Eugene Matthews of Oakley, Idaho, looks like he just walked out of a Tom Selleck western. His handlebar mustache feels natural, authentic, nothing like the one sitting on the upper lip of some hipster undergrad in maroon skinny jeans. His boot-cut Twenty Xs are faded, his cowboy boots covered in mud, and his straw hat has a ring of sweat around the hatband. When he speaks, it’s with the decisive twang and vernacular of the cowboys of the Great Basin’s high desert country.
“You know, I go to these potato industry meetings,” he says, “and I’m the only guy in a cowboy hat.”
Matthews is every inch a cowboy. But make no mistake, the man knows how to run a farm, too. His ancestors first came to southern Idaho’s Magic Valley in the 1880s and set to work farming and ranching, and Eugene Matthews is thankful and proud to be doing the same thing in the same place. He and his wife Heidi have raised three sons—Blake, Broden and Brandon—each of whom has returned in some capacity to the family business.
Through as series of transactions, partnerships, generational transitions, sound decisions, good luck and bad luck, Matthews Farms now operates some 3,500 irrigated acres, much of it in dry foothill country, and runs a cowherd of about 600 mother cows. On top of that, a Matthews-owned feedlot named Three Bar Cattle Co. can house and feed 5,000 head of yearlings. While many may caution against branching out in too many directions, Matthews credits diversification with his success.
“There’ve been years this cattle deal has kept the farm going,” he says. “And it’s gone back and forth. A lot of years the farm has supported the cattle, too.”
In the mid-1980s, when a stalemate between Idaho growers and processors brought the state’s industry to a virtual standstill, Matthews, along with several of his peers, joined Sun Valley Potatoes, Inc., a growers’ co-op that included a fresh-pack facility. Today, Sun Valley remains the only co-op in Idaho with its own packing and sales facilities, and Matthews is still a stockholder.
“I can’t say that—or any other one thing—has been some big miracle,” Matthews says. “But it’s all worked out to where we’ve been able to grow.”
This year the Matthews planted and harvested about 350 acres of potatoes, down from their typical 550 to 700, due to the temporary scaling back of their contract with McCain Foods during the remodel of McCain’s plant in nearby Burley, Idaho. “Once we get McCain’s back, we’ll have more potatoes again,” Eugene says. “Of course, we’d like to have 600 or 700 acres of spuds with all the equipment we have.”
Yet he understands the value of restraint, even in a business trying to expand. He believes Idaho’s low 2014 fresh prices are largely due to a collective failure to heed telltale signs. “There’s a sweet spot there. Greedy’s good for business, but still, you’ve got to think about it. There’s a little moderation that’s got to go into it.”
Those simple lessons are what have kept Matthews Farms moving forward, and Eugene trusts that those lessons will allow his sons and their families to carry the family business well into the future. The family is currently working with Cooper Norman on developing a transition plan to, as Matthews put it, “bring the boys in on the deal.”
Aside from the hard work they’ve put in, the Matthews know that the credit is not all theirs. “The potato deal can be a tough S.O.B.,” says Eugene. “We’ve just been lucky when opportunities have come around, and we’ve had good people around us.” Perhaps most notable among those good people have been Cranney Bros. Farms—who partnered with Matthews when he was just finding his feet in the late ‘60s—and Matt Payton, an independent soil and crop consultant whose advice the Matthews swear by.
“We’ve had some good help,” Eugene says. “You know, Cranneys helped us out a lot in the early days, and we still do a lot with them. And Matt’s really been good. He comes by and checks every one of our fields twice a week. We really use him because up here because we’ve got to make this country stretch.”
“We’ve gotten in pretty tight with Spudnik, too,” adds Eugene’s oldest son, Blake. We do a fair amount of guest work, and I’ve been up there several times to go over things with the engineers to go over stuff and help with design. It’s been really cool with them; they’ve been really good to us.”
When asked for his recipe for success, Eugene Matthews scoffs and says, “There are no secrets. We’ve just tried to do things right and had good people around us, and we’ve been pretty lucky. So it’s been a good road.”
The road ahead looks pretty solid, too.