Editor's note: Farm Futures’ exclusive Best Places to Farm report ranks the financial performance of 3,056 counties. By analyzing proprietary data and the recently released results from USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture, Farm Futures averaged weighted ranks of the ratios on return on assets, profit margins and asset turnover for each county. How does your county rank? Visit the interactive map to check the ranking of 3,056 counties and browse other stats.

Willie Taylor knows exactly why the Best Places to Farm ranking by Farm Futures features six Mississippi counties in the Top 10.

“There’s nowhere in the Midwest that you can grow an acre of corn for $300,” says Taylor, who farms in Wayne County, Miss., which ranked No. 8. The counties of Jasper, Smith, Leake, Neshoba and Lawrence came in at the top of the ranking, which is based on financial performance.

Taylor, who leases hunting land in Illinois, would prefer to have the Midwest’s soil and wide-open spaces, but he’ll take farming in Mississippi for the cost of land and the income from 18 broiler houses, where he grows chickens for Mar-Jac Poultry.

“What they’re making up there per acre is half of what we’re making,” says Taylor, who compares notes with the farmers who operate in the area where his family hunts in Illinois. “Our return is a lot better.”

Ag economist Josh Maples with Mississippi State University Extension agrees. “From an economic standpoint, it does not shock me that these areas in Mississippi performed really well,” he says. “2022 was the best year ever for poultry in Mississippi.”

The six counties that ranked in the Top 10 have a poultry concentration, he notes. But they also are home to farmers who diversified into other agricultural operations, such as Taylor’s corn acreage. In the state’s Delta region, Maples says farmers are more crop-focused. Those counties didn’t rank as high.

The poultry industry helps provide a stable cash flow for those who grow the bird, a strong basis for grain producers and a ready supply of low-cost fertilizer. Poultry and egg sales in Wayne County topped $257 million in 2022.

“That’s a whole lot of money that rolls through that county because of that one industry,” Maples says.

Taylor started farming in 1996 because the first of three sons was born. An off-shore worker, he wanted a job that let him stay home in Buckatunna, Miss. Now, eldest son Austin is taking over the chicken and grain operation.

Adding corn to mix

For Taylor, diversifying into row crops was the answer to managing chicken litter. “Without the chicken industry, there would be no row cropping,” he says. Today, he grows corn on corn and sells the crop to Peco Foods Inc.

When he started growing corn, he says he was proud of yields averaging 80 bushels an acre. Today, he gets 175 to 180 bushels an acre. He credits the higher yields, even in a corn-on-corn operation, to seed technology.

To learn about corn production, Taylor consults with seed representatives and welcomes tips from his Illinois farming friends. In 2023, he grew P1847VYHR from Pioneer and DKC68-95 from Dekalb.

Because the area isn’t heavily planted, Taylor also enjoys low insect and disease pressure.

Overall, Taylor sees regulation as the primary risk to agriculture. He says regulations that add cost to production limit opportunity for U.S. farmers to compete with exports from other countries.

“And you can’t farm when you can’t compete,” Taylor says. But for now, he says the state has strong ag leaders in pivotal elected positions.

Taylor’s focus today is on the next generation. Austin, his eldest son and the reason Taylor started the operation, helps operate the farm and has his own cow-calf herd. Son Colton is going to University of the Southern Mississippi for ag finance, and son Cody is in medical school.

Austin’s oldest son, Cooper, 9, shows promise as the third generation to run the farm.

But the next generations will farm differently, Taylor says. He recalls those early days of manually opening curtains and vents to manage the temperature of the chicken houses. Today, he says, “it’s just like setting the thermostat at your house.”

“The chicken business has made a big jump in technology. I’m not the technology person, but my boys are,” Taylor says. “They just soak it up.”

Between advanced on-farm technology and positive financial indicators, farming in Wayne County looks promising for the next generation, Maples says.

“Being able to diversify and manage that return on assets and profitability each year — without being heavily leveraged — can certainly set the stage for being able to pass that farm down to the next generation,” Maples says.

Taylor agrees. “In Mississippi, if we take care of what we have, our future could be very good,” he says. “But we have to take care of the younger folks.”

Learn more about Farm Futures' Best Places to Farm study and view the interactive map to see where your county ranks.

Ag census data from 2012 and 2017 show how financial performance migrated across the U.S. Record grain prices in 2012 helped profits surge across the Corn Belt and Prairies, but weather and rising surpluses punished 2017 crop incomes. Poultry saved the day for the Southeast in 2022.