27-03-2025
Farm Leader of the Year: Larry Dallas
Mar. 27—RURAL TUSCOLA
Larry Dallas and his brother David didn't have anything handed to them when they got into farming.
Sure, their father, Bill, raised hogs, but his primary job was carpentry.
So when it came time for the Dallas brothers to start farming on ground they rented in 1983, they lacked probably the most vital equipment necessary. They didn't own a tractor and had to borrow a friend's to do fall plowing.
"I had a pickup truck," Larry Dallas said.
By spring, they had bought some of their own equipment, including a 1086 International Harvester tractor. Still, it was slow going for a while.
"We bought this place in '83 and got to farm 140 acres along with it," Larry Dallas said.
He worked for farmers in Champaign and Douglas counties until he and his brother got their own farmland in 1984.
"I worked with Lin Warfel (a past News-Gazette Farm Leader of the Year) and his brother-in-law, Jon Haak, for a couple of years," he said.
David Dallas, meanwhile, was working in the retail fertilizer business.
In 1988, they rented more ground from a neighbor and over the years kept adding acres. David went full time in the farming operation in 1992.
The '80s were a tough time to be a farmer, much less to get into the profession.
"There were a lot of bankruptcies and a lot of failures," Larry Dallas said. "I think it conditioned us to watch our expenses and pay attention to things."
He has excelled at the profession, and others have noticed.
In a vote by past winners, the rural Tuscola man was named The News-Gazette's 2024 Farm Leader of the Year for not only his farming operation but also his civic and industry involvement.
Higher education
While Dallas' parents, Bill and Edna, never went to college — he and David's father did not graduate from high school — they made sure their four children were university educated.
"We all four went to the U of I," Larry Dallas said. "That made quite a bit of difference."
He earned a degree in agricultural economics. During those years at the university, he worked summers in construction with the same company that employed his father.
He seemed destined to be in agriculture. He and his brother are sixth-generation farmers.
"I do genealogy, and all of (his ancestors) say 'farmer,'" he said. "Mom was all German. Ancestry says I'm 60 percent German. Dallas is a Scottish name. Dad was partly German too."
Their brother Lyndall lives in Lincoln and is retired from the seed industry, and their sister, Larayne, lives in Austin, Texas, where she is a librarian for the University of Texas.
While at the UI, Larry Dallas lived at Nabor House fraternity, an ag cooperative in Urbana. He served as the business agent for the alumni board for 40 years, retiring in 2020.
"During that time, we built a $2 million fraternity house," he said. "I think my association with Nabor House and the members made a lot of difference in my life."
Planting the seed
Larry Dallas moved to his present Douglas County home in 1983.
His mother, Edna Nofftz Dallas, had a good friend from church who farmed the place and told her they were going to retire, so the Dallases contacted the landlord and let him know they would be interested in farming that land.
Over the years, they've built two sheds on the property and added some grain bins. Another building is a converted barn.
"I fed hogs until '96," Larry Dallas said. "I would buy feeder pigs. I could live on what I made on those 120 head of hogs."
The brothers' nephew, John, joined the farm operation in 2010.
In today's farming world, Larry Dallas said he's not sure he and his brother would be able to break into farming the way they did in the '80s.
"Competition for land is pretty tough," he said. "Farms are bigger. The equipment is bigger. Our first planter was an eight-row. And now we've got a 24."
Does he think things are better now?
"I would say it was better when you could make a living on less ground," he said.
Added David Dallas: "Since they started making tractors, the farms have gotten bigger. In the last years that trend has increased, I think.
"The amount of money it takes to get into farming these days is a big hurdle," Larry Dallas said. "The land cost is enormous. Just putting out a crop is a lot of money: $90 an acre for dry fertilizer, $80 an acre for nitrogen, up to $160 an acre for seed.
"That's before you've gotten any money back. You're waiting six months for that."
John Dallas added: "It's the same concept of the rich get richer and the big farms get bigger faster. Competitive advantage, to some degree."
One trade-off, he said, is that farmers get proportionally higher yields compared to the 1970s and '80s.
Welcoming innovation
Some things have changed for the better.
The treatments that companies place on soybean seeds allow beans to be planted first, before corn, which is just the opposite of how it was done in years gone by.
"Thirty years ago, if you planted beans the first of April and it turned out wet and cold, they just rotted," Larry Dallas said. "And now the seed treatments will preserve them. Nobody put treatments on beans until about 15 years ago."
What does he think about the future of farming?
"I think people are always going to eat," he said. "I think the economies of scale may not work as well when you put weather into the equation. That's just my opinion.
"I think there's always going to be a place for the smaller guy if he's efficient and on the ball."
One major challenge facing farming is labor.
The Dallases have had a couple of retirees who have helped them in recent years, although one is talking about moving away. They found a neighbor who was temporarily out of work to drive the grain cart for them during the most recent harvest.
In the spring, it's generally the Dallas brothers and their nephew working out in the fields.
Civic engagement
A 1971 Tuscola High School graduate, Larry Dallas is 71 years old.
He said he thought it was important to stay as involved in the ag industry and the community as he could.
Dallas joined the Farm Bureau in 1983 — at first in Champaign County with the Farm Bureau Young Farmers organization, serving as chairman for two years.
When he moved to his present address, he joined the Douglas County Farm Bureau and served as that chapter's president for 11 years.
He served for four years on the Illinois Farm Bureau Board.
"I felt real fortunate to be a county president and felt even more fortunate to be on the state board," he said.
His response to President Donald Trump's pledge to raise tariffs on imported goods?
"I went to a meeting last summer. It was sponsored by Farm Bureau and Illinois Soybean Association," he said. "The economist said the U.S. is a big deal, and we need to act like it. Anytime you put tariffs on, agriculture suffers. Hopefully it's just a bargaining chip."
Larry Dallas was elected to the Douglas County Board in 2008, serving as president for 11 years. For about 20 years, he has been a member of the Upper Kaskaskia Water Shed Group, which works with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers on nitrogen and phosphorous pollution and siltation into the river.
He is also a lifetime member of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Sadorus.
Well-rounded
Larry and David Dallas are avid Illini fans and have held season tickets in football and basketball since 1976.
Larry Dallas is also a hunter, and he inherited the carpentry gene from his father.
During the winter, he's been making cabinets for one of the bathrooms in his house. He uses his father's table saw and a planer.
"He's learned from some good people," David said of what makes Larry a good farmer. "And I've learned a lot from him. You can learn a lot just by watching what he does."
Nephew John is a fan.
"I've been involved in agriculture the majority of my life," he said. "I don't know if I've seen anyone as dedicated to agriculture as a whole like Larry with the involvement in Farm Bureau.
"I think anyone you would talk to would say Larry is a good advocate for agriculture. The further down the road we get, there's less people involved with agriculture, less people familiar with what it takes. You need people to stand up and advocate for modern agriculture."
John Dallas said he feels fortunate that his uncles needed help on the farm — a job he hopes to continue the rest of his working life.
"I told him there will always be enough work," Larry Dallas said. "I didn't know if there'd be enough money."
In the spring, John normally works the ground, Larry runs the planter and David does "everything else."
Deep roots
The Dallases appreciate farmers who have gone before them and own "way too many" pieces of vintage farm equipment.
"It's a little bit of everything," David Dallas said. "We still use some of the antiques."
They still own the second tractor they bought — an 806 International Harvester.
The Dallases own a John Deere G that belonged to one of their landlords and during the winter worked on a Case DC that belonged to an uncle.
"It's still in the process" of being fixed up, David Dallas said. "We're kind of proud the way that tractor looks. It's a '51 or '52. But we've got a tractor that one of our landlords had that we use quite a bit, (an IH) 560. It's a '63, I think."
Larry Dallas said he appreciates where farming has come from and its effect on his family before him. He stays involved in agriculture, and that's one reason he is so active in many agriculture-related organizations.
