Robby Barkley

Barkley Ag Enterprises
Yuma, Arizona

“I don't think there is any better business to be in than farming and agriculture.”

Family History

For more than 100 years, the Barkley family has been in the growing business in the Yuma area. “Both my mother and father’s families have been in Yuma for about 100 years. And both families were involved in farming from day one.”

His ancestors came from a number of different locations but they all came to the southwestern desert to make their living in the farming industry. His grandfather Les Barkley began farming in Yuma prior to the 1920s and established a sizable farm over the next 30 years. “It was small by today’s standards but in those days it was a good-sized operation.”

James F. Barkley, Robby’s father, took the operation to the next level in his close to 30 years of farming. “My dad took it over in the 1950s,” Barkley said. “By the 1970s, our main three crops were iceberg lettuce, cotton and grains. My dad had expanded to other areas so by the late 1970s, we were farming in Yuma, Oxnard, the Mexicali Valley in Mexico and in Colorado.”

Best Laid Plans

It was during the boom times of the 1970s that Robby Barkley graduated from high school and headed off to Northern Arizona University and initially studied biology and botany. After a couple of years in college, he hatched a plan to come back to the farm and work for awhile before returning to college to get a degree in agriculture. With degree in hand, he would then come back to the farm and continue farming as his father and grandfather had done before him.

However, life has a way of interrupting the best laid plans. While back on the farm in 1979, Jim Barkley passed away and Robby had to take over the operation. He had an older brother and sister but neither of them was actively involved in the family business.

“Those were tough times,” he said. “We went through a bad couple of years in the late 1970s. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, if you remember, we had runaway inflation. When I took over, it was time to restructure, reorganize and pull in the horns a bit.”

Barkely Ag Enterprises today

Just as his father and grandfather before him, Robby Barkley has now run the family operation for about three decades. His turn at the helm has been marked by focusing on the company’s key growing district and diversifying into other ancillary business. Today, Barkley Ag Enterprises grows exclusively in the Yuma area on extensive holdings. “If you farm in the desert, it basically means you are a winter vegetable grower and you produce grains crops on a crop rotation basis. That’s what we do.”

Barkley Ag Enterprises, however, also got into the grain merchandising business with a plant breeding program and a seed company. The company is also involved in real estate development. Robby Barkley self-identifies as a diversified agri-businessman. “My day to day responsibilities are not on the farm but on the upper level business management of our operations.”

And with a great deal of pride, he adds: “I don’t think there is any better business to be in than farming and agriculture. I get a lot of enjoyment from being involved in agriculture. There are great people in agriculture and you get to see what you produce come up from the ground. That’s a great feeling.”

Issues Facing the Industry

Barkley expects the current issues of water and food safety – to name just two – to continue to be of paramount concern in 2010. “Water is of course very important to our two states. Without water, we don’t have farming; we don’t have food. Food safety has always been a very important issue and in the last few years it rose to the top and I am sure we will be spending a lot of time on it in 2010.”

Personal Life

It is difficult for Barkley to separate his personal life from his work life. When asked what makes him tick off the farm, he says, “I work. I love what I do. I love the outdoors. I love to hunt and fish and I am a fairly good 12-hole golfer, but after that I get bored.” The widowed Barkley remarried four years ago, with his extended family now including his wife Rachael, five children aged 10 to 38, and eight grandchildren. Two of his children are involved in the family farming business along with two nephews.