Maintaining a legacy — with help
Staff writer
Jim Hett farmed his land his entire life, well into his late 80s, but he did something many farmers never get a chance, or never take the time, to do: he designed a future for the farm that didn’t depend on his own hands.
“He had it all set up,” his daughter, Kimberly Metcalf, said. “He would sit in his chair, but he always knew who was farming, what they were doing, when they were doing it, and how they were doing it. He managed it.”
Jim died two years ago. What remains is a working farm, still producing crops and pasture income, run not by machinery but by people. His wife, Carol Hett, now in her 90s, and daughter Kimberly, who moved home after more than two decades away, oversee the land.
Carol laughs when people call her a farmer.
“I always kept the books,” she said. “My husband did the work.”
But Carol’s meticulous bookkeeping, and Jim’s just as meticulous attention to detail, turned out to be as important as any implement.
“He was very meticulous,” Kimberly said. “He built trust. He built relationships. That’s what we’re living on now.”
The Hetts do not own combines or planters nor do they plow or harvest themselves. Instead, they manage just as Jim did through sharecropping and long-standing partnerships.
This year, their cropland is planted in corn.
A neighboring farmer brings the equipment and does the planting and harvesting. In return, the neighbor receives two-thirds of the crop, and the Hetts receive one-third.
“That pays the taxes,” Kimberly said. “It pays what we owe for the crop. And if it rains right, there’s some left over.”
Their pastureland is rented to another neighbor who runs about 14 cow-calf pairs. Fencing, trees, erosion, water— all of it still has to be maintained, even if someone else runs cattle on it.
“This year, we’re doing a quarter mile of fencing,” Kimberly said. “And we had to get trees cut out of the pasture. That was $2,500 right there.”
Those costs come regardless of how crops fared that year.
“Taxes come every year whether your crop thrives or not,” Kimberly said.
But because Jim arranged the farm around partnerships, the Hetts do not carry tractor payments, combine repairs, hydraulic leaks or implement loans, costs that can crush small farmers.
“That’s why the sharecroppers get the lion’s share,” Kimberly said. “But we couldn’t do it without them. And they couldn’t do it without the land.”
What Jim really left his family wasn’t equipment. It was people.
The Hetts’ cropland is farmed by a friend. Their cattle are run by another.
When Kimberly needed rock for a road repair, she called her cousin.
When Carol fell while chasing windblown mail, it was a neighbor’s son who happened to drive by at the exact moment she was on the ground.
“That’s just the providence of it,” Kimberly said, “somebody driving down the road at the right time.”
This web of help existed long before Jim died.
“The relationships my dad built with neighbors and other farmers have been paying dividends,” she said. “You cannot be a farmer without help from someone else. You just can’t.”
Kimberly never expected to run the farm. Her younger brother was supposed to take it over before he died unexpectedly. Her older brother died. Then her father died.
“All three within four years,” she said.
After Jim’s death, Kimberly and her husband sold their home in Kansas City and moved back.
“When Dad died, I had no idea how bad it was,” she said. “She needed so much help.”
Carol and Kimberly make decisions together.
“I’m very blessed to have her,” Carol said. “I have her.”
Yet, Carol, even without her daughter’s help, would have been taken care of thanks to her community.
That, more than anything, explains why Jim managed the farm the way he did. He wasn’t just planning for crops. He was planning for the day he wouldn’t be there to fix things.
“He set it up for us,” Kimberly said. “We’re just trying not to break it.”