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A Career Grown in the Field
From humble beginnings on a family farm in Missouri to becoming the 2025 Rice Consultant of the Year, Tim Flowers built his career through hands-on experience and a deep understanding of the field. His journey reflects decades of dedication to helping growers make informed decisions and achieve stronger results.
“I worked myself into a job.” That’s how Tim Flowers sums up his path to becoming a rice consultant. But that simple statement hardly captures the decades of experience and success behind his career. Agriculture and Flowers’ hometown, Dexter, Missouri, have been two constants in his life. His dad had a small farm with cattle and rented out row crop ground. Flowers’ older brother, Stan, started farming when he was in high school.
Flowers earned an agricultural economics degree from Missouri State with the goal of returning home to farm with his brother. That was in the early 1980s, when starting a farm wasn’t easy.
"Prices were bad, everything was depressed and on top of that. interest was like 18% to 24%. People lost farms that had been in the family for years. So trying to get started with no land or anything behind me…it was just really tough.”
After a few years farming with his brother, Flowers went on to work at a local co-op where he sold fertilizer, seed and chemicals. When the co-op needed someone to run the spray rig after the driver quit, Flowers stepped in. He picked up spraying quickly and it provided him a deeper understanding of crop protection and field conditions.
After a few years at the co-op, Flowers ran a fertilizer plant for several years. He then went to work in retail sales for a chemical company that also had a spray rig. That’s when Flowers started transitioning into the consultant role.
“People would come in a say, ‘spray this’ or ‘spray that,’” he said. “But after a while I got to saying, you know I’ve looked, and I think this would be better.”
Soon, people started to come in to request Flowers’ look at their rice and “spray what you want on it.”
“That’s how that all developed,” he said. “It was really kind of neat because at first they told me what to do and then, later on, I was telling them ‘here’s what we’re gonna do.’”
In 2002, Flowers started consulting on his own. His diverse knowledge and experience help him give the best agronomic advice to his customers.
“There’s some excellent consultants around me here,” Flowers said. “They’re all friends of ours. We’re all like a little consulting family here around Dexter.”
Flowers says they call or text each other all the time to ask their opinions and get perspectives on field situations.
Despite the recognition he has received throughout his career, Flower said he never expected to be in the spotlight.
“I was just often surprised because I’d never dreamed that I would receive something like this,” Flowers said. “It’s not my goal to be in the spotlight. I’m a behind the scenes guy…so I was surprised, but it’s a pleasant surprise.”
The More You Grow
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