The Justice family hardly keeps a low profile in anything they do, so why should they do any different in Latta?
Patriarch and billionaire James C. Justice is West Virginia’s richest man thanks to earning a fortune in coal mining, and whether it is owning the world-famous Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia to earning a national record for crop production (dry land, non-irrigated) to holding a Guinness World Record for corn harvesting, the family is modestly ambitious, laying claim also to being the East Coast’s largest grain producer.
The Justice family owns various businesses and farms in Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Part of those multi-state farming operations includes Justice Family Farms’ 3,000-acre Latta property, sometimes referred to as Catfish Bay. It is considered a well-rounded farm by many when it comes to agriculture, good soil, grain facilities and wildlife projects. It has also become one of the largest farms on co-op lines in South Carolina.
Where so much has been accomplished, Justice Farms in Latta now proudly boasts new three-phase power lines thanks to Marlboro Electric Cooperative that supply an operation that is as high-tech as they come in the nation, according to J. Benjie Andrew, manager of the Latta farm and member of the Agriculture Commission of South Carolina.
“Getting that three-phase power line in is a huge benefit to us given the scope of our operations compared to using the diesel generators we had before,” Andrew says. “Marlboro Electric runs the three-phase generators on six of our seven wells, which allow us to irrigate the 1,823 acres we farm corn on and run our state-of-the-art irrigation systems. We love the service we’ve gotten from Marlboro Electric, and those irrigation systems allow us to increase the yield of bushels per acre by about 30 to 40 percent. When you’re talking getting 250 or so bushels an acre versus half that, and prices right now are around $8 or $9 a bushel and going up, that’s a lot of money.”
Andrew says Justice Family Farms in Latta employs the latest techniques in progressive, eco-friendly farming to maximize yields.
“We ‘no-till’ almost everything here,” he says describing the technique of not plowing the soil before planting so as not to disturb the soil’s natural structure. “No-till doesn’t look as good when it first sprouts and comes up – you can no-till a section and till a streak beside it and the tilled row will look beautiful at two feet while the other is dragging, but when it gets hot, the no-till has more moisture and nutrients in the soil and it’ll pass the tilled row by. It looks rough to begin with, but when it kicks in it really goes.”
Utilizing the latest modern methods also extends to harvesting and irrigation, the machines of which employ GPS (global positioning systems) and computer controls to ensure that every row on every acre is monitored, measured and maximized.
“All of our tractors we plant with are all GPS-steered, which means you don’t over-plant,” Andrews says. “It’ll also tell you how many bushels per acre you’re getting, so you’ll know exactly how the land is producing when harvesting with the combines. All the modern technology really helps economically when farming near 40,000 acres of corn.
“Our irrigation system, there’s not many of them in the Southeast. It runs 3,000 gallons a minute, and it’s all GPS run, self-guided. From one end to the other, it’ll be in the same tire track every time. You don’t ever have to do anything but turn it on. It’s amazing.”
Almost as amazing as the Justices themselves, Andrew says both father and son, James “Jay” Justice III, often visit Dillon County to hunt or even take a turn on the combine at night, something Jay is particularly adept at, personally owning the Guinness World Record for harvesting more corn in an eight-hour period than anyone else in the world.
“What’s most incredible is that they’re just humble, down-to-earth people who love farming and enjoy their operations here in Latta,” Andrews says. “I think that’s pretty cool.”
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Combining technology and people power
Justice Family Farms relies on the latest technology and experienced people to operate it. Deek Cooper, right, is in his 17th year with Justice, and today drives state-of-the-art Caterpillar and John Deere combine harvesters. Cooper started out in farming in a decidedly low-tech era—working mules back home near Turbeville, where Justice also has farmland. “I’d ride the back of a plow many a day,” he recalls. Nowadays he and other drivers like Kevin English, left, work in air-conditioned comfort in combines that cost about $500,000 each. “They’ve come a long way,” says Cooper. Other employees like Cooper’s son, A.J., not pictured, drive tractors that pull grain wagons alongside the combines. As the combine reaps, threshes and winnows the corn, a monitor at the driver’s right hand shows how full the grain tank is. When it’s full, the driver turns on the unloader, upper right, and dumps the corn into a wagon—often without even stopping. Each wagon can hold about 2,000 bushels (or 126,000 pounds) of grain. Later, the corn is processed through a dryer which tracks its water content until the grain is ready to go into a silo, the largest of which can hold 30,000 bushels. The facility can hold about 100,000 bushels total.