A farm owned by a man who invented a way to heat chicken houses using straw and a pet food plant that uses 3.5 million pounds of wheat flower a month – those were the two stops in this area for those taking Roy Blunt's 12th annual agricultural tour on Tuesday.

U.S. Rep Blunt showcased the Bruce Youngblood farm on Missouri Highway 59 south of Diamond and the Hampshire Pet Products plant in the Crossroads Industrial Complex in Joplin.

Hot chickens
Bruce Youngblood and his brother, Doug Youngblood had a developing problem three years ago - the cost to keep one flock of chickens warm in his six chicken houses for the 39 days it took them to mature cost him between $17,000 and $18,000, a cost that would likely drive him out of business if it continued.

With the cost of the natural gas he used to heat those houses continuing to rise, the brothers turned to the Internet for an alternative way to heat the chickens and stay in business.
They found an article about a farmer in Canada who used straw to produce heat and decided to see if that could help them.

With that, B&D Heating, a company selling furnaces that burn bales of straw, was born and Bruce Youngblood said it was born out of necessity.

The brothers built their first furnace and used it for a year, then sold it and built another with improvements based on what they learned. That second furnace is still being used to heat Bruce Youngblood's six chicken houses and Doug Youngblood just finished the fifth furnace they've built and it was standing on a trailer ready for shipment to a farm in McDonald County.
Bruce Youngblood said other poultry growers across the country face ruin without an alternative to fossil fuels.

"If they don't have some source of heat beyond the propane or natural gas, some of them are not going to make it," Youngblood said. "The grower I talked to today at noon said he was still paying off his gas bills from last winter, and he had contracted gas at $1.79 last winter and now its $2.19. If they are still paying off last year's gas bill, how are they going to get through this winter?"

Blunt said he included the Youngblood farm on his tour because of the innovation the brothers have shown.

"Of the dozen stops we've done this year a handful of them have related to either energy or recycling," Blunt said. "I think that's largely driven by the fact that just like every family has been impacted by these energy costs, family farms, family businesses have been impacted as well. If you're going to stay in this business, you have to figure out a way to minimize your input costs as much as you can or people at the store end of this will not buy chickens if it gets so expensive they can't buy it."

Don Steen, director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, was one of the approximately 75 people who took Blunt's tour. He's also a turkey grower in northeast Missouri who knows something about the pain of trying to keep birds warm. He said the company he raises turkeys for has stepped up and is helping with the cost of propane, but not all companies are so helpful.

"Alternative-type heating for chicken houses and turkey houses is so important," Steen said. "It's a big cost, the major cost for us in growing a flock of turkeys. They have to be heated to 92 to 95 degrees no matter what the temperature is out side and that requires a lot of additional heat, so alternative heat, no matter what form it takes is big. We used to burn wood down home and we've quit that because of fire problems. This is a great idea."

Wheat and gasoline
Who would have thought doggy treats used so much wheat?

Julie Larson, general manager of Hampshire Pet Products in Joplin said her company uses 567,000 pounds of wheat and 3.5 million pounds of wheat flower each month. In a year, that's about 9.5 million pounds of wheat and 43 million pounds of wheat flower.

When fuel costs started impacting employees' ability to come to work, Larson said her company stepped up to help. The company has more than 150 employees

"Once we realized the impact of the high fuel costs on our employees, we decided that as long as fuel is anywhere between $3 and $4 a gallon, we would come up with a fuel plan where we could help our employees out with that," Larson said. "It's $20 per week or $40 per pay period and as long as they have good attendance, then they qualify for that. It's just to help them to cover the costs of driving to work."

Blunt said this was an example of a local company that adds value to agriculture products grown in this area.

"Julie pointed out in her very first comments what a big consumer of ag products Hampshire Per Products is," Blunt said. "All pet foods everywhere have lots of ag products, but my guess is that if either you or I would have been asked to name the three biggest wheat users in Jasper County, we probably would not have guessed the pet food place.

"It's another example of how the agricultural economy impacts jobs and opportunity in Southwest Missouri."