At 8:15, my breakout sessions started.  Each one last 55 minutes and were back-to-back-to-back.   I thought the last session would be the smallest, but it actually turned out to be the largest and each session had many good questions (and I think I gave good answers).

Ann Duignan of JP Morgan gave a presentation on how the global economy is affecting the farm machinery business and then its affects on our farmers.  The presentation was very informative.

Last night we had the Top Producer of the Year award dinner.  There were three finalists and based on the video presentation for all three, I could not tell who was going to win.  Each farmer has been very successful and will continue that success.  The one thing that was brought out to me by all three was each of their passion for the employees that work for them.  They are part of their family and it showed.

I think this is the first time that I have ever seen a farmer use a pink flamingo as part of their branding process.

I won’t tell you the winner here since it will be posted on the Top Producer section of www.agweb.com.

America, with the Mississippi River system and inter-coastal waterway has by far the best series of cheap river and water systems in the world.  That is why it is cheaper for an American farmer to ship his corn from Minnesota all the way to New Orleans than for a Brazilian farmer to ship his corn by truck for a hundred miles.

The only other water system that comes close to our is Argentina with three rivers that flow eventually down to Buenos Aries.  Because of this waterway system, Argentina’s standard of living in 1900 was about 90% of ours. 

There was a group panel on where the new farm bill was headed.  Consensus was a bill in 2013, but may still get one this year.  Direct payments will no longer be there and some expanded form of crop insurance is most likely to happen.

The value of peer groups was discussed in the afternoon and I believe that these have great potential value to all farmers.  It is always good to get another opinion that you value and it is much easier to held accountable by a peer.

All in all, the first day of Top Producer was very productive and I had several readers of the blog come up and say hi.  I hope to see more tomorrow and with three back-to-back presentations, I know I will be more tired tomorrow.

The main Top Producer conference begins on Wednesday and goes through Friday morning.  I have three breakout sessions on Thursday morning from 8:15 to noon dealing with tax savings tips, etc.  At the end of the third one, I will be worn out from talking.

I look forward to the conference and please feel free to stop me at any point during the conference to discuss farm accounting, taxes and who will win the Super Bowl.

On another note, we had some technical difficulties with our site yesterday.   The company that hosts the site had an issue with their internal database for our site and many others.  I would like to say it was very nice to be able to actually call and talk to someone in technical support without being on hold for an hour and they got the issue resolved fairly timely, but we were down for most of yesterday, but everything seems to be working just fine now.  Many of these so called hi-tech sites (including Google and others like it) seem to feel that customer support does not involve telephone numbers or talking to a human being over the phone.  It is very refreshing when one does allow this.

• American Agribusiness should be proud of the women who are active in running a farm or an agribusiness.  Based upon the women that I met at the conference, these farms are in very capable hands.
• Management of a farm operation from a women’s perspective seems to be more about active communication between management and the employees.  In my observations of most farm operations, one of the things most lacking is communication.  Farm management still requires there to be a boss, but equally important is letting the employees know what the boss needs to happen and these women can do a better job of this, however, if us men engage our right side of our brain more often, we can catch up.
• The newer generation coming up is very comfortable with having a woman as a boss and for a lot of our younger male farmers and employees out there, the idea of work-life balance is extremely important.  The days of expecting our male employee/managers to work the hours that us “older” management workers are used to and expect are most likely gone.  We find this to be true in our CPA firm also.
• From a speaker standpoint, I found the conference very enjoyable since the women attending my two breakout discussions were extremely competent with their questions and actually asked them.  I have spoke at a couple of conferences where there were only male attendees and there were times when I was not sure if I would get any questions (although if I am talking on taxes and farming, I always get questions).  It was very easy to get feedback from the women and this helps maintain a very vibrant give and take.

In conclusion, American Farmers should be proud of the women that attended and I look forward to next year’s conference.

I will write a later blog on what his team is doing.

We spent most of the day moving grain around. These days farmers can spend more time on the movement of grain during harvest than actually harvesting the grain.

I finally got to ride on the combine for a couple of hours before I left for Illinois. The field I was in appeared to be yielding in the 180 range which was considered good since a couple months ago the expectations were in the 140 range.

As usual I had a great day and look forward to today. I will keep you posted.

Douglas Adams, the author of The Breakthrough Company stated “Human beings, who are almost unique in the ability to learn from the experiences of other, but are also unique in their disinclination to do so”.  The use of a Peer Group is designed to spark this ability to learn from others in your industry.

The Rule of 72 no longer just applies to compounding of interest, but the compounding of knowledge.  Therefore, if you increase your knowledge at 6% per year, your total knowledge will double in 12 years.  If you can increase it at 24%, you can double in 3 years.  The use of a Peer Group can increase this compounding dramatically.

Peer Groups are in the range of 5-12 producers, but the optimum range is probably 8-10.  Make sure the group is full of “Eagles”, not “Turkeys”.  Try to not to have groupthink.  You want many differences of opinion in the Peer Group.  Many have monthly, quarterly or annual meetings.   You may want to be a member of two Peer Groups.  One based on operations and may involve competitors in your area and the other would be on the more sensitive areas of finance and succession planning, etc. that would be comprised of producers outside of your immediate area.

Danny’s goal is for 500 or more Farm Peer Groups to be in existance within the next five years.  Remember, nobody is smarter than everybody.

Some of the advantages of a Peer Group are:

• Multiple vantage points and different perspectives
• Sounding board for plans and ideas
• Identifying alternatives and exploring what if scenarios
• Increased insight and objectivity
• Benchmarking (production, financial, compensation, etc.)
• Identifying opportunities to capture economies of scale, reduce costs, improve asset utilization, gaining market access through collaborative efforts.
• Overcoming isolation

Even if you are top producer, you will find areas that others are Top Top producers and you can learn how to improve your operation to become the Top Top producer.

I would highly recommend that any farm operation attend TEPAP in the future.  Even if you have a smaller operation, the information that you will receive should pay for itself many times over.  Each of the presentations give you many choices on how to improve your farm’s operation and more importantly, the friendships that you will develop with other farmers from around the country can be even more important.

The only drawback from the conference is eating too much of the good food provided.

Again, I would highly recommend this conference for any farmer or farm related operation.

Moe shared that we had 3 sets of good time in the last 100 years (1) during the 1910′s, (2) during World War II and the period thereafter and (3) during the mid 1970′s.  He believes that we might be headed for our fourth set of good times.  However, in each case after these good times, a period of bad times followed.

Public relation plans can add to your bottom line.  These plans should be proactive, not reactive.  A good public relation plan deals with:

1. The neighbors
2. The press
3. Key influencers in the community
4. Landlords

When something bad happens, you probably have only 60 seconds to respond correctly to the situation.

Farmers need to know that they need to get green, grow green and stay green.  This trend will only to accelerate.

Reactive plans may be needed in case something goes wrong such as a chemical spill, fire, tornado, equipment accidents, etc.  You need to know how you will react.

When dealing with the press, remember to be:

• Honest
• Straightforward
• Brief, and
• Positive

To grow your farm revenues, you have seven degrees of freedom:

1. Increase sales – same customers; same product mix
2. Existing products; new customers
3. New products – same or new customers
4. Increase sales with better delivery / channel management
5. Expand geography
6. Change industry structure via acquisition/alliances
7. Cross industry boundaries

You can focus on only one of these or decide to incorporate a couple into your farm structure.

If a farm decides to grow, then there are three horizons of growth:

1. Horizon 1 – Extend and defend your core business first
2. Horizon 2 – Build your emerging growth business
3. Horizon 3 – Create viable options for that growth

Always be willing to shed your business of those operations that are running below your rate of capital.  By doing this, you free up resources to expand those operations that exceed your cost of capital.  This can be a double benefit.