Nutritional Ag

STEPS TO GETTING YOUR START

1. Use life experiences and your current employment to continually direct your future in the large arena of agriculture. Focus on what naturally draws your interest, gaining education and work experience.

Use every opportunity to feel out different areas that will better your position if you become a producer – because a person naturally tends to excel in an area of interest, benefiting employers and yourself if farming becomes your future. 2. Align yourself with people in the industry. The saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is still key in agriculture because of the capital intensity. Look for opportunities to rent, readying yourself to develop and solidify the tenant/landlord relationship. If the land owner was once a producer or has ties to the piece of land, there is a heightened value in being transparent with the owner. There is more to a lease than rental price; if you can openly show and discuss the practices you use in farming the land, (soil test and nutrient application) and the outcomes, (yield map results verses farm practices, and potential tiling or lime programs) you will gain more than a landlord. 3. Compare this to a livestock enterprise start. You may have an opportunity to partner on ownership (say, 10-33 percent) on a group of cattle or provide labor to a finishing unit. This situation gives you entry and opportunity to prove and leverage your ability to feed and care for livestock. The partnership also benefits from your skin in the game as you prove your ability in the cattle group’s outcome. In livestock facilities, you may have an opportunity to try an enterprise, which can be beneficial before buying or building your own. There is wealth of value when you experience a variety of livestock set-ups.

This knowledge is extremely hard to duplicate on your own dime. Partnering in livestock feeding can also grow into an owner’s comfort to rent or purchase their livestock improvements. I have seen this turn into a long-term opportunity to rent ground. 4. When you do start buying farm assets, focus on investing in an asset(s) that turns its value relatively quickly. Just as importantly, invest in an asset that uses your best skills to leverage its use. Consider equipment or improvements that will be used “early and often” in order to get the original value back after trading it for the next asset. (Purchase cost of asset minus salvage/trade value) divided by (total of the future stream, of each year’s net incomes (revenue minus expenses)) equal the assets turnover rate. Shoot for the lower range of the “assets turnover rate.” Repeat this step every time you approach acquiring the next asset. The faster the assets accumulate excess cash, the faster you’ll have

equity for growth and advance to the next step. 5. Use opportunities to bounce ideas off others in the industry. There’s a wealth of knowledge available from veteran producers who usually love talking farm. Mistakes are a memorable way to learn.

However, there is less need for you to make each mistake when you can ask thoughtful questions of experienced people to reduce unnecessary consequences. These long-term relationships can continue as great tools in sorting through options and plans you are entertaining. 6. A commodity broker can increase your chances of success by more fully diversifying your marketing strategies. Incremental cash sales, forward contract, hedges and options are tools to advance average price outcomes and offset risk. 7. Remember to talk to a lender. Farming takes a partnership, assets are often in need of financing, and the proper terms and life of the loan is key to a plan’s success. There are several loan programs for the beginning farmer and a lower capitalized projects to be made available. Growing together with a bank in the early development of your farm’s business ownership can benefit your dreams now, and goals long into the future.

Farming Soil Microbes & Carbon Management Does available carbon = Yields?

ACPucks Capture the power of Nitrogen with up to 40 units more N per acre of manure. Also controlling other gasses and crusting

Nu Force Water Units Making water hydrate! Quality water without salt.

Verlyn Sneller: 712-441-6359 | Kevin Flammang: 712-441-2334 Dennis von Arb: 712-540-2439

Nutritional Ag | 3839 490th Street | Alton, Iowa 51003

‘IF A FARMER GETS A PICKUP’

by Bob Fitch

Lee Friesen, a farmer near Olivet, S.D., keeps his entrepreneurial and eclectic mind occupied with everything from sheep, cattle and the corn crop to analyzing crop insurance models to designing toys and a wheelchairaccessible tractor cab to writing comic panels with little life lessons to authoring a children’s book. The children’s book is called If A Farmer Gets A Pickup and is modeled on circular tales such as the awardwinning childhood favorite If You Give a Mouse A Cookie. Lee wrote the book based on his own life-long experiences in farming. “Always on the farm, you want one thing. When you finally get it, there’s always something else you need as a result of getting the first thing. When you buy a new disc, you discover your current tractor isn’t quite big enough. So you have to get a bigger tractor. When you get the bigger tractor, you might have to build a bigger shed to put it in.” The story includes a little bit of silliness and a little bit of education for youngsters. “I routinely get letters from people who thoroughly enjoyed the book,” Lee said. “One gentleman came up to me and said ‘Your book has caused me a lot of trouble. Every morning and every afternoon, my daughter runs up with the book and we’ve got to look at every page until we find that rubber chicken.’”

Customers often order the book as a gift for a grandchild – only to find they want to keep a copy and thus buy a second one to give as a gift. There are a couple extra pages at the end of the book where adults and children are encouraged to write their own story. Lee said, “I firmly believe that every person has a book or a story within them. Whether it’s of interest to one person or thousands, stories need to be told. If you’ve got a story, write it down. Even if you never meet them, your story might be one your great-grandchildren will appreciate down the line.” Lee is a former ag education instructor, a farm toy developer and inventor. He and his son, Seth, are developing a wheelchair-accessible tractor cab and related ancillary items such as PTO, hydraulics and a wagon hitch which a farmer will be able to hook up from the cab. On top of all that, he works full-time as the delivery manager for research and development at AgriSompo North America.