Farm Financial Standards Council Annual Meeting – Day 1

On Monday, I had a meeting in Milwaukee and then headed down to Bloomington, IL by car.  I stopped off in Leland, IL to meet with a client and he took me on a tour of a couple of his fields.  Normally, his corn yields would near or exceed 200 bushels per acre.  From the road, the corn appeared to look OK, however, when you went into the field, you saw multiple skips, tip backs on the ears, and the corn was already denting and the kernels looked like popcorn, not regular field corn.  He is hoping to hit 120-130, but would not be surprised to be closer to 100.

We counted a bean field that did not look too bad from the road, however, when you started to count pods, instead of the normal 30-40, you counted 10-15.

After visiting with him and his wife, I headed to Bloomington to spend the night. 

On Tuesday afternoon, I attended the technical committee session of the Farm Financial Standards Council.  This organization is comprised of 8 primary groups related to farm financial accounting (CPA, bankers, producers, academics, etc.).  The goal of the group is to promote “practical” standards for farmers to adopt that will make it much easier for users to know what the standards are and to utilize them properly.  The group has been around for about the last 20 years and about 60 people are expected to attend the three day conference.

The technical committee discussed accounting for hedges.  I know from practical experience that hedges are accounted for in several ways by our farmers and I think our group is well on the well to implementing a little better, more practical accounting than what many of our farmers use now.

On Wednesday, the main session of the conference and I will give you an update on what I have learned then.

Paul Neiffer, CPA