No farming experience? No problem for Mark Wilburn

ASHEBORO — “I’m a firm believer: If you really want to do it, you can.”

Mark Wilburn proves that every day of his life. He never lived on a farm or had farmer relatives. So how did he become runner-up to the NC Farmer of the Year?

Not only is Wilburn a first-generation farmer but he works some 1,000 acres pretty much by himself. He keeps about 250 cows and calves, and currently has 43 bulls.

Uwharrie Ridge Farms on Lou Cranford Road between the Uwharrie Range and the Uwharrie River in southwestern Randolph County, he said, “is a diverse operation and the main line is seed stock of Angus and Charolais cattle.” Wilburn also raises corn and soybeans, mostly for cattle feed. 

To augment his income, he works full-time for Select Sires as a beef specialist. “I’m a beef expert for most of the East Coast,” Wilburn said. “I do customer education,” with his cell phone serving as his office.

With a college degree in business administration, how did he come to be an expert in raising beef cattle?

“I’m first generation,” Wilburn said. “There were none before me. I grew up in Randleman and North Asheboro,” not on a farm. “I just always wanted to be a farmer.”

After college, Wilburn worked in finance and banking, dealing quite a bit with farmers. “That spurred me on. I was about 22 when I bought my first piece of land,” he said, 30 acres of open land. The next year, 2008, he bought his first two Angus cows at a local stockyard.

“Boy, I was green,” he says on his website, www.uwharriefarms.com. “So green, in fact, I didn’t have a fence built and had to ask a local farmer to keep the cattle in his pen till I could construct a rudimentary 5-acre pasture.”

To make things worse, one of the cows ran off and couldn’t be caught for four months. “Needless to say, not the ideal start. … The first two years were full of learning experiences and hardships.”

Most of his knowledge of farming was self-taught with help from mentors who helped him assemble a small herd. That includes a cow that produced top-tier offspring and helped propel his program upward.

The history of Uwharrie Ridge Farms can be found in detail on the website.

Standing just feet from his herd on a recent evening, Wilburn talked about how his business education “plays a big part in this. My background in finance goes hand-in-hand with farming.”

Wilburn’s research led him to Angus cattle, which he breeds and sells to other farmers. “My Angus customers wanted a different breed for hybrid vigor,” he said. That led him to add Charolais cattle, a white breed from France.

“My bulls and females are bred to have calves,” he said. “Dec. 6 is my annual sale. I will sell 132 cattle in about an hour and a half. Last year, we had over 200 people.” Buyers came from several states.

Wilburn’s cattle are rotated around several pastures and he adds other nutrients to form a high-roughage diet. “They graze all day and I want the bulls to be stout but not fat. So they graze on a hillside for exercise.”

He doesn’t allow the animals to drink from streams, preferring that they have pure water from deep wells. That’s to prevent unwanted substances from entering their guts.

He uses technology to enhance his farming. For instance, each animal has an orange ear tag that dispenses information to Wilburn’s cell phone such as when a cow is in heat.

He looks at his cattle as employees doing a job. If they don’t perform, they’ll be replaced.

When asked what he sees in the farm’s future, Wilburn said, “I would like to see it get bigger. The crop side may expand. But the cow market is the bright spot now. It’s really good.”

That’s a shift from the past, he said, adding that “14 of the 20 years have been at a loss. But the last couple of years have been good.

“The farm economy is not good enough to sustain a family. Financially, it’s tough. I wish the farm economy was good enough that it was the only thing I had to do. It would be nice to come to the barn every day and that’d be it.”

Expansion of Uwharrie Ridge Farms would depend on adding more land in addition to what Wilburn owns and leases. 

“It’s tricky to purchase land in the farming economy,” he said. “Since I was not born in it, I’m not part of the ‘family.’ It’s the entrenchment of the farm economy. It’s tough since I’ve never been part of the establishment.”

However, that didn’t prevent Wilburn from being a finalist for the NC Farmer Appreciation Day Farmer of the Year. He said his wife Jessica welcomed him home from work recently and told him they would be going to Raleigh for the ceremony.

That upset his plans to go that particular day to see a farmer in South Carolina, but it was worth the acclaim of being the runner-up to the award. Mark, Jessica and their 3-year-old daughter Mereighan can delight in knowing that their farm is considered second-best in North Carolina.

Quite an honor for a man who got into farming with no experience.