throughout the industry, both locally and nationally.
Hood values the friendships and relationships that have developed as a result of these efforts and appreciates the opportunity to renew them at the many conferences and seminars that he attends each year.  He laughingly says that these trips serve as his recreation, since he has little time for any other.
"I used to hunt, but I would get out there and worry about what needed to be done somewhere, so it quit being fun," he says.  "My heart is in production agriculture.  I love hands-on farming, so these trips allow me to combine business and pleasure.  I'm always learning more, and the friends that you develop, you never forget.  My wife (the former Betty Ann Johns) goes with me.  I drag her all over the United States and she helps me a lot."
Hood has been active in the Delta Council for years, so he takes over the reins as a knowledgeable and enthusiastic supporter.  "The Delta Council helped keep me in the business,"  "It has had a tremendous impact on farm policy over the years, which has helped not only me ,but farmers all over the country.  I just hope I can return some of the benefit that I've had to the membership."
When asked about his agenda for the year, Hood says     he wants to focus on two things: communications with the membership - getting their input - and walking through any problems.  "We want to see what things can be accomplished and which ones can't.  Then we need to put things in priority.  Of course, all the things we want to work on can't happen in one year's time.  I just look forward to focusing on new things.  There are a lot of changes occurring, and we want to see these changes as an asset, something to build on, rather than concentrating on the problem side," Hood explains.
"For instance, we are losing our infrastructure in the Delta.  We need to build back, whether it be highways, legislation to enhance productivity, education and development of the workforce, or economic development.  The Delta Council is involved in all these areas," Hood continues.  "A good example is that we've had a half-a-million-acre swing in cotton acreage - from 1,431,000 acres in 1995 down to 935,000 acres in 1998.
"When that happens, we lose cotton gins, warehouses, oil mills - the infrastructure - and that's hard to recapture.  The employees get hurt.  We need to seek ways to provide employment opportunities.  We need to enhance our educational institutions and utilize them in this area.  We have excellent existing institutions, so we can retrain our people with assets that are already here.
"We can't prevent these kinds of changes, so we need to learn to read what's going on and move to create other industries to move into," Hood adds.  "It can be other agricultural industries or other industries entirely, but whichever it is, it's all technological now.  Unless we start moving forward today, we won't have the manpower for precision agriculture or for any other industry."
"Precision agriculture will be paramount in everybody's planning," he predicts, "and just like other industry, more sophisticated equipment takes better trained employees.  We need skilled workers for agriculture and for other types of economic development.  The Delta Council works in all areas of economic development.  How do we circumvent loss of infrastructure with new development?  These are some of the things we'll look at.
"In legislation, we'll be looking at what needs to be refined, redesigned or changed.  For instance, we need input on the World Trade Organization agreements.  Will we have real export opportunities or will it hurt us?  If it hurts us, how can we circumvent that with something positive?  Other things we'll look at the same way are the Caribbean Basin Trade Initiative and the Most Favored Nation status for China.  We have a plate full to look at and decipher.  I look forward to it.  The Delta Council pulls together all the excellent ideas that the membership comes up with and pulls them together to improve life for people in the Delta as a whole - not just those in agriculture or agribusiness," Hood concludes.
Along with being CEO of Perthshire Farms, a partnership with his brothers,  located in Bolivar County abutting the Mississippi River, Hood is President of Hood Gin Company in Gunnison and of Hood Equipment Company, with outlets in Batesville and Bruce, MS Cotton is his major crop, and he also produces soybeans, peanuts, grain sorghum, and wheat.  "This is my 41st crop," he says.  "I started in 1960.  At the beginning of my junior year (at Mississippi State University), I had the opportunity to rent some land.  I got started with the help of Mr. Maury Knowlton.  He was President of the Delta Council in 1951-52.  It was his land, and he was ready to retire.  I was ready to leave school and come farm the land, but my dad wouldn't hear of it.  So Mr. Knowlton said his farm manager wasn't quite ready to retire and could    help for a couple of years.  I came home every weekend, but I couldn't have done it without his help.  We're almost family.  Well, there's really no almost to it.  We are family.  I even live in the home he built."
Griffin Norquist, CEO of the Bank of Yazoo City, comments that Hood's sentiments about Knowlton are typical of him.  "He has an incredible bond with his family and an incredible bond back into the community.  The whole family is like that.  They see the total picture, not just their own interests,"  Norquist says.  "When you meet him and his wife you realize how deep the water is.  There is something about the two of them together - an aura about the depth of their relationship - with each other, the family and the community.  They are a remarkable couple.  The depth is sincere and so is their commitment to the community.  You always know that they will do what is right."
These are sentiments held by a number of people throughout the Delta who know the Hoods.  This sense of commitment is what stands behind the extensive list of presidencies, board memberships and chairmanships, other offices and innumerable awards Hood holds.  He has been a  "something" of the year no less than twelve times over the same number of years.  Everyone who knows him is delighted that his sense of commitment has led him to the Presidency of the Delta Council.  It is a beneficial way to start a new century of agricultural and economic development.