The Start of the 46th Annual Top Farmer Conference

This afternoon is the start of the 46th annual Top Farmer conference done by Purdue University.   About 100 farmers are attending the conference. The first session was done by Professor Mike Boehlje and Elizabeth Yaeger regarding farm risk management.   This discussion on risk did not focus on price or yield risks, but rather other risks that farmers normally do not think about. They listed the three primary risks:

• Business
• Financial
• Strategic

The last one are the “out of business” risks.  These risks can be external, internal or based on your positioning of your farm business.   You must identify the possible risk exposure. These can be financial, resource, relationship or social.

The session included a real life case study showing the short-term and long-term risks associated with multiple unwritten landlord contracts, the expansion into speciality crops, and the integration of there’d families into one family farm. The farmer was at the conference and shared with us his feedback on our suggestions and provide additional history.

The key point is the importance of communication with landlords, employees, suppliers and customers. It is also important to determine the personalities of the key family members to determine if family meetings work. In this case, family meetings were actually detrimental, so they no longer have these meetings.  However, they have figured out other communication methods that work better for them.

Paul Neiffer, CPA