Business profile - Genesis Tillage

As a community with close-knit bonds to the agricultural community Hope is also home to Genesis Tillage. Owner Brian McKinley talks about what makes Genesis Tillage so unique and beneficial to southern-Indiana agriculture, as well as what he enjoys most about working with area farmers and the challenges he faces. 

What does Genesis Tillage do?

We manufacture a soil aerator. We also do customizing work on non-Genesis farm equipment. It can be repairs and modifications for any type of equipment.

How did the idea come about for the Genesis business?

I started doing engineering work for Genesis and ended up buying it.

What is your customer base?

The agricultural community. We’ve got machines in Germany and all over the United States.

So are you’re a distributor?

A lot of what we do is factory-direct, yes.

What do you enjoy most about the business?

I grew up on a 1,000-acre farm and I like staying in touch with the farming community. Farmers are some of the finest people I know.

What has been the greatest benefit of bringing Genesis Tillage to Hope?

We’ve got a few machines in the county and I would love to see more. It is a fantastic conservation practice as far as a conservation tillage tool.

How is this form of tillage so different from traditional methods?

What that means is you loosen the soil without displacing it. So like during big rains, if you aerate your soil instead of running a chisel plow through it, instead of having half of your soil in the Flat Rock River it stays in place you get a better aeration benefit without all the erosion issues.

What has been the biggest challenge?

I am a slave to commodity prices. Two or three years ago when corn was around $7 we were building machines faster than we could run. But when corn prices go down the demand follows. A lot of it goes back to fuel prices because when fuel prices go up the market demands more alcohol to supplement the gasoline. And as a result corn prices go up. It is a circle.

What has contributed to the longevity of the Genesis Tillage business?

It is tied in to our design business, Design and Analysis, Inc. When things are slow on the agriculture side we can use that same equipment to build other things. The other thing is it is a tool that has wear parts so service parts help us to weather the storm until we are building new equipment.

Is there anything you would do differently?

I don’t know. Probably my number one thing would be to find a partner who could scale it big. We thought it would catch fire but it has been a little ember out here burning. I’m hoping it will take off one of these days.