(Bowen Flowers profile)
Bowen Flowers has been a cotton farmer his whole life. In
the course of his career, he has helped guide developments of new farming
technologies and policies in a number of ways and is regarded as an expert on
all things cotton, and farming in general. He has served as president of the
Delta Council, is the current chairman of American Cotton Producers, and as
such is on the board of the National Cotton Council. He serves on advisory
committees for Monsanto and other agriculture industry companies. Flowers grew
up farming in Tunica County and moved to Coahoma County shortly after college
to farm with his brother, Mattson Flowers. He is on the Soil and Water
Commission in Coahoma County, and the board of directors at Covenant Bank.
“I enjoy cotton farming more than anything I’ve been
involved with,” Flowers said. “When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be
a farmer.”
Growing up on the family farm in Tunica County, Flowers was
driving tractors at an early age. After graduating from the Tunica Institute of
Learning (now Tunica Academy), he attended Mississippi State University where
he studied agricultural engineering, technology, and business. After college,
he came back to the Delta, honed his craft under Dutch Parker and Cotton
Graham, then moved to Coahoma County to operate Omega Plantation and other
family enterprises.
Flowers said, “Daddy and Dutch Parker were farming together,
and we were farming some of our land down here. After a year or two, I started
farming on my own.”
Flowers was a quick study, and quickly recognized an issue
that needed addressing. He said, “When I came back after graduating in 1982, I
guess it was about ’84, we didn’t have any irrigation then. We saw that
irrigation was going to be so important in this part of the world.”
Flowers said that cotton yields in 1986 were some of the
worst he has ever seen. “I remember Mattson, when he got back after his first
year of college asking, ‘When do the cotton pickers dump?’ The crop was so bad
it took hours before they dumped. I think we averaged 428 pounds that year, so
we knew we had to irrigate. When we irrigated we were making over 1000.”
The Flowers brothers continued to add irrigation. Starting
out with center pivot systems and having been early adopters when poly pipe
came out, Flowers says that eighty-five percent of his land is now irrigated.
“We started doing some land forming and started furrow
irrigating. Before poly pipe, it was all hard pipe, and that was no fun.
“Right now, we’ve gotten into what they call a ‘faucet
program,’ and it’s really going to change the way we irrigate,” Flowers said.
“We are going to save so much water. Water for farming is about to become
critical in the United States, and we want to be on the cutting edge of that.
Right now we are really worried about the water supply - the aquifer – and we
want to protect it for the generations to come.”
Flowers sees water conservation as one of the chief concerns
for the future of farming. “We are fortunate not to be in the shape much of the
rest of the country is in,” he said. “But we have to take steps now to protect
for future generations. We are kind of different here. The State of Mississippi
owns the water. We all think we own the water, but the State of Mississippi actually
owns the water, so they’re in charge of making sure it’s used beneficially. We
are trying to make sure we preserve it and use it wisely and protect it for the
ones coming behind us.”
Through his involvement with organizations such as the Delta
Council, Flowers has helped drive innovation and develop policies that have
benefitted his industry and the Delta as a whole. He said, “The Delta Council
is such a great organization. I learn so much from them, and they are involved
in so many things.”
Flowers was president of the Delta Council in 2011 and dealt
with flood worries and worked on the Farm Bill. He said, “We were worried about
the flood, and we were thinking when they first predicted it, it was going to
go over the levees at the south end of the Delta. It ended up within a foot of
going over, but it didn’t, but we were scared the levee could break at any
time. That was the first thing we dove into, and then we were working on the Farm
Bill during that time period too, and that wound up taking several years to get
done.”
Flowers said that he felt the Farm Bill was the best deal
that farmers could have expected, given the drastic cuts to agriculture in the
federal budget.
“With what we had to work with, we got the best deal we
could come out of it with,” he said. “Agriculture got slashed so much in the
budget. I think ag has done its part to cut the budget, because we sure took a
slice.”
Flowers enjoys the outdoors and says that is part of the
appeal of farming. “I just enjoy working the fields, growing the crops,” he
said. “Every day is different, every year is different. There sure isn’t a
cookie-cutter approach to it.”
Each year brings new and different challenges. Flowers
indicated that this year, he is most concerned about the state of the markets
as farmers try to plan for the season.
“We are worrying about the prices this year,” he said. “For
the first time I can remember, nothing works out on paper, as far as budgets
for this coming farm year go. Every crop is down…all of them. Usually
some crop will stand out above the others, and we are fortunate we can grow so
many different crops here. People are asking, ‘What are you going to do?’ Just
grow some of all of them and hope something works.” The Flowers brothers grow
cotton, corn, soybeans, wheat, and peanuts, and are hoping that market
conditions change in order to make it easier to balance budgets.
“We are sorry the peanut plant went bankrupt,” he said, “and
it’s a shame cotton has gone down. Cotton was this community’s bread and butter
for years and years. Cotton had so many jobs that went with it, with all the
gins and the warehouses, and it’s just a shame we don’t have the cotton acres
we used to.”
Flowers said that low commodity prices must be met with
increased yields. “Thank goodness our yields have gone up,” he said. “If we
were making the yields we were making fifteen years ago, we wouldn’t be in
business. That’s the key to it now; we’ve got to have high yields to go with these
low prices.”
Flowers said that now, 60-70 bushel beans that can be
produced, where 30-40 used to be the max, and where 1000 pound cotton used to
be considered a great crop, now farmers can produce 1300 - 1400 pound cotton.
With corn, Flowers says that 200 bushels per acre has become the benchmark,
where just a few seasons ago, 140-150 was the standard. He said, “They keep
telling us that to feed the world in 20 years, we’ve got to double it again.”
One development that has driven the rise in yields has been
advanced technology in seed varieties. Farmers are now able to grow more while
using less chemicals than in the past. Flowers says that critics of genetically
engineered seed generally do not have all the facts when it comes to the
importance and utility of new seed technology.
He said, “I’ve been in a lot of discussions about GMO’s, and
most people don’t have the scientific facts. Roundup Ready changed the food
equation for the whole world. We are making food cheaper, and we are putting
out so much less chemical than we used to, because of those new technologies.
Using less insecticide is something good that has come from these technology
advancements.”
Flowers says that conservation is key to maintaining a
healthy environment and ensuring the effective continued use of new
technology. He said, “We are trying to do other conservation deals to
keep our soil in the field, to keep runoff out of streams and rivers. We are
working hard on ways to do that, so they can’t say we are responsible for the
hypoxia in the Gulf. We’ve been on tours in Iowa, and Iowa farmers have been on
tours here. Mississippi and Iowa are probably the two most progressive states
in that range that are working on conservation. We’ve done lots of talking and
working together to help see each other’s concerns.”
The Delta Council puts these exchanges together, and Flowers
says that he has been all over the country, working with farmers in other
states like California and Arizona. “We share info with all different
parts of the US,” he said. “Pigweed is still a problem. We are starting to get
a handle on it, but it’s costing more and more money every year.”
Flowers position on advisory councils gives him a great deal
of input into how emerging technologies are applied in the industry. “At least
they listen to me,” he said. “Monsanto has been good to work with, even though
I sometimes get frustrated with them. They are so far ahead of the other
companies, and I think a more level playing field would be better for the
farmer.”
Flowers’ Tunica land is now rented out, and he farms
exclusively in Coahoma County with Mattson and their sister, Campbell, who
manages the office in Tunica. “The whole family is involved in the operation,”
he said. Flowers and his wife, Susan, have a nine-year-old daughter named
Anderson, and they attend First United Methodist Church. Susan is the former
owner of the Brick Gallery and will be opening a new gallery soon on Third
Street. She is also very involved with CARES and is working with that
organization to improve the local animal shelter. Flowers supports the local
Boy Scouts, and in addition to his concerns and insights about the farming
industry, Flowers is also concerned about issues facing Clarksdale and Coahoma
County. His continued work with the Delta Council seeks to address these
issues.
“I’m concerned about our population,” he said. “We’ve got to
get something in here to bring some jobs. We need good paying jobs to keep
people here, and to bring people here. My contacts within the Delta Council
tell me that Clarksdale is doing better than most of the rest of the cities and
towns in the Delta, and that we have actually brought in more jobs. They aren’t
hundreds of jobs at once, but they have been fifteen here or twenty there, and
it’s added up. But, we’ve got a long ways to go.”
Flowers says that the Development Department at Delta
Council brings people together to work on problems and opportunities facing the
region. “They pull different businesses and industries into the Delta and tries
to work for the Delta as a whole,” he said. “We need to all be working
together. What is good for one place should be good for the Delta as a whole.”
(Pete Berry profile)
But for a heart condition in high school, Clarksdale native
Pete Berry could very well be sporting an Olympic gold medal.
“My father would not let me try out, because I had a heart
condition,” Berry said. “The doctors told my parents that I shouldn’t lift
heavy, but I was lifting heavy anyway. I kept telling him, this is what the
guys are lifting at the meets, and I’m lifting more than they are. He goes,
’Son, if something happened to you, your mother would never forgive me.’”
After seeing what the winner in his class lifted at the 1976
Olympics, Berry went straight to his weight room and promptly lifted ten pounds
more. Years later, he began competing in power lifting meets, winning the
Southern States Classic, which qualified him for a spot on the Olympic team.
Again, however, he was unable to compete, this time due to needing to stay
close to home after his father had a heart attack.
Berry graduated from Lee Academy in 1975, and went on to Ole
Miss. “I really wanted to go to a school that had a power lifting team,” he
said. “Ole Miss did, until I got there. They stopped it that year.”
Berry didn’t let that slow him down. He competed in power
lifting and bodybuilding meets, participating in the first ever Mr. Ole Miss
competition. His senior year, he ran the weight room at Ole Miss, then upon
graduation in 1980, moved back to Clarksdale and opened Bear’s Gym the
following year.
The original Bear’s Gym was in the Quonset huts on Delta
Ave. across from the courthouse, then Berry moved into the building at the end
of Delta that now houses Delta Blues Alley Café. After four years downtown, the
gym relocated to its current location in Westgate Shopping Center. Berry also
opened a second Bear’s Gym in Cleveland, which he sold after 15 years.
“We sold the Cleveland gym when we started the medical rehab
business in Clarksdale,” Berry said. “There was a lot more involved in that
than we realized.” Berry’s gym also includes a deli, which is open for lunch
and offers a menu of healthy meals.
Recently, much of Berry’s efforts have been centered around
developing a new business. Energy On Products is a line of lotions, copper
bracelets and other items that are designed to aid in pain management and
increase strength, balance and stamina.
Berry said, “I have researched things over the years, read a
lot of different material, anything I could get my hands on, and learned a lot
more about nutrition and vitamins, and that led into learning more about
‘natural healing.’ We got into muscle testing and learned more. I was looking
for something that would help heal. And there is a thing called ‘energy
medicine.’ So I started researching that, took classes on it, and that is how
we started out with the lotion.”
Much of Berry’s research centered around the work of Dr.
Norman Shealy, a top neurosurgeon who pioneered the field of pain management by
using proven medical practices to determine the efficacy of traditional folk
remedies. Shealy has won many awards and honorary degrees for his work and believes
that humans should live to be 130-150 years old. Berry has certifications from
Shealy’s programs and took what he learned from his research to come up with
something new that has lead to his new business venture.
“I was looking for something to help with pain management
and healing, and where the lotion started out,” Berry said. “I found one
process that they did in one part of the world, and another that they did in
the US, and I said, ‘I bet if I combine those, it will make a big, big
difference.’”
Berry came up with an invention that he calls an “energy
battery.”
“Everything is made of energy,” he said. “We’re energy. This
table is energy. Our food is energy. It just vibrates at different frequencies.
As we age, a large portion of what happens to us is, our vibrational frequency
decreases. That’s why we age. That’s why we end up getting sick. If you raise
that vibrational frequency, it has an effect almost immediately and it makes
you better, healthier.”
With the lotion, Berry is able to add more energy into it
from the energy battery. He said, “It’s (the lotion) is a really good product
anyway. It has 15 different essential oils in it, and the energy levels of the
oils are higher anyway, so when you put it on your body, that’s where the
healing comes from. We’ve found with the battery that anything you put on it,
it will raise the vibration level.”
The battery works with other products as well. Berry sells
copper bracelets that have been placed on the energy battery, and has
experimented with rings, clothing, food and many other items. “We can do glass
and wood,” he said. “At first we thought it had to be along the properties of
something electrical, but it does not. We know that it will enhance plants
greatly. We are working on a transmitter that will be used in agricultural
applications. It will increase crops 20-40percent. This has been done in other
countries for 10 years, and we will be experimenting with more of that soon.”
Berry said that the effects of his Energy On products have
been charted meticulously, and the increases in performance are easy to see.
“One guy tracks his food, water, workout regimen,
everything, and when we charged the magnets in his headset, he went from 300
reps in one workout to 480,” said Berry. “Didn’t matter what kind of music he
was listening to. Any of the lotions will increase strength and balance for
most people within two minutes.”
Berry said that he has seen increases in strength of up to
45 percent personally. “If every athlete used it,” he said, “it would be phenomenal
what they could do.”
Berry said that he sells more of the lotion for pain relief
than for anything else. Users have reported that it greatly mitigates or
eliminates pain from joints, particularly following workouts. “We sell more of
it for pain relief than anything else,” he said.
Berry has begun experimenting with using the battery to
increase the vibrational frequency in food and has had positive results. He
said, “One of the main things that brings your body’s vibrational frequency
down is food. The food most people have access to has very low vibrational
frequency. Fresh tomatoes and the like have high frequency, but most of what
you get has been frozen, or stored for so long that the level is low. If you
can raise the food’s vibrational level it is much better for your body.”
Berry said that these ideas are not new, but their adoption
in the United States has been slow. “There are all kinds of energy sources out
there,” he said. “This has been around for centuries. In other countries, they
have been using it for a long time, and eventually the US will too.”
Berry has seen steadily increasing sales and is setting up
more retail outlets to go along with online sales. He is looking into getting a
patent on the battery but is wary of the expense and of the amount of
information about his invention that would have to become public for a patent
to be issued. “You have to be careful, or a bigger company can just make a few
tweaks to get around your patent restrictions.”
Berry is confident that Energy On Products will continue to
grow. “The more that you introduce your body to a higher energy level,” he
said, “The better your results. Results vary from user to user, but everyone
who has tried it has seen improvements in performance.”
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