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This Week in Ag #75

Inconvenient Truths About Farming

This Week In Ag #104 Here’s an inconvenient truth about farming: many farmers live off their equity. When land is your biggest asset and land prices remain strong, so does your balance sheet. This offers lending power. Depending on your situation, it’s very possible to break even, or even lose money in your farming operation

The Spring Rush: What Farmers Are Up Against

The Spring Rush: What Farmers Are Up Against “Farmers are always thinking about our products.” I’ll never forget those words, uttered by an old client of mine. She worked for a large life sciences company. We were launching a pre-emergence corn herbicide, to a market saturated with them. I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. I told her that in the hierarchy of thoughts occupying a farmer’s mind, pre-emergent herbicides barely registered. Adding that we had already spent more time thinking about them during our meeting than most farmers do all year. To be fair, she isn’t the only one to share this flawed view. Few occupations require more versatility, or have more irons in the fire, than farming. That’s why I’ve long advocated that anyone marketing to farmers considers not just the product they are selling, and what challenge or opportunity it may address, but what impact it will have on their entire operation – from soil to software, labor to logistics. Because that’s how farmers think. As the calendar turns to April, we’re entering the busiest – and most critical time – of the year.