Brad Heffington - Texas Tech University

ACC NEWSLETTER | 4
Larry Combest Endowed Chair in Agricultur al Competitiveness
from his employees and family for many years.
While Heffington can rely on good help
through what looks to be a tough year, he is worried
about his limited water and dryland crops. Although
the majority of Heffington’s fields are irrigated, he
said the irrigation is set up to supplement rainfall, as
most of the High Plains irrigation is set up to do. His
wells are continuing to pump an adequate supply of
water for now, but he needs to continue to be cautious
with his water output to ensure that enough
water will be available in the future, and to do that
Heffington needs timely and adequate rains.
“The weather and policy you cannot control,”
Heffington said, “which creates lots of challenges for
farmers. We may have better seed varieties and technologies
for using water, but no matter what, we still
need the rain.”
Along with rain, Heffington said farmers also
need good policy.
“Farm policy is geared to small farmers,” Heffington
said. “We aren’t small farmers anymore. We are
big businesses, real businesses, and we are a very few
feeding and clothing a lot of people.”
Heffington said in order to continue supplying
food and fiber for the world, policy must be written
that provides valuable safety nets for farmers and is
focused on keeping U.S. commodities competitive in
the international marketplace.
“We are coming off a good year,” Heffington
said. “We made a good crop, received some good
prices, and saw our local economies benefit from all
of that. The thing we must remember is that at the
end of the day it all comes down to the number one
economic rule: supply and demand. If textile mills
need the cotton, then we will see a demand and
good prices. I just hope we have the cotton to supply
them with.”