Under The Big Blue Sky
Farmers Find Hope
By Brenda Sommer
Michael Watz can't imagine being anything other than a family farmer, a representative member of the agricultural industry - the main business in El Campo and Wharton County.

MICHAEL WATZ is just one of the multi-generation farmers in El Campo and the surrounding Wharton County area. "A lot of people say it's in your blood," he says. "I do think it runs in your veins." While the business and technology of farming has changed, the traditions of hard work and caring about the land live on in the Watz family.

Watz, 43, is a third-generation farmer who tills various plots of land just outside El Campo, growing cotton, corn, grain sorghum and soybeans. Michael learned his profession from his father, Floyd, who grew up in nearby Pierce.

"A lot of people say it's in your blood," Michael said. "I do think it runs in your veins."

Floyd Watz was a World War II recipient of the Bronze Star who died at age 88 in late April 2007. He remains the primary inspiration for his son, born when Floyd was 46 years old.

"Dr. Arbuckle said, 'Lookie here Floyd, it's a boy,'" Watz said the story goes.

"He was my mentor. As a boy, I couldn't wait to get out of school. I wasn't much into sports. I always wanted to help my dad - I liked the work. It wasn't forced."

Watz said his two sisters "had the opportunity" to farm, but weren't drawn to the career.

"They were exposed to it - they helped with the tromping of the cotton," he said, laughing at the memory.

The children would get inside a trailer full of cotton and do their best to flatten it out to make room for more, all with their father's encouragement.

"He'd tell us to push it in the corners, pack it down," Watz said. "Dad remembers mules, and we've gone from that to 12 rows with one tractor. Now, you only need one trailer to harvest a whole field."

Watz felt more than ready to hit the fields once he'd finished an associate's degree in farm and ranch management at Wharton County Junior College.

"I was ready to farm the world, to feed the world," he said, chuckling at the memory.

With his father, Watz formed FMW Farms, which the two operated together for 15 years.

Along the way, he married twice. Clayton, 17, was born of his first marriage, while his marriage to Jackie produced Blair, 8, and Taylor, 5.

In 1996, he and Jackie bought a section of land - 640 contiguous acres.

"Dad and I had farmed that land since 1979. We bought it from a cousin, so you can kind of say it's been in the family," he said. "But that's a lot to worry about at times."

By the year 2000, Watz's father Floyd was 81 years old, and ready to start easing out of the business.

"He said, 'I think I've had enough,'" Michael said. "He didn't quit - he still wanted to farm, he just didn't want the paperwork, so I bought him out."

His father started "with nothing," Watz said, but by the time he died, he owned 500 acres of farmland, which his son now farms for his mother.

With his section of land and pieces he leases, Watz plants crops on acreage spreading from Crescent to the Blue Creek Road in El Campo.

There's something in a lifestyle tuned to the outdoors and the rhythm of the seasons that appeals to Michael Watz.

"You're your own boss, you make your own decisions," he said. "Sometimes it works out, sometimes it makes you wonder if you've made the right decision, but this is my lifestyle."

He said he can't imagine living within the strictures of employment off the farm.

"Meetings, conferences, set hours - I don't have to worry about that," he said. "I have plenty to worry about, don't get me wrong. People ask me, 'How do you sleep at night with all those risks?' I guess you just have to trust in God."

Those worries include major escalation in the cost of everything needed to grow a crop: fuel, fertilizer, seeds, and even fees he has to pay every year for the genetic alterations inside the plants themselves.

"You have to stay on top of your game. You're geared up during that whole growing season, and once harvest comes, your adrenaline is gone and when it's over, you almost don't know what to do."

Would the risks and worries that are part and parcel of agriculture make Watz take up any other profession?

"I've thought of it, but where do you go? What do you do?," he said. "I can't see that ever happening. It's too much of a love for me."