News
Young farmers and ranchers diversifying operations
An executive with Farm Credit Mid-America says the make-up of the next generation of farmers and ranchers is changing.
Dick Poe, senior vice-president of financial services says he’s seeing more diversified operations. “We are seeing a tremendous amount of interest in other ways to make money,” he says. “We’re seeing a lot more interest in livestock, we’re seeing more specialty crops, more value add crops, and more new crops.”
He tells Brownfield the new generation is trying to figure out how to be more profitable producers. “They’re not going to make their niche growing commodity corn and commodity beans with the current profitability picture that we’re in,” he says. “There is a lot of creativity and quite frankly it’s a great point for them figure out what that niche can be.”
In the long run, Poe says the diversification of the operations makes young farmers better producers and ultimately better farm managers.
AUDIO: Dick Poe, Farm Credit Mid-America
The interesting thing about this article, is this same Farm Credit association is rarely interested in doing business with an operation outside of the “normal” row crop corn/soybean farmer or hog/beef/dairy farm. I have witnessed very few loans approved (versus the many denied) for operations that are involved in specialty crops, nurseries, and niche livestock markets (i.e. grass fed beef), for no other reason than to hear, “we just don’t have enough experience with your type of operation/business”. Understandable if a loan isn’t being made for lack of capital, earnings, business plan, but don’t act like farms just started trying this and now Farm Credit is stepping up to the plate ready to help.