110 TOUR SOUTHEAST MISSOURI FARMS

JACKSON -- The phrases tossed about on Wednesday's farm tour wouldn't mean much to city people:

"Monsanto has been marketing the flavor-saver tomato overseas for years."

"My mutual fund dropped all its Cargill stock."

"That heifer had a rupture and we lost her two days ago."

But there weren't many city people on the Jackson Chamber of Commerce Agri-Business Tour, jointly sponsored with Cape Girardeau County Pork Producers and SEMO Cattlemen's Association. About 110 farmers and retired farmers rode on school buses to four farming businesses near Dexter and Oran.

Tour chairman Darrell Aufdenberg, who is also a member of the chamber's executive board, said the number of people participating in the annual tour varies with destinations. The group has been as far as Monsanto in St. Louis, learning about various aspects of farming.

Another organizer, livestock specialist Roger Eakins, said the tour helps promote communication.

"Some people in the city don't realize the difficulties farmers face," he said. "Also, there are different kinds of farmers on the tour. Most of these are cattle and swine farmers, and they got to see a fish and chicken operation."

In the morning, Cape Girardeau County farmers traveled to Bill Flowers' fish farm, where Flowers and his son raise catfish, hybrid bluegill, grass carp and other breeds. They sell the fish from their 200 acres of ponds to people with stock ponds and those who "grow" fish for food.

This year, Flowers will hatch 5 million catfish -- specifically channel catfish fingerlings. He oversees their growth from egg to 8-inch-long fish.

"The fish business is not all rosy," Flowers told the group. "It's hard, and it's dirty."

The chicken business isn't much easier, according to Bo Hall, Hudson Foods' grow-out manager. As part of his job, he oversees Hudson's broiler houses, where chickens grow to maturity. One group of broiler houses shelters 225,000 birds on any given day.

Even with all the advanced technology available in some parts of the chicken business, Hall said, Hudson still hires people to catch the chickens by hand, which can be quite a task.

The advanced technology he mentioned was more evident in the Hudson Foods hatchery, where eggs are protected and warmed. When chicks hatch, they are placed on a conveyor belt, sorted and then sent to the broiler houses.

In the afternoon, the farm tourists went to two farms near Oran, both with experimental projects.

Glenn Nothdurft shares his land with Southeast Missouri State University and four companies, all of whom are trying to genetically engineer various types of corn.

DuPont, for example, is trying to achieve a particular grain quality. Another company, this one out of Champagne, Ill., has more than 430 different strains of corn on Nothdurft's land.

At the Bill Holmes farm, the tourists learned how satellites help farmers.

With a grant from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency, Holmes has taken samples from various plots of ground in his field. A global positioning satellite feeds information into his farm equipment about when to add more of a certain fertilizer in a certain area.

Although not everyone on the tour could use what was learned, the participants seemed appreciative of the opportunity to go.

"I'm in the dairy business, but I want to see what else is going on," Cape Girardeau farmer Jerry Siemers said. "I'm going to check on the ventilation used in the chicken houses to see if it will work on my cows.

"You always pick up something."