They Offered Him Millions for His Farmland... Until He Made an Unexpected Decision — Transcript

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1. 0:00Vernon Kessler had farmed soybeans
2. 0:01[music] outside Champaign for 41 years
3. 0:05and buried his wife two years back
4. 0:07without ever having a child who wanted
5. 0:09any [music] part of this life. His
6. 0:11daughter taught school in Chicago. His
7. 0:14son sold [music] insurance in Denver.
8. 0:16Neither one had ever asked him a single
9. 0:18question about crop rotation and Vernon
10. 0:21had stopped expecting them to.
11. 0:23The land broker showed up [music] in
12. 0:24March with a number that made Vernon sit
13. 0:26down at his own kitchen table. A data
14. 0:28center [music] developer wanted his
15. 0:291,100 1,100 acres and the offer sitting
16. 0:32in front of him was more money than
17. 0:34[music] this farm could earn in 10 years
18. 0:35of good soybean prices. Paid all at
19. 0:38once. No waiting on weather or markets
20. 0:40[music] ever again.
21. 0:42Vernon told the broker he'd think about
22. 0:44it.
23. 0:45He meant it. [music] The one person on
24. 0:47the place who'd ever shown real interest
25. 0:49in the ground itself was Desmond, 26, a
26. 0:53farmhand [music] Vernon had hired four
27. 0:55years back who owned nothing. No land,
28. 0:58[music] no family operation waiting for
29. 1:00him anywhere. Nothing but a genuine
30. 1:02curiosity about soil and seed that
31. 1:05Vernon recognized
32. 1:06>> [music]
33. 1:06>> because he'd carried the same thing
34. 1:08himself at that age.
35. 1:10Desmond asked questions nobody in
36. 1:12Vernon's own family ever had. Stayed
37. 1:15late some [music] evenings just to watch
38. 1:17how Vernon read a field before deciding
39. 1:20what it needed. Vernon sat with the
40. 1:22developer's offer for six weeks. He
41. 1:25drove the fields [music] alone most
42. 1:26evenings that spring the way he'd done
43. 1:29for four decades and kept coming [music]
44. 1:31back to the same thought that money
45. 1:33could sit in an account but 1,100 acres
46. 1:36of Illinois soybean ground worked right
47. 1:38[music] could keep feeding something for
48. 1:40another century after he was gone. A
49. 1:43data center [music] couldn't do that.
50. 1:45It could only end it. He called the
51. 1:47broker in April and turned the offer
52. 1:49down. Then he called Desmond into the
53. 1:51kitchen [music] instead and told him he
54. 1:53wanted to lease him the operation
55. 1:55starting that season with a plan to
56. 1:57transfer it outright once Desmond had
57. 2:00run it long enough to prove to himself,
58. 2:01[music]
59. 2:02not to Vernon, that he could carry it.
60. 2:05Desmond didn't say anything for a long
61. 2:07moment. Then he asked why. [music]
62. 2:09Why him? A hired hand with no family tie
63. 2:12to any of it. "Because you're the only
64. 2:14person who ever looked at this ground
65. 2:16like it [music] mattered what happened
66. 2:17to it after me." Vernon said, "Kids or
67. 2:20not, that makes you family enough. This
68. 2:23is the only harvest I've got left to
69. 2:25plant."