FAYETTEVILLE — Jim Batchelor, a former state agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and first president of the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences Alumni Society, is being remembered for love of agriculture and desire to help others.
Batchelor died Sept. 10 at age 77. He was a University of Arkansas alumnus, having earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees — all in agronomy — in Fayetteville. His doctoral work included an emphasis on soil physics and soil fertility.
Batchelor was no stranger to agriculture. He was born in Newport and raised on a large family farm before attending Sewanee Military Academy and graduating in 1964. He went on to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville before joining the army in 1966 and spending three years as a surgical technician.
Following his military service, Batchelor returned to school, earning the first of his degrees from the University of Arkansas in 1975. Following completion of his Ph.D. in 1980, he was hired as the state agronomist, based in Keiser at the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station’s Northeast Research and Extension Center. The experiment station is the research arm of the Division of Agriculture.
“Jim Batchelor was a man who made a difference with his career dedicated to the practical application of the science of agriculture and his lifelong engagement with the land-grant university system,” said Mark Cochran, retired head of the Division of Agriculture. “He was a supporter, a friend and a product of the UA System agricultural programs.”
Batchelor left the Division of Agriculture to become vice president of the National Fertilizer Solutions Association. He launched the Fluid Fertilizer Foundation and became its first research director.
Fluid Fertilizer Foundation research projects were established across the United States at land-grant institutions and in Great Britain to develop practices that improved efficient use of clear liquid and suspension fertilizers. Batchelor was recognized nationally in 1985 for the contributions he made for the development and use of fluid fertilizers.
He also served as an executive with Southern Farmers Association for more than a decade, leading the technical services and eventually the agronomy departments. And he served as president of SF Technical Services, the crop consulting arm of Southern Farmers Association.
SFA consolidated with Farmland Industries of Kansas City in 1998 and Batchelor became director of Seed for WilFarm. The company later merged with Land O' Lakes and Batchelor helped organize and integrate seed sales through all associated retail co-ops in the U.S. Land O’ Lakes became the largest distributor of seed to farmer owned co-ops by 2002.
Even while working out of state, Batchelor didn’t put Arkansas agriculture on the sideIines. In 1993, he and John Gilmour, emeritus professor of the department of crop, soil and environmental science at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, organized the Arkansas chapter of the national Certified Crop Advisors program, a program endorsed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Batchelor served as chairman of the CCA board for its first two years.
Helping the Division of Agriculture
“At his heart, Jim was always trying to look for a way to help people,” said Chuck Culver, now-retired director of stakeholder relations for the Division of Agriculture. “Jim had a servant’s heart and volunteer’s spirit. Helping Arkansas agriculture was one of his great passions.
“His work on behalf of Bumpers College and the Division of Agriculture was very much in keeping with this passion,” Culver said.
Back in the 1990s, Culver, who was also involved in development for the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, worked on establishing an alumni society for the college.
Once the Bumpers College Alumni Society came to be, “Jim Batchelor was one of the first people we reached out to. He was there at the ground floor. He loved it. He was very active with it,” Culver said.
Batchelor was elected as the inaugural president of the Bumpers College Alumni Society, and served two terms. He also was instrumental in the Division of Agriculture obtaining the Glenn Baumann home in Stuttgart, a one-of-a-kind structure designed by famed architect, Arkansas native, and University of Arkansas alumnus, E. Fay Jones.
In 2002, Batchelor became general manager of Tri-County Farmers Association in Brinkley and served 10 years. He and his employees grew a small co-op business into one of the largest farmer-owned local co-ops in Arkansas.
Clay Schaefer, Woodruff County farmer, Bumpers alumnus, and former Tri-County Farmers Co-op board member, said of Batchelor: “His faith was very strong, just like his commitment to the co-op, the Razorbacks and to agriculture.”
Jim Batchelor is survived by his wife, Carol Ann, and son, Zach Batchelor.
