Northwest Regional Cooperative Institute Day 1

I (David Enquist) am attending the Northwest Regional Cooperative Institute annual meeting and education seminar today and tomorrow in Spokane, WA.  The topic of the event is Cooperatives of the Future: Economics, Scope and Size.

Day one focused mainly on Megatrends in Agriculture, Generational Differences in Co-ops and Succession / Talent Management.

Dr. David Kohl from Virginia Tech gave some great updates on Ag economics both nationally and globally.  The main theme here was an expected economic reset that has already begun after record years.  What this will entail is lowering prices while the decrease in costs will lag (especially cash rents), which may cause some negative operating margins in the coming year or two.  Best course of action moving forward?  Get your financial house in order and create or have liquidity.  This was later reiterated by a banking representative.

The generational differences and talent management discussions focused on differences between Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials as well as the importance of attracting the right talent for the right positions.  The one piece I would like to highlight is that it is common to hear people say that it is difficult to attract Millennials to work within the Cooperative industry.  However, one topic brought up was that Millennials have a sense of community and want to be art of something bigger, which cooperatives offer.  Cooperatives are a community based industry based on the definition alone, being an association of people who voluntarily cooperate for some sort of mutual benefit.  Further, agriculture and cooperatives feed the world, which if you want to be part of something bigger, it does not get much bigger than that.

David Enquist, CPA