As Dean Hutto prepares for the 2024 crop year, he ponders both the challenges and opportunities the new crop year will bring. He will keep a watch on commodity prices and carefully manage inputs as he has done every year, but he emphasizes that the biggest challenge he and other South Carolina farmers face is urban development and deer pressure. 

Hutto farms with his dad, uncle, and cousin in Orangeburg County. The family grows soybeans, cotton, peanuts and wheat on roughly 3,000 acres. For the first time this year, the Huttos grew sesame, which Dean Hutto says was a learning experience, but he is hopeful on sesame’s potential as a cash crop. 

On Dec. 31, Hutto completed his term as chairman of the South Carolina Soybean Board, the famer-led group that manages checkoff dollars for soybean research, education, and promotion. Hutto says finding a solution to the deer problem is a top priority of the Soybean Board. 

The Soybean Board and other checkoff groups are targeting funds to research by Clemson University to find ways to manage the deer herd. Commodity associations and the South Carolina Farm Bureau are working to find a legislative solution. 

Deer and development  

Hutto points out that urban development and deer pressure are interconnected. 

Related:Deer cost South Carolina farmers greatly, getting worse

“It’s kind of a two-fold thing because this increased urban development and growth has cut down on habitat for the deer so where they had a field to feed to now has houses or a warehouse on it. They’re just going to move to the next field. But then you are concentrating deer down to a small area. It multiplies the problem,” Hutto told Southeast Farm Press in an interview during a break at the South Carolina Corn and Soybean Growers Annual Meeting Dec. 14 at the Santee Conference Center. 

Of course, the burning question remains: What can be done? 

“We haven’t figured it out yet. We tried a lot of different things, but we haven’t found a silver bullet yet,” Hutto said. “Other farmers have wild hog issues. Knock on wood, I don’t have any currently,” Hutto said. 

“Clemson Extension is working hard on studies. The Soybean Board has funded a lot of that. We have numbers that we can take to the legislature to say this is a problem, and we need to amend something along the line. We haven’t figured out a solution to bring to them. Farm Bureau is working on it.” 

Mary Catherine Cromley, executive director of the South Carolina Soybean Board and South Carolina Corn and Soybean Association, points out the Soybean Board is committed to fund research while it is the job of the Corn and Soybean Association to help find a legislative solution to the deer problem.  

A generally good year 

In the meantime, Hutto says he and his family saw a generally good year in 2023 and remain optimistic about 2024. He says they were fortunate because they received timely rains and a cooler summer which delivered a good corn crop, a good soybean crop, and a generally ok cotton crop.  

“Peanuts were average which you expect when you have a lot of rain,” Hutto said. 

Hutto emphasizes that good crop rotation is key. On their 3,000 acres, they generally plant 1,500 acres of corn, 800 acres of soybeans, with the remainder going mostly to wheat, cotton, and peanuts. 

 “Going into next year, the way commodity prices are right now, I don’t know if we will really change a whole lot of our rotation and crop mix but that’s to be determined. But also, it’s a little bit kick in the gut; we made good yields, but we lost all of the upside on the price. But there is still nothing to complain about. It is something to be gracious for and thankful for that we made good yields and we had an efficient, safe, and hopefully profitable year. Everything worked out,” Hutto said. 

“It was kind of lightning in a bottle as far as how some of these crops worked out. You thought you were about to get dry, but we caught a rain. A wide area of the state saw the same thing as far as good yields.”  

While input prices are stable, Hutto is concerned about interest rates going into next year. 

 “We had operating loans that had been 4% or four and a quarter percent go to 6.5%. You talk about the scale of money that we are dealing with, it adds up pretty quick. These equipment prices seem to have gone up, and they haven’t come back down. It’s hard to justify making an improvement equipment wise when you don’t have guaranteed acres. It’s half a million dollars on a combine now. You better make sure you are farming enough to pay for it five years down the road.” 

Despite the deer challenges, concerns about commodity prices and the rest, Hutto is keeping his optimism. “We’ve been doing it for 250 years in the same spot, so we are going to try for one more.”