“The variety development at the AgCenter is our lifeblood.” — Kemper Bubenzer (stock photo)

Christian Bubenzer was a German immigrant, a Civil War Union soldier, a prisoner of war, a prison of war escapee and a sugarcane farmer. It was during his escape from a war prison in Sabine Parish that he wandered through the Avoyelles Parish area. He walked clear across Louisiana, eventually ending up in Vicksburg. Mississippi, and linking up with another regiment.

Bubenzer made his way back to what is now Bunkie after he was discharged from the war, forgoing returning to Indiana where he had been recruited into the army. He settled there and found work in mills and eventually in farming

His descendants have been farming on that land ever since.

“He purchased land in 1889 and then bought more in 1901 and set up his family in an old antebellum home,” Grady Bubenzer said of his great-grandfather Christian.

Christian could not have envisioned the farming practices Grady, his brother Kemper, and Grady’s son Fletcher and Kemper’s son Harvey are using today at their farm, B & A Cane Inc. He likely would have been impressed by the sugar yields these modern farmers get from their crops and would have found himself in awe of the technology and the equipment they use.

“I don’t see how they could envision much when they lived in a log cabin,” Grady said.

Grady also has a hard time wrapping his head around the advances that are coming in agriculture. He joked that he likes to stick to the tried-and-true methods he has used for decades, while his son and nephew eye new tools that can revolutionize the way they farm.

But you can’t stop progress, so Grady and Kemper want their family to help usher it in.

The brothers are establishing an endowment with the LSU AgCenter to fund the Bubenzer Family Professorship in Precision Agriculture. The professorship will help support an AgCenter faculty member working in precision agriculture.

“This will allow us to be able to talk to someone in the organization with expertise in precision agriculture and to see what new ideas are out there and where things are going,” Kemper Bubenzer said.

The brothers farm about 2,400 acres of sugarcane in Avoyelles and Rapides parishes — an area that is the northernmost point in the world where sugarcane is grown. They said they rely heavily on the LSU AgCenter to help them farm.

“The variety development at the AgCenter is our lifeblood,” Kemper said. “In the area we farm, we need cold tolerance.”

During the 2023 drought, LSU AgCenter engineer Randy Price flew a drone over the Bubenzers’ cane fields to help them pinpoint irrigation needs. The brothers recognize that these precision ag technologies are helping them use resources more efficiently and improve their production practices and the AgCenter can lead the way for Louisiana producers.

“Without the Extension Service, I don’t think we would be in the cane business,” Grady said.

With their donation, the Bubenzers are paving a way for their descendants to see success in sugarcane the way they and their ancestors did. He said farming will always be a challenge, but Kemper said it’s a good life and all they have ever known.

And now it’s what their sons know, and their sons also know the future will look very different.

“They are way more savvy than we were,” Grady said. “I imagine they will be interested in autonomous equipment and more use of infrared technology. They will see things in the field that we couldn’t.”