Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88Between Turnrows • 53 it?’ He said that it was and he was going to have to build a new warehouse to get some more storage. I told him he ought to come up here and I’d make him a northern branch. He asked me if I’d sell the place and I told him I probably would. “Several months went by and nothing else was said about it. Then one day he called and asked to meet with me about selling the company. He asked me if I was serious about it and I said that I was, so we started talking and eventually worked out a deal.” Cullum Seeds changed ownership in 1997. The seed business has always been difficult and it was no easier for the new owners. Kelly recalls: “Back then the seed business was really tough. We weren’t making any money. Most of the seed in those days was saved. A farmer would bring his seed to us and we would clean and treat it for him. He would keep it at our place until planting season, then come pick it up. The trouble was there was just no margin. Finally, in 1997 we started to turn the corner with the introduction of the Roundup Ready® soybean. With all of the Roundup Ready production no one had the capacity to process the number of units that were needed to supply the market. We ended up get- ting a lot of custom cleaning and bagging contracts. This gave us additional sources of income and allowed us to run our plant at full capacity. This shift in the market matched up perfectly with the change of ownership and allowed us to do things that hadn’t been possible before.” Times were still tough though, and the new owners knew they needed to do something different if they were going to be successful. The owners were approached by a Midwestern company called AgVenture, which had a new model for selling their traited soybeans. The plan allowed local seed companies to grow, process and bag AgVenture soybeans and pay AgVen- ture a $2 royalty per bag. The local company’s share was whatever they could sell the bag of seed for over the $2 fee. Next planting season, the owners grew some AgVenture production, and after analyzing the model, decided to get into the branded seed business for themselves. Armor Seed was about to be born. Carl Phipps with a new generation farmer, Jenna Martin. Jenna was representing agriculture as Miss Cross County Rice at a Cullum Seeds’ grower lunch at Fisher, Arkansas in May 2013. Jenna is following in her father’s footsteps pursuing farming in Hickory Ridge, Arkansas.