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Spencer grad of 1997 makes cover of Forbes magazine!
Forbes July 25, 2005 - cover
photo - story p. 80 (text
below)
John Carroll, 24, is a fourth-generation farmer from Illinois working his family's
8,200-acre property in Bahia. Since he arrived in 2003 Carroll has faced down fraudsters, totaled his truck twice, been raided by the police and caught dengue fever.
But his profit margin in cotton hovers around 20%, and there's something wiry and tough about the young farmer that makes you think he'll make it. America's respected Hertz Farm Management appears to be of the same opinion, having invested $7.4 million in 9,300 acres of Bahian farmland on behalf of 61 clients, and asked young Carroll to farm it for them. His take: a third of the crop.
Brazil Iowa Farms, run by the Kruse family, is amassing $40 million in financing to expand from 17,000 to 30,000 acres. The U.S.-based David
Kruse has his 26-year-old son, Matthew, as "project coordinator"
in Bahia.
Between the two Kruses, however, stands Thomas Shanks. Brazil Iowa bought for $5.8 million the 8,850-acre farm that Shanks co-owned; he stayed on as Brazil Iowa's Bahia-toughened manager.
Trouble ahead? The hard-looking Shanks is, with his son, building his own consortium of investors and investing in land farther north. It seems a matter of time before the Shankses' and the Kruses' interests collide.
Can young Kruse run a 30,000-acre Brazilian operation on his own? When we met the affable Matthew--between the soybean and cotton harvests--he was heading with his old high school buddies to the beaches
of Salvador, 600 miles away.
BrianWillott, 33, is a former agri-researcher who decided to put his think-tank knowledge to work in Brazil. After a bumpy start Willott went to work with a small group of investors, renting 990 acres and planting soy and cotton.
This go-slow approach has paid off. Willott produced a decent 3,100 pounds of beans per acre, and he recently prevailed in a scorched-earth legal dispute with his neighbor.
There's no resting on laurels here. Under the eucalyptus on Willott's property stands the faded headstone of Leonard Earl, the pioneering Kansan who came down to farm and was--on July 19, 1984--murdered for his efforts.
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