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Farm Business Management Program celebrates 70 years in Minnesota

A program designed to help farmers achieve their farm business goals is celebrating 70 years in Minnesota. 

Retired Dean of South Central Community and Technical College Al Brudelie says the mission of the Farm Business Management Program hasn’t changed since it began in 1952.

“We are trying to teach farmers to be better managers, better at working with their accounting, better marketers. Better at evaluating their business through their analysis.”

While the purpose of the program remains the same, he tells Brownfield the tools used to help farmers are vastly improved.

“We used to have a manual farm account book that the farmer would put information in (and) we’d total it at the end of the year, and then we’d put it on sheets and send it to Wisconsin and it would take weeks to get that back. Of course now it’s instantaneous with the computer.”

When Minnesota launched its Farm Business Management Program, 152 farms reported average spending at about $15,500.  Today there are more than 2,100 farms with the average spending exceeding $1.1 million.