Following is an interview with Dr. Barry Pollard, owner of P&K Equipment in Oklahoma.
How much financial stress is on farm implement dealerships and will there be more consolidation?
There’s been a lot consolidation in the industry because that’s where the industry was directed. It had nothing to do really with the crops or economic conditions. That consolidation was already in effect and probably will continue to some degree over the next few years.
What do you mean the consolidation was directed?
Basically John Deere at the corporate level wanted the dealers to get large enough that they could be able to employ the highly skilled technicians that can specialize not only in the repair of your equipment but also in EPS global positioning systems and all of the sophisticated equipment that’s going in the machinery nowadays. They wanted us to get to a scale in size where we could be a more well-rounded dealership and provide all of the technical services to take care of the equipment.
Some of the locations are closing permanently, or changing hands, or being consolidated so in this market you are either a buyer or seller or you are merging until you get to the size that is sufficient to run the kind of business they feel you should be running.
John Deere recently announced layoffs. How will that impact farmers?
Most of the layoffs they announced were in South America and overseas. John Deere also just announced a major restructuring of the whole company. Probably that will not have any effect on us locally, but they are closing several of the large division offices. For example, the Dallas branch is going to be closing, it looks like, and people there will probably be transferred to the Kansas City location. There will be just two main offices for John Deere in the nation: one would be in Lenexa, Kansas, and the other would be in North Carolina. Most of the layoffs to come with that restructuring will be office jobs.
How have farm equipment sales been this past year?
A. Last year was a very good year. We had a good wheat crop and good prices for the wheat, good corn crop and good prices for the corn. A lot of people took advantage of those good prices to buy equipment that was either delivered late in 2008 or is still being delivered in 2009. We were able to have a good fall and a good winter, because of the crops from last year. This year we don’t anticipate quite as good a year with the wheat input costs being so high when the crop went in, it’s going to limit the potential for money to be made in wheat. We’ve had the drought of the winter and then the late freeze and so there have been a lot of compromises to this year’s crop. But the people who have insurance will be well compensated probably because the insurance is based on $8.77 wheat price.
Talk a bit about how your John Deere stores are getting into the wind energy business.
We got involved with a company that makes and installs 5 kilowatt turbines, and we have the exclusive contract for the Texas panhandle and Oklahoma. These are residential size systems. But we are planning to sign up with other companies so we will be able to offer everything from 5 kilowatts on up to 100 k, something for large businesses, schools or irrigation systems. That business has been real good. The return-on-investment can be realized in 5-7 years and most of these units have a lifetime of 20-30 years. After that, you’ve got free electricity. Financially it makes sense, but also it’s a movement toward considering what’s good for the planet.
You also have a purebred registered Angus and Hereford cattle operation, Pollard Farms. How have sales been this spring?
We had our annual bull sale in February, and I felt like our prices were down 15 to 20 percent compared to average. The bulls were better than they’ve ever been and the prices were considerably lower than in the past. I think that has been a trend across the country. The purebred market typically isn’t affected as much as the regular cattle market but it certainly has been affected this year. It has been affected because so many people in the purebred business do have other financial interests outside of ranching.
What about the market for your cows?
The purebred cow market follows a similar path as the bulls. The really high quality animals don’t suffer as much as the others but there’s going to be downturn in the cow market as well.
Even with cow numbers at historical low levels? No sign that cattlemen are beginning to replenish their herds?
The statistics would say they are not. But there is going to be a huge opportunity in the next year or two for people raising young females because the numbers on replacement cattle are so far down that whenever the economy picks back up, and with the proper rainfall, there is going to be a huge demand for young female cattle.
So what’s the story behind why you decided to become a people doctor rather than a veterinarian, as you originally planned?
That goes back to being at Oklahoma State University in the FarmHouse fraternity. One of my fraternity brothers was going to medical school, and two were going to vet school, and I was having a hard time deciding what to do. On a particular weekend, I went back home to Hennessey and my dad asked me to go help the veterinarian doctor a cow. We did not have very good facilities at that location. So we ran the cow in a barn and the vet had a rope, roped the cow and unfortunately he caught her. When he caught her, she proceeded to run through the overhead door, knocking it off of the railing. It fell down on top of me and the veterinarian, knocking us to the ground underneath the door. The cow disappeared with the rope, and we never saw her or the rope again. I went back to school on Monday and decided to go to medical school.
That story is a great description of why we are facing a shortage of large animal vets today. Anything we can do about that trend?
It is a problem, and I don’t think there is an easy answer for it right now. There is a need for a change. My nephew is currently in vet school and he’ll make a great veterinarian, and I wish there were a whole lot more like him wanting to pursue that occupation.
The facilities we use out here are all hydraulic chutes. The alleyways are very stout and offer a lot of safety to the guys out here working the animals. The equipment we use nowadays is so much better and safer, so the handling of the animals and the ability to care for them is safer and can be done by anybody who wants to develop that skill, whether they are male or female.
Here, we use a local vet for our purebred operation, and he does all of the semen checking on all of our bulls and does all the management of routine health. We have specialty veterinarians come in to do the flushing of the cattle and direct embryo transfer because that’s a skilled specialty type of procedure that those people do full-time.
Didn’t you start a scholarship program, OSU Medical Cowboys, to help alleviate the vet shortage?
Those scholarships are targeted toward any student with a desire to work in the medical field, period. It could be vet school, it could be medical school, obstetrics, or dental or nursing. There’s always a shortage of doctors and nurses, especially in rural areas.
The medical schools in Oklahoma City and Tulsa are set up for only so many graduates each year. Part of the problem is a lot of those people leave the state. It would be a real advantage if we could get as many people as we train to stay in the state instead of leaving the state.
You mentioned being on-call a good part of the last 27 years, the first five of those, everyday and every night. I guess most of us probably assume a brain surgeon sets his own hours. Not so?
It’s a job you can’t walk away from. It’s like running a dairy. I have patients from all over the area, including Kansas and Texas. If something happens, where else am I going to send them? It’s hard to find neurosurgeons and recruit them to places like Enid, Okla. Fortunately my partner and I are adding another partner in June of 2010. We’ve recruited a student who is now at the University of New Mexico, but he grew up at Yukon, and he wants to come back to rural Oklahoma to raise a family.
Oklahoma —
