Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1006706
12 Sugar Producer AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 DREAM LIVIN' THE CHRIS PAYNE OF ONTARIO, ORE. M Malheur County, at the southeastern tip of Oregon, is hot in the summertime. And, for the last few years, even drier than normal. Looking up at the hills, populated mostly with sagebrush and lava rock, you have to wonder about the first fool who decided to try his hand at farming in this country. Whoever he was, he was a visionary. Today, the valley floor is covered in green, the fertile ground pushing up thousands of acres of onions, wheat, alfalfa, corn and, of course, sugarbeets. Chris Payne is one of the growers responsible for this area's continued bounty. To sit and talk with Payne, you'd think he'd been farming forever. It's evident he has a hundred things to do, yet he doesn't seem rushed. He's businesslike yet friendly, dedicated to his craft without taking himself too seriously. He is obviously very much at home on this farm ground outside Ontario, Ore., as if he had never done anything else in his life. The truth is, Payne has been around agriculture almost his whole life; he grew up on his parents' dairy in nearby Vale, Ore. But his youth involved very little of putting seed in the ground and helping it to grow. That all changed when, after a couple years away at school, Payne came back to the area, married his wife Darci, a local girl, and eventually started working for Wettstein Farms. Over the course of 14 years working for the Wettsteins, Payne gained a firsthand education of what it takes to run a successful farming operation. He bought some of his own equipment and started a custom hay business that quickly blossomed. "The custom hay was originally just going to be a small project," says Payne. "It turned into a rolling snowball. The last couple years, we've probably put up as much straw as anybody in the valley." When the Wettsteins retired from farming in 2010, Payne was in a position to purchase much of the operation, including shares in Amalgamated Sugar Company. Today, Payne grows about 365 acres of beets per year, in rotation with wheat, alfalfa, corn and onions—the GROWER OF THE MONTH