THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 29, 1994 TAG: 9412280212
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY CHARLENE CASON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines
WHAT IS VIRGINIA'S No. 1 cash crop? Tobacco, you say? Corn? Peanuts?
Bruce Jordan's family has been farming in Tidewater since 1910, but this energetic, idealistic, self-described ``child of the '60s counterculture'' has only recently made the move to cash in on Virginia's biggest crop: cattle.
Early this year, the 40-year-old, who had never owned a single cow before, sold off an accumulated four decades' worth of grain-farming equipment and started planting sweeping pastures of grass. Last March, he attended Graham's Cattle School in Kansas, where he learned practical herd health care.
``Raising cattle was big in this area up until about the 1950s,'' said Jordan, who currently owns about 750 acres in the Fentress area of Chesapeake. ``Cattle were low-tech and self-sustaining, and grain farming was hard work.
``But, in the '50s, the development of chemicals to kill the weeds and better equipment to reduce labor, along with higher grain prices, made grain farming more appealing. Farmers turned their poorest land over to the cattle and started planting their best land in soybeans, wheat and corn,'' he said.
Jordan grew up as a third generation grain farmer and helped his father work more than 1,200 acres in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. When his father died in 1981, the young man took over the operation and worked with only four employees for three years. From 1984 to 1992, he and an uncle worked the land alone. That year, the operation was downsized, and Jordan farmed the remaining 750 alone until this past January.
``But, over the years, I became disenchanted with grain farming,'' he said. ``It took a lot of petroleum energy to till, plant, harvest and process the crops. Then there were all those herbicides, pesticides and insecticides.
``I was making a modest living at it, thanks to my parents, who had paved the way with their investments, but it was evolving into a business that required $150,000 combines.''
For the price of a single combine, Jordan reasoned, he could buy all the cows he wanted, plant all the crops he needed to feed them and build all the fences it would take to create 10-acre pastures to rotate them through.
``Any new ideas sort of scare me, but I knew grain farming had become a big job for just one person,'' said Norma Jordan, Bruce's mother and business partner. ``It was a strain on him. He researched raising cattle and showed me he could handle the operation by himself. Bruce has a knack for farming; he has good timing, and what he does, he does well.''
Norma Ferrell Jordan's father was a dairy farmer whose farm was located on Indian River Road near the old Acredale section of Virginia Beach. At 18, she married Rufus Jordan and became the wife of a grain farmer.
``The family tradition of grain farming was more his father's dream than Bruce's,'' she said. ``When he came up with the idea of cattle ranching, it was exciting to see him try something new on his own.''
Most of the cattle farming in Virginia is done in the central and western parts of the state, where the average cattle farmer is 60 years old and raises only about 30 cows, Jordan said. But he discovered the Tidewater region has perfect weather for raising the grasses to feed cattle, and the animals require only some shade and a windbreak as creature comforts.
All his research pointed to making a career move.
In October, Jordan bought his first 60 head of cattle, 4- to 5-month-old Angus and Charolais cq heifers, each weighing about 350 pounds. They were purchased at an auction in South Boston at a cost of about $230 a head.
Today, his herd numbers 96, and his goal is to have 150 prime beef cattle by next summer. Before they're shipped to feed lots out west, then, the calves should weigh in at about 750 pounds each.
And they will gain all that weight just from eating grass.
``The grasses are perennial, they're cheaper food than grain, and the cows harvest the crop,'' Jordan explained. ``It's really a sustainable system; the cows fertilize the soil and maintain the nutrient levels.''
Until about March, the cattle are being fed hay on Jordan's 160-acre ``winter farm,'' located on Land of Promise Road. After that they will be moved to his 100-acre ``summer farm'' on Carolina Road, where they will be rotated every four to five days through 10-acre paddocks of fresh grasses.
Twice a day, Jordan walks through his herd, looking for signs of sickness.
Routine health care for the herd includes checking for ``shipping fever,'' which can turn into pneumonia, and administering antibiotics, as well as worming and vaccinating the animals. All these tasks are done at the corral he built on the winter farm.
Jordan is confident he has made the right career change and that he will be a success at cattle ranching.
``I just knew I was ready for something else and that cattle was a sustainable, natural way to go. I wasn't happy using pesticides, and it's not something I wanted my son to do. But I wanted my children to grow up in an atmosphere of farming. This is something I can feel pride in.
``I may make some mistakes along the way but, hey, I can always eat my mistakes,'' Jordan said. MEMO: The story also appeared in the Chesapeake Clipper on Friday, December
30, 1994. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo on cover
Bruce Jordan...
Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
From atop a three-story observation tower, Bruce Jordan surveys the
pasture he has spent the past two years preparing for his cattle.
``I may make some mistakes along the way but, hey, I can always eat
my mistakes,'' Jordan said.
Jordan uses a crowding sweep to move his cattle down a chute for
vaccinations.
Jordan pulls the lever to trap a cow in the squeeze chute, at right,
and makes a catch. Then, above, he draws the vaccine for the first
patient, cow No. 21. It's part of the routine health care for the
herd.
by CNB