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s p r i n g 2 013
Protecting Against an
Invisible Threat Cyber-security: How safe
is your information? INSIDE News & Views 2
Payroll Testimonial 11
CEO Letter 3
Washington Update 12
Cover Story 4
Board Candidates 13
Scholarships 10
Community Support 16
NE &v W iew S s
FarmCreditEast.com
FarmStart Opens Doors for Promising Young Businesses What’s New at the Movies? We welcome you to stop by the Farm Credit East YouTube channel where you can see how our products and services come to life through the eyes of our staff. Over the past year, we produced more videos to provide you with insight concerning our products and services, as well as on Northeast agriculture as a whole. As we continue to expand our YouTube videos, we hope that you visit YouTube.com/FarmCreditEast from time to time to see what’s new at the movies. So, grab a bowl of popcorn and enjoy some of our latest releases … • Ag Development and Grant Writing • Benchmarking for Farm Business Profitability • Crop Insurance: A Risk Management Tool • Dairy Consulting • FarmStart: Seed Capital for Startup Farms • Financial Record-Keeping to Strengthen Your Business • Northeast Agriculture: The Next 10 Years • Tax Planning for Farm Businesses • Tax Preparation Specializing in Agriculture
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For young people who have a great idea and a year or two in farming, FarmStart may be the way for them to obtain the capital they need to make their business a success. FarmStart, a program to help young people get started in farming, recently approved its 102nd investment. Since the first investment in 2006, FarmStart has invested more than $4.4 million with 102 participants across New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont. “Achieving our 100th investment this past November was an exciting milestone for the program,” said Lynn
Weaver, FarmStart program director. “We are pleased that the program continues to offer talented young business owners a healthy start in agriculture.” FarmStart invests up to $50,000 of working capital to help startup farmers during the early phases of their operations. A typical FarmStart participant has two to three years of experience in the industry, has a good business plan and is passionate about getting started. A FarmStart advisor works with each participant to ensure proper financial information and analysis and to evaluate how they are doing in meeting their business plan objectives.
Watch the video You can learn more about FarmStart at YouTube.com/FarmCreditEast. In this video, FarmStart advisor Samantha Stoddard reflects on her experiences working with new farmers and how this program has helped them get their businesses off the ground.
Internet security
CEO’s Message
We take it very seriously. We hope that you will, too. Bill Lipinski, CEO, Farm Credit East
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nternet safety and security is the theme for this issue of Financial Partner magazine. When you read our cover story, we think that you will sit up and take notice of both the issue itself and simple ways to protect your information. Computer security is a critical topic for all who use the Internet for commerce, whether you are paying a bill, checking an account balance or seeking a transfer of funds. As a financial institution, we understand that we, as well as our customers, are an especially attractive target for fraud and mayhem by Internet criminals. Over the years, we and our partners have invested substantially in technology, tools, training and updating of business practices to ward off fraud. Unfortunately, this is a war in which honest people never get to declare victory. As we work hard to stay ahead of the “bad guys,” they get more clever, brazen and innovative in finding ways to attack online transactions. Financial Partners, Inc. (FPI), of Agawam, Mass., is our technology partner.
FPI’s CEO Tom Moran and Carl Boyer, director of computer security, provide great advice about managing the risk of Internet fraud in our feature article. I have tremendous respect for the work that Tom, Carl and the FPI team do on our behalf to keep your transactions and personal information secure.
“Computer security is a critical topic for all who use the Internet for commerce …” Every year we invest in new, state-ofthe-art security protocols with FPI. FPI monitors 24/7/365 for cyber-attacks, malware and other assorted mischief in our digital world. While we have had secure email capability on our website for several years, FPI has provided a new, more userfriendly interface for our customers to use secure messaging. In addition, with FPI’s help, we are launching Customer MySite
within our Internet site to allow you to view and obtain your data in a secure environment without the need for email. We ask that you help us help you keep your transactions with Farm Credit East safe. We are eager to help you receive and send secure email in just a few minutes. Secure messaging will benefit you in your Farm Credit transactions and any sensitive information that you exchange with us. In addition, we beefed up our authentication procedures to ensure that when you request a transaction, we can verify that it is really you who is making the request. So when we ask you for your mother’s middle name or other verification protocol, it’s for your protection and peace of mind. It is not to make your life more difficult. Yes, these risks are real. We have had several instances during the past few years when crooks attempted to initiate fraudulent transactions. Thanks to the dedication and common sense of our staff, we stopped these attacks before damage occurred. Each has been a learning experience, but we know full well that they will not be the last ones.
Calling All Talented Photographers! The Farm Credit East Photo Calendar Contest is now open. We’ve received so many wonderful images of Northeast agriculture and country life from customers, employees and friends over the years. We hope that your shutter finger has
been busy and that you are ready to upload more winning shots for our 2014 calendar. We look for photos representing Northeast agriculture during every season. We like to have all industries represented, from commercial fishing to dairy, the forest prod-
ucts industries to row crops — with all other industries in between.
Ready! Aim! Shoot! Don’t delay. Visit FarmCreditEast.com/ calendar to upload your best shots.
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The computer security team: Alexander Acheson, Cliff Reed (seated), Carl Boyer and Kathleen Santiago
Protecting Against an
Invisible Th Cyber-security: How
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hreat safe is your information?
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Cynthia Stiglitz was concerned. She had received an email from a Farm Credit East customer who was en route to a funeral and unable to call. The customer was hoping that Cynthia, as the family’s Farm Credit East loan officer, could quickly provide $13,000 for funeral expenses. The customer’s email address checked out, and the customer had concluded his correspondence with the same sign-off that he typically used. But Cynthia felt uneasy about the exchange.
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To be cautious, Cynthia called the customer at home to ensure that he was, in fact, away from the farm. The customer answered the call — with no knowledge of the loan request. Through the threat of malware, a computer hacker had gained access to the customer’s email and password, read previous email exchanges between the customer and his loan officer, and carefully crafted the phony loan request. Cynthia’s vigilance and her training with Farm Credit East prevented a costly and time-consuming headache.
Managing the Menace One Internet security firm reported that nearly 30 percent of all computers in the United States were infected with malware in 2012. For many years, the financial world was the focus of hackers’ efforts. However, after banks and other financial institutions made significant investment in protecting customers, hackers turned their attention to customers themselves.
“You may just be viewing your account records, but meanwhile they could be moving money.” Carl Boyer, director of information security at Farm Credit Financial Partners, Inc. (FPI), the Farm Credit East technology unit, has words of wisdom for those concerned about the threat of cybercrime. Carl explained that your computer is at risk even with routine web browsing and email use. If a user fails to install antivirus software, or does not update their computer on a regular basis, they become vulnerable to a host of viruses and malware. From there, it can get scary. “If
The Cost of Doing Nothing Making a Case for Preventive Action
“If you’re going to use your computer for email, browsing and business transactions, you have to recognize that you are accepting risk,” explained FPI President and CEO Tom Moran. “But you can hedge against that risk, and save yourself months of aggravation and lawyer fees solving the theft of your identity.” What is the actual cost of doing nothing? The cost of prevention is likely less than $400 in time and software. Let’s compare that against the expense of identity theft. As a farm leader, we’ll estimate the value of your time at approximately $100 per hour. The average time to recover from complete identity theft is six weeks. So, we’re left with this mathematical problem:
42 days x 8 hours a day x $100 per hour = $33,600 And that is just the cost of your loss of productivity, before we factor in legal fees. Clearly, an ounce of prevention is worth several thousand pounds of cure.
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your computer picks up an infection, and you connect to your bank using a browser like Internet Explorer, a hacker can watch every action that you take,” said Carl. “You may just be viewing your account records, but meanwhile they could be moving money.” A particularly insidious method used by cyber-crooks is the “man-in-thebrowser” attack, which can be transmitted through an infected website or email. This Trojan virus (so-called because it hides in seemingly benign software or downloads) can be used to capture passwords, security codes, credit card numbers and more. A common result of malware is damage to a user’s computer system, which can result in the loss of some or all data, or the destruction of the operating system. What would motivate a hacker to initiate this kind of attack? “Some just want to see what they can do, like kids who graffiti walls,” explained Carl. “The next level is data theft, which can include getting your information or stealing your identity, taking advantage of account information and stealing money.” In the face of cybercrime, Tom Moran, president and CEO of FPI, cautions that any business conducted over the Internet should be approached with the same caution as one would use over an open party line.
The Best Offense Is a Good Defense Last year alone, cybercrime cost U.S. consumers an estimated $20.7 billion, as reported by Norton security firm. The risk of doing nothing is clear, but what action should you take?
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Password, Sure … but Protected? Not all passwords are created equal. Gone are the days when birthdates, children’s names or places of birth were adequate sources for password security. Fortunately, beefing up your first line of defense is relatively easy. Let’s say that you’ve chosen to use your son’s name — william — for your password. Hacking software typically scans for all words in the dictionary, city names, county names and sports teams in trying to figure out your secret code. This software is able to crack any common password instantly. In fact, there is software available today that can test billions of passwords per second. A hacker using a standard PC could determine that your son’s name is your password in less than a second. How about if we add a number? Say, “william8.” Now it may take up to 11 minutes. And if we capitalize the first letter? “William8” could take a hacker more than 15 hours. More difficult, but still possible. So how can you craft a password that is near impervious to a hacker’s attempts? Let’s try adding a symbol to your password. “William_8” would now take around 275 days to crack. By making just a few alterations, you will go from a password that can be cracked in less than a second to one that would take a PC almost a year to determine. And the longer a password takes to decipher, the greater the chance that a hacker will move on.
The first line of defense against cybercrime is one of the easiest to employ: When you receive a popup from a trusted source that alerts you to an update, don’t ignore it. Click accept! A more proactive approach would be to turn on automatic updates for your operating system and Internet browsers. Additional cautionary measures include
Tips to Create a Secure Password • Use unique passwords for your financial software and online banking. • Avoid reusing passwords that you use for social media sites. Many websites, including social media sites, have weak security. If your password is hacked at one of these sites, you can compromise any online account for which you use the same password. • Use at least eight letters and numeric characters. Hacking software can guess a six-character password with just lowercase letters in less than 10 minutes. • Mix uppercase, lowercase, numeric digits and special characters whenever allowed. • Test your passwords at howsecureismypassword.net. For a real eye opener, try variations of your password.
setting up a firewall and enabling encryption on your wireless network. Carl explains the risk of leaving your wireless network without encryption, “If you don’t add encryption, anyone can jump on your network from up to a half mile away from your farm and read everything on your network.” He added that setting up encryption security protocols is a relatively
simple process, which can be implemented by following the set-up instructions accompanying your router. Ken Hilton, president of Red Wing Software, noted the importance of using security-focused software whenever business transactions are involved. “We are now able to communicate much more quickly within a business and with outside
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Rules – of –
Computer Security 1. Keep software up to date. 2. Use antivirus software and be sure to update frequently. 3. Set up a firewall. 4. Use strong passwords. 5. Set up wireless encryption.
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contacts, such as vendors and customers,” said Ken. “But the downside is that there are many more security threats. Keeping your software technology current helps keep your data safe from hackers.” To that end, Red Wing offers CenterPoint financial management software, specifically designed for the security needs of ag businesses. For more information regarding the benefit of using CenterPoint software, contact your local Farm Credit East branch office. As a final precaution, the Farm Credit East information security team suggests that your household set up a computer dedicated strictly for business and financial transactions. “Email and surfing are the two most frequent routes that malware uses to infect your computer,” explained Carl. “If you have a computer that doesn’t see that kind of activity, you significantly reduce your chance of someone taking advantage of your information.” Though Carl acknowledged that few households would take this step, he recommended
doing everything possible to mitigate the resulting risk.
Protecting Our Customers Farm Credit East puts considerable time and resources into protecting the security and assets of our customers. Given the rising threat of cybercrime, we have worked closely with FPI to create multiple layers of security tools. FPI employs a five-person security team, supported by 20 systems and network staff. Additionally, they schedule five audits annually, conducted by external agencies that execute a variety of process reviews and technical tests to verify the effectiveness of our security measures. As a financial institution, Farm Credit East employs stringent measures to ensure that our customers’ transactions are secure. Firewalls and other network security tools are our first line of defense. We also use a 24/7, 365 days-a-year external monitoring service to provide us with alerts for any network attacks. When
Rules of the (Cyber)Road
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Keeping Your Information Secure When Traveling • Avoid financial transactions or relaying sensitive information via publicly accessible computers (e.g., hotels, libraries, coffee shops and airports). • Ensure that any wireless connection has WPA2 security or later and encryption is enabled. Hackers can easily monitor unencrypted information transmitted within a few hundred feet. • Ensure your wireless connection is the one you were intending to use. For instance, if you use a Starbucks wireless hotspot, verify that you’ve connected to the correct network. Hackers will set up alternative wireless networks in the vicinity in hopes you will connect to the wrong one, allowing them to monitor your online activity or hijack your connection.
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What is My Site?
Secure
Messaging Protects Your Confidential Information
We have seen an increase in fraudulent attempts to obtain funds or gain access to confidential information, with many attempts resulting from compromised customer email accounts. To ensure the safety of your confidential information, we implemented procedures, including secure messaging on FarmCreditEast.com. With secure messaging, you can exchange confidential emails and files with us with confidence. To use secure messaging, login to our website using your online ID and password. This additional login helps protect the confidentiality of your information.
How Secure Messaging works When you receive a secure message from Farm Credit East, you will be alerted via your regular email. This notification requests that you login to FarmCreditEast.com to view your secure message. If you don’t have a FarmCreditEast.com account, this email will prompt you to create one. Once your account is created, you can use the same login for future secure messages from Farm Credit East.
transferring information to or from our customers, Farm Credit East offers secure messaging. Whether you are sending your Farm Credit East representative tax or loan information, all messages and data that you transfer are encrypted. There’s nothing more important to our team than the integrity of your information and resources, and our dedication to combating cybercrime reflects that. By taking the time to implement a few security measures of your own, you can further protect yourself against this growing concern. ❖
My Site is a portal created just for you that contains information specific to your business and industry. This offers you access to your Farm Credit East loan accounts as well as a fast, personalized way to communicate Farm Credit East updates and industryspecific information. In addition, My Site is on the members-only side of FarmCreditEast.com, which requires users to login to our secure site to access their information. This adds another level of security to protect your confidential information. Once logged in to FarmCreditEast.com, your My Site gives you instant access to: • Summary information on your loan account(s) • News & information of specific interest to you and your business • Secure messaging to exchange confidential data and large files securely with Farm Credit East • Access to your Farm Credit East documents, billing statements, year-end information and more • Information on the industries of interest to you • Knowledge Exchange information, such as monthly newsletters and bi-annual business outlooks • Ag-related grant announcements and farm labor and immigration information
To sign up for My Site Talk with your loan officer about creating your FarmCreditEast.com account and linking it with your loan account(s) and other Farm Credit East information. Once your loan officer has initiated your account, you will receive an email with a link to complete your account. Follow this link to create your Online ID and password. Your account creation is now complete! You will use these same login credentials for future logins. Just visit FarmCreditEast.com and click “Member Sign In” from the top right corner. If you have a FarmCreditEast.com account, but don’t have access to My Site information, call your local branch office. They can work with you to upgrade your existing account.
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“ We switched our payroll to Farm Credit East. We made the switch to save costs, but it turned out to be more convenient, too.” Tom Osborne Osborne’s Agway Farm & Garden Centers LLC Hooksett, N.H.
Two Birds, One Stone
Farm Credit East Payroll Services Proves to be Convenient and Cost-Effective The Osborne family doesn’t have many hours to spare on any given day. In addition to operating three Agway dealerships in central New Hampshire, they also raise a large portion of what they sell on their 200-year-old family farm, including hay, plants, pumpkins and firewood. “In many ways, we’re an old-fashioned feed and grain store,” said Tom Osborne, general manager of the three stores. “We all do a little bit of everything and we still load bags of grain into customer’s cars.” Of course, managing an operation of this size means careful time management. With three busy stores to operate, 700 acres to farm and three greenhouses to care for, preparing their 45-person payroll
would have required more hours than any family member can find in a day.
How We Helped According to Tom Osborne, the decision to use Farm Credit East payroll services was driven by more than just time concerns. “We used another payroll service in the past, but we switched to Farm Credit East for the cost savings,” he explained. “Farm Credit East is also our lender and takes care of our financial accounting, so we wanted to simplify functions under one roof.” With Tom’s payroll information already in the Farm Credit East computer system, tax time is both simpler and more cost-
effective. “Now, at year-end, I don’t have to scramble to put payroll reports together for my accountants,” he said. “My Farm Credit East tax rep just logs in the system to find the reports she needs to complete our taxes. That adds value for us.” Tom was also able to streamline the process of submitting payroll by making use of Farm Credit East payroll software. “We used to fax our handwritten employee hours to our payroll specialist. Now, our managers can key in employee hours online at any time, and Farm Credit East does the rest,” said Tom. He added that he enjoys the benefit of knowing his representative by name and being able to call her directly with any questions he may have.
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washington Update Robert A. Smith Senior Vice President for Public Affairs
Farm Labor: A window of opportunity, but will it open? For years, Northeast farm leaders have supported reforms that would allow for a workable agriculture guest worker program available for all farms. The issue is clear. Nationwide as many as one million farm workers lack proper worker documentation and farms risk losing their workers to immigration enforcement. Over the past year, a national effort has been made to pull diverse agricultural viewpoints together on how to deal with the unauthorized worker issue and define a workable guest worker program. With strong support from the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, the American Farm Bureau Federation and many other groups, the Agriculture Workforce Coalition (AWC) was formed. (www. agworkforcecoalition.org)
The big picture Make no question about it. Passage of immigration reform legislation is far from a sure thing, but the 2012 elections may have opened the window of opportunity. Many Republican leaders believe that the strong Hispanic vote for President Obama was a direct result of Republican opposition to immigration reform proposals and that this issue needs to be addressed. A bipartisan group of eight Senators, including Schumer (D-NY), Menendez (D-NJ) and Rubio (R-FL), released a framework that may serve as the overall approach. Its four pillars are: • Create a tough, but fair path to citizenship for authorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders 12
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and tracking if legal immigrants left the country when required • Reform our legal immigration system to better recognize characteristics that will help build the American economy and strengthen American families • Create an effective employment verification system that will prevent identity theft and end the hiring of future unauthorized workers • Establish an improved process for admitting future workers to serve our nation’s workforce needs, while simultaneously protecting all workers.
The agriculture piece The AWC proposal could fall within this framework and be incorporated into an immigration bill. AWC would establish an uncapped Agricultural Worker Visa Program (under USDA) to ensure agriculture’s future legal workforce and allow flexibility with two options: • “At-will” employees could move from employer to employer without contractual commitment. The worker would have an 11-month visa with USDAregistered employers and then return home for 30 days. • “Contract” employees commit to work for an employer for a fixed period of time and would have a visa term of up to 12 months that could be renewed indefinitely. These employees would be required to return to their home country for at least 30 days every three years.
In addition, this proposal would allow current unauthorized farm workers who reside in the United States to adjust to a permanent legal status after fulfilling a future work obligation.
Advocacy Farm Credit East and 60 other Northeast farm organizations urged northeastern congressional representatives to support the agriculture community by writing: “We believe this is an economic development and food security issue. If, as a country, we continue to fail to find a workable solution to enable laborintensive agriculture to maintain the necessary workforce, we will see locally produced dairy, fruit, vegetable and other specialty crops move off shore where barriers to entry for new agricultural enterprises are minimal. “The loss of labor-intensive Northeast farms will mean increased imports from foreign countries. The jobs and related income associated with food processing and farm services will be generated in other countries.”
Final note Let’s not kid ourselves. Immigration has no easy fix. The fact of the matter is that some groups will oppose a new guest worker program for agriculture. Other groups will strongly oppose an adjustment to legal status with a pathway to citizenship. In the end, immigration will continue to be tough, but the window is opening and the opportunity is real. It’s just uncertain.
2013 Candidates for the
Board of Directors On behalf of the nominating committee, Farm Credit East is pleased to present the 2013 slate of candidates for the association’s Board of Directors. Four qualified candidates are seeking election to two open seats on the board. Members can vote for two candidates of their choice: one from the western region and one from the eastern region. There are no open seats in the central region due to the redistricting of nominating regions that occurred in 2010. There will continue to be four directors from the central region with two seats open for election in 2014 — one for a four-year term and one for a three-year term.
The Board The Farm Credit East Board of Directors sets a clear direction for the cooperative on behalf of all customerowners. The board works closely with CEO Bill Lipinski to set policy, establish long-term business plans, evaluate business results and provide feedback to the management team. It does not make day-to-day management decisions, including individual loans, personnel or finance.
The Nominating Committee The nominating committee consists of 21 members, seven from each of the three nominating regions. The association membership elects the nominating committee at the annual stockholders meeting. This committee works hard to identify qualified candidates to ensure that the association attracts a skilled and diverse board. In addition, the committee makes every effort to recommend at least two candidates for each open seat.
Election process We provide the information you need to make an informed voting choice for the 2013 Farm Credit East Board of Directors, including: • This article’s profile of the candidates • An annual meeting information statement, which voting members received in the mail • Information on our website at FarmCrediteast.com/Director-Elections Ballots will be mailed to voting members after the annual meeting.
Every Vote Counts! By voting, you convey your continued commitment to Farm Credit East and thanks to fellow members who are seeking election to the board.
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Western Region Vote for 1 candidate for a 4-year term
Batavia, Cortland, Geneva, Hornell and Mayville offices Candidate
Roderick L.
Farrow
John P.
Knopf
Business name: Lamont Fruit Farm, Inc.
Business name: Fa-Ba Farms, LLC
Location: Waterport, N.Y.
Location: Canandaigua, N.Y.
Description: Lamont Fruit Farm is a 480-acre apple orchard that sells most of its fruit through Lake Ontario Fruit, a 1.2-million-bushel fresh apple packing and storage facility, where he is president and board chair.
Description: A dairy business consisting of 500 milking cows, 440 replacements and 850 acres of land devoted to forage production
Personnel: Rod owns Lamont Fruit Farm. He focuses on financial and strategic planning, new business development and the professional development of the operation’s production managers.
Personnel: John is the principal owner and general manager of Fa-Ba Farms, LLC with responsibilities in financial monitoring and budgeting, productivity monitoring and controls, as well as capital replacement and expansion planning. John’s day-to-day operational responsibilities include feed and crop production.
Farm Credit member since: 1991
Farm Credit member since: 1990
Leadership positions: Rod has served on the Batavia customer service council as well as the association’s nominating committee. He is on the executive and finance committees of the International Fruit Tree Association. Rod is a founding member, secretary and board member of USA Farmers. He also sits on the research advisory committee for the NYS Apple Research and Development Program and on the technical committee for IFORED, a global development partnership spanning five continents and focused on red-fleshed apple varieties.
Leadership positions: John sits on the Soil and Water Conservation District Northern Watershed Committee as well as the Town of Canandaigua Board of Assessment Review. He is a past member of the Ontario County Agriculture Enhancement Board and the Ontario County Farm Bureau Board. In addition, he has served on the customer service council for the Geneva Farm Credit East branch office and previously served on the nominating committee.
Why I am seeking election to the Board: Farm Credit East has been my long-term financial partner, helping me establish and build my initial and subsequent businesses. I want to ensure that it continues to thrive as the Northeast’s premier agricultural lending institution. Why vote for me: I bring a relatively unique mix of local, national and global business exposure that includes extensive board participation and leadership. My experiences have given me a very broad and analytical thought process, which I’m sure would fit well into the current board in light of today’s globally competitive economy.
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Why I am seeking election to the Board: The talented people of Farm Credit East invested in our success and helped change the trajectory of our business and lives. I desire to give something back. If elected, I would diligently promote the proprietary services afforded to stockholders and hope to continue to contribute to Farm Credit East’s future goals. Why vote for me: My life and business experiences give me a great understanding of the challenges, both large and small, faced by most member businesses. As director, I hope to represent member interests in shaping the core values and goals of our Farm Credit East cooperative.
Eastern Region Vote for 1 candidate for a 4-year term
Bedford, Bridgeton, Dayville, Enfield, Flemington, Middleboro and Riverhead offices Candidate
Candidate
Michael N.
Lisa P.
Brooks
Sellew
Business name: Dusty Lane Farms, LLC
Business name: Prides Corner Farms
Location: Elmer, N.J.
Location: Lebanon, Conn.
Description: Dusty Lane Farms is a diverse, 1,500-acre irrigated grain and vegetable operation. The family raises white potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, sweet corn, corn and soybeans. The farm also includes 27,000-square-feet of heated greenhouse space for vegetable transplant production. Dusty Lane Farms is a dealer for RJ Equipment as well as Pik-Rite Inc.
Description: Prides Corner Farms is a wholesale nursery that grows more than 2,200 varieties of nursery stock, perennials, roses, trees, herbs and vegetables. The nursery supplies plants throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
Personnel: Mike owns Dusty Lane Farms in partnership with his parents, William and Diane Brooks. Farm Credit member since: 2002
Personnel: The Sellew family owns Prides Corner Farms. Lisa helps manage the business, with the bulk of her responsibilities falling in the finance, customer relations and human resources areas. She works closely with the chief financial officer on labor and expense budgeting and with the human resources manager on benefits management and the H-2A guest worker program.
Leadership positions: Mike has been a member of the Bridgeton branch customer service council since 2009 and he served as an alternate on the nominating committee. In addition, he sits on the executive committee of the Salem County Board of Agriculture and is the vice president of the New Jersey White Potato Association. He chairs the Upper Pittsgrove Township Agricultural Advisory Committee and the Woodstown-Pilesgrove Agricultural Education Advisory Committee and is a member of the United States Potato Board, the New Jersey Vegetable Growers Association and the Association of Agricultural Production Executives.
Farm Credit member since: Lisa first borrowed in 2012. Prides Corner Farms has been a member since 2007.
Why I am seeking election to the Board: Farm Credit East has been instrumental in my business’s growth over the past 10 years. I have been able to utilize many of Farm Credit’s services and programs in my time involved with the institution. I want to become a member of the Board of Directors to help continue Farm Credit East’s commitment to providing low-cost capital and business services to Northeast agriculture.
Why I am seeking election to the Board: I am excited about the future of the agricultural industry in the Northeast. However, I believe that there are many challenges ahead. I would love to learn from and contribute to the Farm Credit East Board operations with the hope of collectively capitalizing on industry opportunities and addressing industry challenges.
Why vote for me: As a board member, I feel that I can help continually improve the organization through my ability to analyze problems and think outside the box. I feel that my youth and ability to bring a group to consensus will be a great asset to the Farm Credit East Board.
Leadership positions: After completing her undergraduate education at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and her MBA at Cornell University, Lisa worked in commercial lending (for Citibank, New York City, N.Y., and Connecticut Bank & Trust in Hartford, Conn.) and real estate lending (for Aetna Realty Investors in Hartford, Conn.). In 1990, she left the corporate life to raise her three sons and to work for Prides Corner.
Why vote for me: My educational and business background in both banking and agriculture make me uniquely suited to serve as a director. I understand the association’s goals in terms of both serving the needs of their customers and staying financially strong so that they can continue to be an excellent source of capital for the farming community. spring 2013
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FINANCIAL PARTNER is for the customers, employees and friends of Farm Credit East. Farm Credit East is a farmer-owned lending cooperative serving the farm, commercial fishing and forest products businesses in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey. Part of the national Farm Credit System, Farm Credit East is a full-service lender dedicated to the growth and prosperity of agriculture.
Farm Credit East 240 South Road Enfield, CT 06082-4451
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HOW TO REACH US: Whether you want to praise us, complain, ask our advice or just let us know what’s on your mind, we’d like to hear from you. WRITE: Karen Murphy, Editor, Farm Credit East, 240 South Road, Enfield, CT 06082-4451. CALL: 860.741.4380. E-MAIL: karen.murphy@farmcrediteast.com. Copyright © 2013 by Farm Credit East, ACA. All rights reserved. Farm Credit East is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer. FINANCIAL PARTNER is printed on recycled paper.
Community Support AgEnhancement Grant Helps Promote Flower Power! New York Flower Power is using its $3,000 Farm Credit Northeast AgEnhancement Grant to develop signage, promotional materials and a new website to help market its Plants for Parks program. New York Flower Power’s ultimate mission is to encourage consumers to support horticultural products by creating awareness of local horticultural businesses. According to Ned Chapman, president of New York Flower Power, “The Plants for Parks program aims to beautify New York’s state parks, making the park experience more enjoyable for the general public while promoting New York’s local horticulture industries at the same time.” The program is a joint effort of New York Flower Power, NYS Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and Pride of New York. “So far, our members have donated more than $26,000 of their locally-grown plant material, plus Griffin Greenhouse Supply and Sungro Horticulture donated containers and potting soil,” Chapman said. “Because of our members’ generosity and the support of our volunteers, we were able to beautify 11 New York State parks and historical houses in the Capital District throughout 2012.”
AgEnhancement Grant Details • Bob Smith: 800.327.6588 • Email proposals to: AgEnhancement@ FarmCreditEast.com • Proposal deadlines: April 1, August 1 and December 1 • FarmCreditEast.com/Industry-Support.aspx
AgEnhancement Grants since 1996 • Total grant dollars: $1.39 million • Total projects supported: 515