BROADBAND: HELPING YOU FARM
Jeff and Melinda Downing
Five generations build Downing Cattle Co.
A
Story by JOHN CLAYTON
little more than a decade ago, Jeff Downing and his family decided to give raising their own cattle a second chance, and there have been no regrets. Downing works alongside his wife, Melinda; their son, Will; and his wife, Bethany. His daughter, Jenna, and her husband, Jeremy Yokley, also help out. “You have to make money, but a lot of your pay is getting to do what you want to do every day,” Downing says. “It’s a great way of life, but you’ve got to really love it because sometimes there isn’t a lot of money.” The Downings’ five grandchildren are also fixtures on the farm and represent the family’s fifth generation of Downings there. The couple says that’s a bonus that can’t be measured in terms of dollars and cents. “I’ve got friends whose grandkids are miles and miles away, but I get to see mine every day most of the time,” Melinda Downing says. The business has evolved since Jeff Downing’s great-grandfather started raising beef cattle on about 100 acres in Fountain Run, Kentucky. Downing Cattle Co. still operates on that land but has grown to encompass 900 acres — each generation adding acreage little by little over the years. “When a family works together, you’re not always going to agree, but we always get along,” Downing says. “We can discuss things. We have the same goals and the same worldview, really. The Lord has really blessed us.” From 1990 until the Downings switched things up with a new business model in 2009, they kept clients’ cattle on the farm. “We’d lost money farming, and I thought this would be another opportunity for us — another way to make a living,” Downing says. “In ’08, we lost money because we had all our eggs in one basket.”
GOOD TIMING Located on a fourth-generation farm, Downing Cattle Company has rendered cattle and hogs for over 40 years.
12 | July/August 2020
Even though the U.S. was in the midst of a recession when the current incarnation of Downing Cattle Co. was born, the family picked a good time to begin raising their own beef cattle once again. South Central Rural Telecommunications Cooperative
