Young, Beginning and Small Farmers Symposium innovative approaches panel

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11/18/2021 Added

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Innovative approaches panel discussion from the Young, Beginning and Small Farmer Symposium on Nov. 8, 2021

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[00:00:03.900]Okay, last session, Stretching Resources
[00:00:07.240]for the Farm of the Future: Innovative Approaches.
[00:00:11.310]And we have four esteemed guests and colleagues here.
[00:00:15.380]Gary Matteson, senior vice-president
[00:00:17.610]of the Farm Credit Council.
[00:00:19.380]Gary works for Farm Credit's Trade Association
[00:00:22.180]in Washington DC as senior vice-president
[00:00:28.950]beginning Farmer Programs and Outreach.
[00:00:31.310]This includes policy work on local food,
[00:00:34.140]sustainable ag, and direct-to-consumer agriculture.
[00:00:38.240]He frequently speaks to beginning farmers,
[00:00:40.790]training on basic financial skills and record keeping.
[00:00:44.500]And for a few years, Gary was a small farmer
[00:00:47.930]raising greenhouse wholesale cut flowers in the Northeast
[00:00:52.060]and beef cattle for local sales.
[00:00:53.970]He served on numerous boards of directors,
[00:00:56.610]including Farm Credit, the Boston Flower Exchange
[00:00:59.600]and many not-for-profits.
[00:01:03.446]Our second speaker, Jessica Groskopf.
[00:01:07.970]Jessica is a colleague who is stationed
[00:01:10.950]at the Panhandle Research Extension and Education Center
[00:01:14.720]in Scottsbluff.
[00:01:16.270]Jessica among many other programs,
[00:01:19.130]she's an ag economist by training.
[00:01:21.110]There's a little bit of a trend here.
[00:01:23.330]Jessica really leads UNL's push for women in agriculture.
[00:01:29.000]So as we think about diversity, and equity,
[00:01:32.190]and inclusion, and agriculture,
[00:01:34.440]working with beginning farmers and ranchers,
[00:01:38.110]women in particular and other underrepresented groups,
[00:01:43.000]Jessica is our lead in that.
[00:01:44.640]So thank you for joining us.
[00:01:47.470]Allan Vyhnalek
[00:01:49.060]from the Department of Agricultural Economics.
[00:01:52.870]We've talked a lot today about farm and ranch succession
[00:01:56.400]and I mentioned a little bit this morning that
[00:01:58.370]while our focus was on beginning farmers and ranchers,
[00:02:02.200]that there was the back half of one's journey,
[00:02:05.110]which is what happens when it's time to pass that ranch,
[00:02:08.810]pass that land, pass the cattle off
[00:02:11.180]to the next generation.
[00:02:12.510]And Allan, really, since I've come here five years ago
[00:02:16.230]has been my go-to person for those types of issues.
[00:02:22.070]Allan has over 33 years of experience
[00:02:25.520]working in extension here in Nebraska
[00:02:28.600]and the state to our east.
[00:02:30.960]He's a native of Saline County here in Nebraska.
[00:02:35.120]Allan has taught high school
[00:02:38.820]and post-secondary education classes
[00:02:41.480]for eight and a half years prior to joining extension.
[00:02:44.430]In his current role, he too is an extension educator,
[00:02:48.370]as I mentioned, looking at farm ranch succession.
[00:02:50.910]For the past 15 years,
[00:02:52.310]Allan has helped lead extensions efforts
[00:02:55.040]in the farm management space,
[00:02:57.400]including ag leasing for Nebraska.
[00:03:00.830]He works in the Department of Ag Economics here at UNL.
[00:03:04.267]He has a passion for the future,
[00:03:06.350]and the vitality of Nebraska and its communities.
[00:03:11.200]That is why he's interested in helping individuals, groups,
[00:03:13.900]and communities understand how good communications,
[00:03:17.270]negotiation skills, and generational differences
[00:03:21.500]relate to how communities and importantly families function
[00:03:25.650]as we develop Nebraska for future generations.
[00:03:28.810]And we heard some of that this morning
[00:03:31.110]when Lance was speaking.
[00:03:32.960]And our last but not least panelist
[00:03:34.930]is Dr. Larry Van Tassell.
[00:03:37.180]Larry serves as the department head for Ag Econ
[00:03:42.430]here at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
[00:03:45.210]and also is the inaugural leader
[00:03:49.000]for the Center for Ag Profitability here.
[00:03:53.150]Larry has served in the department head position
[00:03:56.100]for the last 11 years.
[00:03:58.670]He holds degrees in animal science, really important
[00:04:01.830]and agribusiness from Brigham Young University
[00:04:04.300]and a PhD from Texas A&M.
[00:04:06.920]He served previously at the University of Tennessee,
[00:04:10.280]the University of Wyoming, and the University of Idaho,
[00:04:15.070]makes you wonder there, Larry,
[00:04:17.240]and we're glad that you're here on our,
[00:04:19.400]I'm teasing, Of course.
[00:04:20.960]His research is centered on management issues
[00:04:23.260]facing agriculture and resource industries.
[00:04:26.000]He's taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels
[00:04:28.860]with subject matter
[00:04:29.870]ranging from economics of range land resources
[00:04:32.680]to entrepreneurship in agriculture.
[00:04:35.370]So that's our panel as we've done previously.
[00:04:38.670]Perhaps Larry, we'll just start with you.
[00:04:41.620]If we could just get a little bit more color commentary
[00:04:44.070]on your journey and maybe a little glimmer
[00:04:48.030]of what you'd like to hit in today's talk
[00:04:50.320]and then we'll move forward.
[00:04:52.460]Thanks, Mike. I appreciate that.
[00:04:55.220]As director of the Center for Agricultural Profitability,
[00:04:59.960]one of the things that was behind developing that
[00:05:05.670]was the idea that a lot of times as producers,
[00:05:09.230]we're always trying to hit the maximum yield,
[00:05:11.440]the maximum production we can reach.
[00:05:13.850]But from an economic standpoint,
[00:05:15.910]the only time that it's optimal to reach maximum production
[00:05:20.070]is when all the inputs are cost zero.
[00:05:24.330]There's no cost to them.
[00:05:25.430]And whenever there's costs associated with the inputs,
[00:05:28.260]then the economic optimum is gonna be always lower
[00:05:31.050]than that maximum production.
[00:05:33.090]And so, you know, as we got together as a department
[00:05:37.910]and as a group of agriculture economists,
[00:05:40.520]we thought we really need a great rallying point
[00:05:43.360]where we can bring disciplines together
[00:05:46.680]to be able to take a look at things
[00:05:48.570]from the prospective of how can producers stay in business
[00:05:55.110]and earn profits so that they continue year after year
[00:05:59.360]as productive participants in this agricultural industry.
[00:06:06.740]And so it's really important for producers and others
[00:06:11.250]to understand the difference, for example,
[00:06:14.300]between profitability and feasibility,
[00:06:17.500]that's been a theme that has resonated here today.
[00:06:21.490]And a lot of times we'll jump into things
[00:06:23.470]without understanding some of those things,
[00:06:25.280]without understanding the basic financial principles
[00:06:30.250]that are important in being able to be successful,
[00:06:33.250]especially as a young and beginning producer.
[00:06:35.960]There are a lot of different ways
[00:06:37.670]that we've heard of
[00:06:39.020]for the young people to get in the industry.
[00:06:41.870]It's getting more difficult than ever,
[00:06:44.110]but one of the things that is is very apparent is that
[00:06:46.910]they have to be fiscally sound
[00:06:49.590]and have a great business mind
[00:06:51.530]in order to get in there and be able to flourish.
[00:06:56.270]Thanks, Larry.
[00:06:57.540]Allan.
[00:06:59.090]Well, good afternoon.
[00:07:00.660]I didn't know how to do this so that you and I
[00:07:02.499]just don't become another talking head,
[00:07:05.090]but my background is that I grew up on a farm.
[00:07:08.920]My brother still farms there.
[00:07:10.010]Even last Thursday, I was still driving his truck,
[00:07:12.620]taking corn to the bins.
[00:07:14.670]So I still participate when I can.
[00:07:18.020]I taught high school ag, I taught at the NCTA Curtis
[00:07:21.340]for seven years and then spent the nineties in Iowa,
[00:07:24.720]the state to the east, sorry.
[00:07:27.657]And then in 2001 moved to Columbus, Nebraska,
[00:07:30.727]and it worked in Platte County Extension Office until 2017.
[00:07:33.900]Four years ago, I was brought to campus
[00:07:36.310]to work on farm succession and state transfer,
[00:07:39.000]things statewide and transitioned things statewide.
[00:07:42.860]I still have a job and I will still continue to have a job
[00:07:46.030]because, I don't have specific research data on this,
[00:07:50.390]but as I talked to Ag bankers across the state
[00:07:53.290]and even people in this room, I find out that a short half,
[00:07:58.120]about half, a short half of farmers and ranchers
[00:08:00.890]have a valid up-to-date estate plan.
[00:08:05.070]A lot of them don't.
[00:08:06.910]So I'm still fully employed, I'm in good shape.
[00:08:10.610]So I work on that.
[00:08:12.362]I work on family communication things
[00:08:17.203]that we heard about this morning is huge.
[00:08:19.660]Too many families fall apart because we can't understand
[00:08:22.213]there's a business side and there's a family side,
[00:08:25.240]and let's have the commitment to have a family first.
[00:08:27.838]And then don't worry about the business side,
[00:08:29.370]but let's commit to have a family.
[00:08:32.300]So there's a whole bunch of other things that I talk about.
[00:08:35.280]And I'll save that for later, if you wanna know,
[00:08:37.860]but the things I'd like to highlight today in this session,
[00:08:41.040]two things Jessica and I started this year,
[00:08:44.140]not me, Jessica helped, but one is the Land Link program.
[00:08:48.310]That's a brochure, it sits at your table.
[00:08:49.900]We started that in February
[00:08:51.560]where we're trying to get land seekers,
[00:08:53.980]people that don't have access to land
[00:08:55.500]the land asset tied with land owners.
[00:08:58.830]And these are people that don't have
[00:08:59.920]that son or daughter coming back to their operation.
[00:09:02.240]They would like to see their operation continue
[00:09:04.090]as its own operation.
[00:09:05.830]And so that's what we're trying to do
[00:09:07.070]with the Land Link program.
[00:09:08.390]And the other thing that we're gonna try to resurrect
[00:09:12.430]in December is to Returning to the Farm program.
[00:09:15.410]As alluded to earlier, it was in place
[00:09:17.680]back as late as a 13, 14, 15, somewhere in there
[00:09:21.200]is when it kind of fell apart.
[00:09:23.000]And so we're resurrecting that,
[00:09:23.833]and they'll be a in person workshop in December
[00:09:27.210]with virtual followup sessions in January and February.
[00:09:30.490]And I can talk more about them too,
[00:09:32.080]but this returning to the farm is situation
[00:09:34.040]where we have that Gen X generation coming back.
[00:09:36.810]We already have the linkage made.
[00:09:38.900]And now how are we gonna put the business structure
[00:09:40.860]behind that linkage
[00:09:42.010]so that all the generations are successful, I should say.
[00:09:46.080]So we have enough asset and cash
[00:09:49.380]to keep the older generation going
[00:09:51.130]with their elderly lifestyle and enough asset and cash
[00:09:54.870]to get the younger generation going
[00:09:56.460]with what they need to do,
[00:09:57.497]and put a good transition plan over the top of it.
[00:10:00.470]So that's what returning to the farm's gonna attempt to do.
[00:10:03.350]Great, thanks, Allan.
[00:10:04.650]Jessica.
[00:10:06.081]H, everybody, my name is Jessica Groskopf.
[00:10:09.410]My husband calls me a very bad economist
[00:10:11.680]because I married a farmer.
[00:10:14.762]We live north of Scottsbluff and we farm corn
[00:10:18.000]and dry edible beans in a multi-generational operation.
[00:10:22.790]I am intimately aware of the challenges of family business
[00:10:28.850]as well as being the daughter-in-law in that relationship.
[00:10:34.720]But I think more from my professional side,
[00:10:38.740]I work in farm and ranch management,
[00:10:40.520]and I think that farms and ranches
[00:10:42.130]require a management team, we've talked about it
[00:10:44.787]and that includes the family members,
[00:10:48.430]but it also includes professionals that provide advice.
[00:10:51.710]And we've talked a lot about bankers today,
[00:10:54.380]but we also need to talk about accountants,
[00:10:56.600]and we need to talk about lawyers,
[00:10:58.410]and we need to talk about managing them
[00:11:00.560]and being the CEO of our organization.
[00:11:04.470]And then where I really find my niche
[00:11:06.540]is in teaching financial management
[00:11:09.360]and traditional crop marketing.
[00:11:11.650]Those are two of the things that I truly enjoy teaching,
[00:11:14.580]specifically to women in agriculture.
[00:11:17.260]Thanks, Jessica.
[00:11:19.010]Gary, you are a newly penned Nebraska Husker.
[00:11:22.578]Yeah, thanks for flying the color there.
[00:11:24.910]Well, thank you, Mike.
[00:11:26.020]I pointed out to Mike when I got up on stage
[00:11:28.170]that everybody else had an N on their lapel and I did not.
[00:11:32.690]So I now have one and I thank you Mike,
[00:11:36.380]because I graduated from the University of Connecticut.
[00:11:39.020]So I did have to ask Mike which way the pin went,
[00:11:42.243](panelist laughing)
[00:11:43.300]but I've decided to probably wear it,
[00:11:46.190]but also say it stands for N for new,
[00:11:49.150]because my job really in working for the Trade Association
[00:11:53.490]for Farm Credit is all about helping new people
[00:11:57.870]enter into farming, whether that's the beginning farmer
[00:12:00.980]and rancher, the young, the small,
[00:12:03.130]or new as in farmer veterans,
[00:12:05.340]which is the angle that I'm here to talk about
[00:12:08.090]or new as in direct-to-retail.
[00:12:11.340]Those are the folks that I've spent my post-farming career,
[00:12:14.910]I'm a recovering farmer.
[00:12:18.860]And I think you mentioned that
[00:12:20.260]I was actually an indoor farmer, greenhouse cut flowers.
[00:12:24.170]And I ahead a few beef cattle too.
[00:12:27.120]That was my John Wayne voice.
[00:12:28.590]You can chuckle.
[00:12:29.711](panelist laughing)
[00:12:32.030]But I think that if we look at farming as an enterprise
[00:12:36.480]of our society, we have to think about the technical aspects
[00:12:41.190]of making those existing economic units
[00:12:43.720]be able to succeed themselves to carry on,
[00:12:47.930]as well as, you know, we need some new ideas,
[00:12:51.670]new replacements, new concepts,
[00:12:53.960]what we're gonna accept as farming.
[00:12:57.060]I make a joke all the time of my career as a flower grower.
[00:13:01.210]We're sitting at tables of six or eight,
[00:13:03.620]the first few conferences I went to as a farm bureau member.
[00:13:08.240]You know, you go around,
[00:13:09.073]Oh, I have 300 acres of dry land wheat,
[00:13:13.080]or, I have, you know, cattle or whatever.
[00:13:15.584]And then it would come to me and I would say,
[00:13:16.767]"Well, I have a third of an acre of flowers."
[00:13:19.410]And it was like, Alice's restaurant.
[00:13:21.650]You know, everybody moved away from me on the bench.
[00:13:24.380]And that's why I always answer
[00:13:25.910]and ahead a few beef cattle too
[00:13:27.830]so I can relate to everybody else
[00:13:30.320]as far as no, it's really agriculture.
[00:13:32.770]And what I do is really agriculture.
[00:13:35.130]And we forget, especially ag economists,
[00:13:38.220]if I can point a finger at you that the ag operation
[00:13:42.190]that we're talking about,
[00:13:43.330]that we're looking at is really important to that farmer.
[00:13:47.430]And it matters much less to that farmer what we think of it
[00:13:51.730]than how much it means to that person.
[00:13:54.370]And in the end, all of these small farms
[00:13:57.030]that we can easily dismiss as
[00:14:01.720]Gosh, they don't grow food to feed the world
[00:14:03.530]and all those kinds of things,
[00:14:05.140]they're important to those individuals.
[00:14:07.210]And I would suggest to you,
[00:14:08.440]they're important for the health of our rural communities,
[00:14:11.460]because they represent rural economic development
[00:14:14.880]by household.
[00:14:16.420]I don't care what that direct-to-retail farmer grows.
[00:14:20.100]In fact, from a lending standpoint,
[00:14:21.700]it doesn't matter what they grow
[00:14:22.730]'cause we're lending to a marketing stream
[00:14:25.590]rather than to a tomatoes or eggplants
[00:14:28.070]or whatever that crop is.
[00:14:29.250]Crop doesn't matter,
[00:14:30.480]how much is grown in gross sales doesn't really matter.
[00:14:34.040]What matters most is that there's a household there
[00:14:36.890]that's got kids in schools, that's got 10 car trips a day,
[00:14:40.530]that's paying taxes,
[00:14:42.240]and that may even borrow money from Farm Credit,
[00:14:44.730]but we can set that one aside.
[00:14:46.860]Yeah, oftentimes here in the institute,
[00:14:48.960]we talk about individuals make up families,
[00:14:51.460]make up communities, and that's really the backbone
[00:14:56.226]of agriculture in Nebraska and the Midwest.
[00:14:59.790]Glen, I don't know if you wanna jump in there.
[00:15:03.140]Well, I'm just looking forward to the conversation.
[00:15:06.190]We've got a wide array of experts.
[00:15:12.130]Gary, you mentioned your cut-flower business
[00:15:14.360]and I was in Utah three days ago and an interesting story.
[00:15:20.160]The operation I visited had something like 20 acres
[00:15:23.190]of flowers indoors.
[00:15:26.680]When COVID hit, all of their buyers froze
[00:15:32.620]and needed shelf space for other things.
[00:15:34.580]And all of a sudden they were 5 million behind in cashflow.
[00:15:39.610]First call they made to their lender
[00:15:43.200]and the lender said, "Look, we're gonna get through this."
[00:15:47.450]The neat ending of this story,
[00:15:49.340]rather than spending a little extra dollars,
[00:15:52.110]rather than throwing it out back in a compost heap,
[00:15:55.350]they elected to distribute all of these plants and flowers
[00:15:59.770]throughout the United States to hospitals, nursing homes,
[00:16:04.430]doctor's offices, areas that had responded to the pandemic.
[00:16:09.560]And the end of the story is by the end of the summer,
[00:16:14.300]early fall, the goodwill they generated from that
[00:16:17.190]the phone started ringing and they can't get enough plants
[00:16:20.770]and flowers out the door,
[00:16:22.630]but kind of a neat story about that lender relationship.
[00:16:27.240]But it really hit home because my wife had COVID
[00:16:30.740]was on a ventilator for two weeks and we about lost her.
[00:16:33.960]And I remember that hospital staff and how they responded,
[00:16:38.220]there wasn't a floral arrangement big enough
[00:16:41.160]that I could deliver.
[00:16:42.070]So I don't diminish the cut-flower business at all, Gary.
[00:16:46.670]Yeah, it's kind of a funny back to that.
[00:16:48.570]I grew up as a kid on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio,
[00:16:51.990]and cut flowers and greenhouses,
[00:16:54.970]that's where I cut my teeth as well.
[00:16:56.730]And so it's a small world.
[00:16:58.890]So we have really an opportunity to talk about
[00:17:01.870]veteran-friendly programs,
[00:17:06.170]women in agriculture programs, farm ranch succession
[00:17:10.880]focused on the family.
[00:17:12.070]And then Larry through the Center of Ag Profitability,
[00:17:15.300]really this focus on profitability
[00:17:18.400]being mindful of maxing out Y max on the yield front,
[00:17:22.060]but really thinking about profitability
[00:17:24.810]and what that looks like for individuals, right?
[00:17:29.900]Individual operations.
[00:17:31.230]So I think with that, Larry,
[00:17:33.100]a little bit about some of the initiatives
[00:17:36.480]that the Center for Ag Profitability are focusing on,
[00:17:40.130]especially to this audience
[00:17:42.940]considering beginning young farmers and ranchers.
[00:17:47.430]Thanks, Mike.
[00:17:49.310]You know, one of the things that we've tried to do
[00:17:51.030]is to make people aware of various aspects of agriculture
[00:17:57.620]and how some of the materials we provide
[00:18:01.310]can help them in their decision-making.
[00:18:04.290]We have held a weekly webinar since COVID hit last year.
[00:18:10.440]We got started with that,
[00:18:11.820]found out it was wildly successful.
[00:18:14.620]And so every Tuesday at noon, we have a webinar
[00:18:17.730]from a variety of subjects that are mostly important
[00:18:20.890]to the producers out there.
[00:18:22.290]subject such as one of the recent ones we had was
[00:18:27.230]how can you get started with the smaller processing plant
[00:18:30.930]for processing beef cattle.
[00:18:33.580]One of them that we've got now,
[00:18:35.560]I think Jessica's participating in it,
[00:18:38.160]taking a look at the increase in input costs
[00:18:40.770]and what relevance that has to the operation.
[00:18:44.600]We've partnered with several organizations in the government
[00:18:49.250]from ERS to FSA, several banking panels,
[00:18:53.970]others bringing those resources in
[00:18:56.240]to talk about subject matter, such as carbon markets
[00:18:59.870]and carbon banking, and carbon sequestration
[00:19:02.530]that are important to agriculture right now,
[00:19:04.400]trying to be on the cutting edge
[00:19:06.730]of what's happening out there and bringing that information.
[00:19:10.040]We also decided we wanted to, at least three times a week,
[00:19:14.410]put some articles out there along with the podcast
[00:19:17.210]on that article so that we can bring information to you
[00:19:20.520]no matter where you are.
[00:19:21.530]If you're sitting in a tractor,
[00:19:22.770]you're sitting down at your desk.
[00:19:25.477]And one of the things we've done there is one of those
[00:19:27.990]will always be about the rural communities,
[00:19:29.910]'cause we understand the importance of the rural communities
[00:19:34.040]to production agriculture and vice versa.
[00:19:37.278]And so the other things we're trying to do
[00:19:39.910]is create decision tools
[00:19:42.270]so that you have something in your hands
[00:19:44.430]to help you make decisions with,
[00:19:46.720]tools that are not gonna drain you of time and energy
[00:19:50.520]and try to populate with a lot of information,
[00:19:53.560]but to be able to put the important information in there,
[00:19:56.660]whether you are a special crop producer, specialty crops,
[00:20:03.290]or whether you are a big time corn and soybean producer.
[00:20:08.410]Tools that you can use
[00:20:09.670]in your making your production decisions,
[00:20:12.620]making your marketing decisions, your financial decisions,
[00:20:15.990]'cause as you know, these are not made in silos,
[00:20:18.990]they're all make together.
[00:20:20.370]And so our tools will help bring
[00:20:23.270]all of these things together
[00:20:25.020]in a manner to help make decisions
[00:20:27.840]so that you can be more profitable in what it is
[00:20:30.422]that you're trying to do.
[00:20:32.560]We also have various educational programs
[00:20:36.060]from the Women in Ag to the farm transitioning
[00:20:38.600]to various marketing, financial outlook conferences,
[00:20:43.030]all those other things for you to be able to come,
[00:20:45.310]and to increase your management capacity.
[00:20:50.180]That was one of the themes earlier today
[00:20:52.060]is how can you go increase that management capacity?
[00:20:55.470]And we're trying to be that educator preference
[00:20:58.770]that we say and be able to bring that to you.
[00:21:02.330]So Gary, the N, it could be new,
[00:21:05.780]but it's the N and innovation.
[00:21:08.369]There's another N.
[00:21:09.202]There's two of them actually, right?
[00:21:11.420]So kind of this side of the panel,
[00:21:13.970]thinking in particular about veterans
[00:21:16.710]and women in agriculture, veterans in agriculture.
[00:21:21.500]The title of this session is Stretching Resources
[00:21:24.510]for the Farm of the Future: Innovative Approaches.
[00:21:27.685]Can you speak to this, especially for women and veterans
[00:21:32.340]who are beginning farmers, ranchers,
[00:21:35.710]or what innovations are you saying?
[00:21:40.090]Sure, so just a little bit
[00:21:41.550]about the women in agriculture program,
[00:21:43.240]it was actually born in the 1980s,
[00:21:45.280]and it's a program that the university
[00:21:46.840]has continued to support for longer than I've been alive,
[00:21:49.930]which is a big mantle.
[00:21:51.720]Thanks for that, Jessica.
[00:21:52.840]Oh, I'm just throwing it out there.
[00:21:54.830]It's a big mantle to carry
[00:21:56.270]as somebody who steps on the stage or who works with folks.
[00:22:01.440]Many of the clients that we work with survived the eighties.
[00:22:05.330]And now, as we look at today, it's like, oh, you know,
[00:22:08.960]where are we at, and how does this relate,
[00:22:10.870]and how is it different?
[00:22:12.070]And so I think that's really important.
[00:22:13.500]And I think where we provide innovation
[00:22:15.410]is we're constantly looking for those opportunities
[00:22:17.630]to meet producers where they're at.
[00:22:19.800]So when COVID hit, we had a program called
[00:22:23.180]Know Your Numbers, Know Your Options.
[00:22:24.880]And it's a financial management course.
[00:22:26.530]It's a four-week course that we teach
[00:22:28.500]and we moved that completely online.
[00:22:30.530]And we've taught it and almost monthly
[00:22:32.890]since then with producers from across the state,
[00:22:36.160]from various backgrounds,
[00:22:37.830]and predominantly that's been with women.
[00:22:40.930]And that's just looking at your financial documents,
[00:22:44.410]looking at how we can analyze those documents
[00:22:46.640]and use them to make decisions.
[00:22:49.000]We also do hands-on workshops like Dr. Van Tassell said,
[00:22:53.180]related to record keeping those kinds of things.
[00:22:55.400]And then on your tables, you'll see a postcard
[00:22:59.980]that highlights the large events
[00:23:01.740]that we handle throughout the year.
[00:23:03.690]And then we also do smaller events called Annie's Project.
[00:23:06.870]And Annie's Project are more localized events
[00:23:09.490]that are housed at usually your local extension facility.
[00:23:13.000]And we're looking to kick those face-to-face events back off
[00:23:16.360]as we move deeper into 2022.
[00:23:19.400]So lots of opportunities to meet producers where they're at
[00:23:24.240]and really get into, you know,
[00:23:26.590]we've been talking a lot recently about family dynamics,
[00:23:29.530]and negotiation, and family conflict,
[00:23:32.370]and how do we deal with those kinds of things?
[00:23:34.320]And those are big challenges.
[00:23:36.710]It's a big challenge when you, you know, live, eat, and work
[00:23:41.950]all in the same place.
[00:23:43.770]And so add on some financial stress to that,
[00:23:47.060]or add on some tough family relationships on top of that
[00:23:50.310]and it can be very challenging.
[00:23:52.350]So those are the kinds of things that right now
[00:23:54.160]we're working on, and we're always open to.
[00:23:58.890]We need programs in this, okay.
[00:24:00.746]Let's figure it out, let's do it,
[00:24:02.370]let's find the experts, and let's talk about it.
[00:24:05.657]He had a bomb cyclone, a collapsed irrigation tunnel,
[00:24:09.910]a historic hundred year flood,
[00:24:11.660]or a historic century pandemic
[00:24:15.090]and the stress level goes through the roof.
[00:24:18.140]Gary, on the veterans side.
[00:24:20.330]Well, I think it's important to start out
[00:24:22.720]by recognizing that that farmer veterans
[00:24:26.320]have the same sorts of issues that they have to face;
[00:24:29.060]farm succession, you know,
[00:24:30.810]many of them are coming back to a family farm, right?
[00:24:33.950]So they've gotta do that anyway,
[00:24:36.050]or a startup from the other end of things.
[00:24:39.170]But I think what is important to note and be mindful of,
[00:24:46.390]but not be obsessed by is that there's a therapeutic aspect
[00:24:51.270]to farming that many farmer veterans
[00:24:54.190]call out as their interest.
[00:24:57.450]And that again goes across that whole spectrum
[00:25:00.080]from large-scale commercial
[00:25:02.200]to I wanna be a farmer sort of aspirants.
[00:25:06.920]And I say not to obsess about it
[00:25:10.370]because the degree of difficulty
[00:25:13.860]that any particular individual farmer veteran has
[00:25:18.000]in re-entering the community is the bigger problem.
[00:25:23.270]I'd like you not to think of, you know,
[00:25:26.658]the wounded veteran that we all see in the movies
[00:25:32.600]that comes back with severe problems
[00:25:36.700]of their self identity and all that.
[00:25:39.660]Just set that aside and think about
[00:25:42.150]what Haley Angler said to us
[00:25:43.930]when she was talking up here earlier.
[00:25:45.920]She talked about how she went away to college,
[00:25:48.580]and when she came back to her community,
[00:25:50.470]she had to rejoin the community
[00:25:53.860]because she didn't know everybody.
[00:25:55.890]And it took her three years
[00:25:57.230]and she had to make new connections.
[00:25:58.890]She's only gone for four years and she was born there
[00:26:00.860]for God's sakes.
[00:26:02.310]Okay, so a farmer veteran doing the same thing.
[00:26:05.610]They've been much farther away from that community
[00:26:10.250]than most of us can imagine.
[00:26:13.700]And I say that with hesitation
[00:26:19.590]and thinking about some of the conversations
[00:26:21.450]I've been privileged to have with farmer veterans
[00:26:23.880]saying just how far away they were
[00:26:27.220]and how farming helped them get back.
[00:26:29.960]And those are very emotional stories.
[00:26:31.830]It's not everybody,
[00:26:33.600]but farming has the capacity to have that therapeutic effect
[00:26:37.750]on all of us, speaking as a farmer, I like to do it.
[00:26:41.680]You know, it's kind of fun.
[00:26:42.650]I got to my hands in the ground
[00:26:44.160]and got to give flowers away.
[00:26:45.770]I mean, what's not to like.
[00:26:48.060]But for the farmer veteran coalition
[00:26:51.910]focuses on trying to establish that community,
[00:26:56.730]that sense of community
[00:26:58.360]where the veterans they're helping each other
[00:27:02.750]as agriculture, right?
[00:27:04.610]Farmer-veteran coalition,
[00:27:06.300]as the farmers help them re-enter the community
[00:27:09.400]that's the point.
[00:27:10.790]And it's probably the most significant programs
[00:27:14.230]as far as innovative programs would be something
[00:27:16.730]that doesn't sound very cool.
[00:27:18.510]And it's more like an assessment interview
[00:27:21.000]for when someone calls into the farmer-veteran coalition,
[00:27:23.500]they get somebody on the phone
[00:27:25.360]and that interview is an assessment of, so what you've got?
[00:27:27.910]It's like a conversational balance sheet and lender terms.
[00:27:30.950]What you got, what do you think?
[00:27:31.900]You know, you got talents, you got money, you got wounds?
[00:27:36.370]What do you need?
[00:27:38.030]What are your liabilities?
[00:27:39.840]Where can you go, what are the opportunities?
[00:27:41.630]And that kind of guarded thoughtful conversation
[00:27:48.120]is what we'd all like to have, all right.
[00:27:50.570]Go visit your minister or I don't know, whoever it is,
[00:27:53.550]your best buddy over a beer.
[00:27:55.610]We all like to have those conversations.
[00:27:57.720]That's how we welcome people back into our communities.
[00:28:01.040]And that's what the farmer veteran is trying to do
[00:28:03.380]specific two programs.
[00:28:06.360]One is the Fellowship Fund, which is since its inception,
[00:28:11.840]about 10 years ago has given away $3.5 million.
[00:28:15.621]Regranted it in instances of no more than $5,000.
[00:28:20.410]The application is essentially a business plan,
[00:28:22.874]really quick, really easy,
[00:28:24.920]but the idea is to focus people on business
[00:28:28.240]in the sense of what do I put in,
[00:28:31.100]what am I expecting to put in,
[00:28:32.230]and what do I expect to get out of this?
[00:28:33.910]It's that simple of a business plan.
[00:28:37.500]And then the Homegrown by Heroes label,
[00:28:41.500]which is something that a farmer veteran,
[00:28:44.990]particularly in direct-to-retail situation
[00:28:46.880]can use hanging on their farm stand.
[00:28:49.100]And they identify themselves as this is me
[00:28:53.130]without having to say, I don't know,
[00:28:56.067]"Hey, I'm a veteran you should buy from me,"
[00:28:57.830]but that's what that sign says.
[00:28:59.840]And it also says to everybody else in that community,
[00:29:04.225]you need maybe to ask me about what I've been through,
[00:29:08.950]or at least say, "Thank you for your service."
[00:29:11.050]It's a way to open up the community to that farmer,
[00:29:14.740]which in the end is the point
[00:29:17.100]of the farmer-veteran coalition is to help integrate
[00:29:19.740]those farmers into our agricultural community.
[00:29:22.350]That's great innovation.
[00:29:24.550]And, you know, as a veteran myself,
[00:29:26.870]just the complexity of the prolonged repeated cycles
[00:29:32.480]of deployment after deployment,
[00:29:36.410]those are innovative programs.
[00:29:37.540]So thanks.
[00:29:39.250]Allan, I'll flip over to you
[00:29:40.360]and then tip it over to the Glen here
[00:29:43.220]before we go to questions.
[00:29:45.400]So innovations, I think we heard a lot
[00:29:47.990]about the importance to communicate
[00:29:50.130]and you highlighted some of the really value-added programs
[00:29:54.460]that we heard about this morning,
[00:29:55.910]but are there innovations that extension is working
[00:30:01.780]with beginning farmers and ranchers,
[00:30:05.140]especially with this twist of succession planning
[00:30:08.680]and the next generation?
[00:30:11.860]Anything there you wanna share?
[00:30:14.130]I think I'm rethinking how to teach families
[00:30:18.040]about negotiation, because at the end of the day,
[00:30:23.050]however you're gonna get that farm transferred,
[00:30:24.650]you're gonna have to negotiate between the generations.
[00:30:27.380]And if we start working with our old generations, me, right?
[00:30:30.680]I'm part of that old generation,
[00:30:34.416]excuse me, most of us want to negotiate
[00:30:36.370]exactly the way we were taught.
[00:30:38.350]How are we taught by parents?
[00:30:40.360]You had to win.
[00:30:42.115]And so, you know, I remember going to the tractor dealer
[00:30:45.374]in Crete, Nebraska, and we haggled with that dealership rep
[00:30:50.700]for over two hours for over a hundred bucks.
[00:30:54.520]All right, this was in the late sixties, and I am that old.
[00:30:57.760]And it's that late sixties,
[00:30:59.174]and I get back in the truck with my dad and I said,
[00:31:02.534]"You just spent two hours working that guy over $100."
[00:31:07.000]And the dad looks at me and he goes,
[00:31:09.970]"So where else were we gonna make $50 an hour
[00:31:11.880]this afternoon?"
[00:31:12.959](panelist laugh)
[00:31:14.490]And if you know anything about the late sixties,
[00:31:15.840]that was big money, that was big.
[00:31:17.140]Sure.
[00:31:18.090]So what I try to get the older generation understand
[00:31:22.240]is that we can't go into family situations on transition
[00:31:25.570]and expect to win, 'cause then we've lost our family.
[00:31:29.160]And so a different way of thinking about this
[00:31:32.040]is we'd settle family first.
[00:31:34.770]Let's talk about how to win-win
[00:31:36.950]when we have negotiations or discussions about family,
[00:31:39.770]and let's figure out how we're gonna create more value.
[00:31:42.670]You know, I just recently worked with a family
[00:31:44.530]where the two brothers were trying to work with their father
[00:31:49.010]on how the land was gonna get transferred
[00:31:50.490]to the two brothers and one brother didn't farm,
[00:31:53.450]but one had access to land.
[00:31:56.290]So I asked a farming brother why?
[00:31:58.520]And he goes, "Well, because the off-farm brothers
[00:32:01.160]says, "I want to be able to hunt there.""
[00:32:03.720]I said, "Well, let's not have that break up the deal
[00:32:06.300]or break up the family,
[00:32:07.710]simply your best in getting that farm ground to you,
[00:32:11.850]and then make sure that that off-farm brother
[00:32:14.160]has an easement to go hunt there for the rest of his life.
[00:32:17.760]Let's see if that would appease the situation."
[00:32:21.623]So I'm trying to work with families
[00:32:22.850]and think of how families are thinking about
[00:32:24.240]how they could be creative
[00:32:25.140]and how they're gonna come up with a solution
[00:32:27.780]so that we're not having a win-win,
[00:32:29.630]I mean, a win-loss.
[00:32:31.000]We get more win-win going.
[00:32:31.833]So that nobody loses, right?
[00:32:36.720]Well, succession planning is so important
[00:32:40.470]and so important to coordinate with the lender as well,
[00:32:43.860]because the lender needs to kind of know that vision,
[00:32:47.030]that future plan for that family operation.
[00:32:50.690]If that younger generation sees that 160,
[00:32:55.470]that boy, you just can't quite turn down
[00:32:59.440]and in today's market, that's a huge decision.
[00:33:04.670]But if that lender knows
[00:33:06.470]that they've got the support of their family,
[00:33:10.250]and eventually that 15, 20 years down the road,
[00:33:14.100]that they are gonna come a new, further collateral,
[00:33:17.140]maybe unencumbered by debt,
[00:33:19.210]it does help in that decision.
[00:33:21.050]So, so important for business decisions,
[00:33:23.770]plus, I just can't imagine having a future
[00:33:29.000]unless you know, kind of where things,
[00:33:31.090]I mean, farming is so unpredictable.
[00:33:34.450]You know, we talked about mental health
[00:33:36.530]and I know when I went to Washington DC, people says,
[00:33:39.887]"Well, Jeez, how are you gonna deal with the stress there?"
[00:33:43.749]I say, "There's no stress.
[00:33:44.890]I've dealt with weather, I've dealt with pests,
[00:33:46.950]I've dealt with markets.
[00:33:49.060]This thing is a breeze in comparison."
[00:33:51.776]But the thing is there are things you can control is family
[00:33:55.500]and family relations.
[00:33:56.790]So it's so important, Allan, what you do.
[00:34:02.170]Great.
[00:34:03.100]Questions for the panelists here.
[00:34:05.210]Jesse.
[00:34:09.110]Keep talking, they'll find you.
[00:34:10.470]Okay, so this is great timing.
[00:34:12.560]The question is about family and it says,
[00:34:14.620]thanks for this conversation centering family first
[00:34:18.140]as mentioned earlier today.
[00:34:19.520]What further family therapy resources have been
[00:34:22.570]or can be integrated into lending programs?
[00:34:27.660]We need their lenders back up there, don't we?
[00:34:29.540]Yeah, so I'm not sure about lending programs,
[00:34:33.520]but do know that there are tons of great resources
[00:34:35.970]here in Nebraska for families
[00:34:38.020]that are dealing with conflict.
[00:34:39.370]And the first and foremost is the Rural Response hotline.
[00:34:42.920]And so if you need that phone number, please let me know.
[00:34:46.200]I've got a bunch of cards in my wallet
[00:34:48.610]that I'll hand out to you,
[00:34:50.720]but they hold legal and financial clinics once a month
[00:34:53.580]across the state where you can go in and work with them.
[00:34:57.310]The other would be to look at Nebraska mediators,
[00:35:01.050]which is a great resource
[00:35:02.280]that I think sometimes we just need a facilitator
[00:35:05.370]that can kind of step in
[00:35:07.190]and not worry about whose role is what
[00:35:09.810]or, you know, who sits where the at the kitchen table
[00:35:13.060]and can kind of break things down
[00:35:15.020]and really dig into what do you mean by that?
[00:35:18.200]And so I think that's really important as well.
[00:35:20.980]And then there are a ton of great lawyers
[00:35:22.750]across the state of Nebraska as well.
[00:35:25.000]I think Allan do you have?
[00:35:26.530]Well, I agree with all of what Jessica said,
[00:35:28.697]there are response hotline and the mediation clinics
[00:35:32.010]or the mediation services.
[00:35:34.270]But I would also say that, you know,
[00:35:36.060]in some cases we don't get that older generation
[00:35:38.830]to wanna share anything.
[00:35:39.904]The guy this morning that said the stubborn German
[00:35:42.610]that won't talk about anything.
[00:35:44.020]It also has to do even though like it's Czech, okay.
[00:35:47.910]It wasn't just the Germans,
[00:35:49.310]it was the Czech and the Polish,
[00:35:50.740]and it was everybody to move to Nebraska
[00:35:52.640]and the whole Midwest
[00:35:53.530]where none of that older generation wants to share anything.
[00:35:56.880]And the more important than that,
[00:35:59.080]understand that the older generation,
[00:36:01.120]especially if you're a boomer or older, it's about control.
[00:36:07.750]We don't wanna give up a farm,
[00:36:08.910]we don't wanna talk about transition
[00:36:10.050]because we can't give up control
[00:36:11.750]'cause it's been about control.
[00:36:13.360]It's always, I've been in charge, this is my place.
[00:36:18.510]By the way, younger generation,
[00:36:19.890]you haven't paid your dues yet.
[00:36:22.400]I don't care if you're 45 years old,
[00:36:24.090]you still haven't paid your dues.
[00:36:26.270]You know, I'm being stupid,
[00:36:29.780]but you know what I'm trying to say.
[00:36:31.087]And so we have to understand all those things
[00:36:33.720]and, you know, in order to make this work properly.
[00:36:35.990]And so sometimes with that older generation,
[00:36:38.250]you're not gonna get them to go to Joe and Dave
[00:36:40.900]on the on the Rural Response hotline,
[00:36:42.930]you're not gonna get him to go to mediator,
[00:36:44.650]but you could sure maybe find them their local banker
[00:36:47.000]that might help, or the local clergy that might help,
[00:36:49.920]or go to their spouse, or go to their best, best friends.
[00:36:53.970]You'll find somebody they might listen to
[00:36:55.990]and try and get them off that pedestal
[00:36:58.900]so that they can start working with their family
[00:37:00.910]and start breaking this down a little bit,
[00:37:02.440]because they don't tend to want to do that.
[00:37:04.700]That it's because it's about control,
[00:37:06.730]and because that's all you've ever known is to be in charge.
[00:37:10.620]But you have to come up with a transition plan.
[00:37:13.320]Listen, no farmer or rancher, it's not 0%.
[00:37:19.980]It's a very high percentage of farmers and ranchers
[00:37:21.640]who don't ever plan to retire.
[00:37:24.130]Do not try to embarrass them into thinking
[00:37:26.690]they need to retire.
[00:37:28.100]They're not gonna anyway, okay.
[00:37:30.640]But you can tell them this,
[00:37:32.907]"You're not gonna retire, I don't expect you to,
[00:37:34.490]I'm not asking you to, but you're all going to die."
[00:37:38.164]No nobody has been able to avoid the great demise.
[00:37:41.040]So what happens to your stuff when you're gone?
[00:37:44.720]That's the key question for transition.
[00:37:47.370]What happens to your stuff when you're gone?
[00:37:50.440]That's what we have to understand about the lesson.
[00:37:53.370]It's not, if you're going to retire, you're not,
[00:37:55.640]but what happens to your stuff?
[00:37:56.980]And let's decide now before there's a emergency or crisis,
[00:38:00.130]because families will make better decisions
[00:38:02.140]when there's not all this hysteria
[00:38:04.080]about somebody passing away or somebody's having cancer,
[00:38:06.830]or somebody having a stroke.
[00:38:08.586]Let's decide when everything's peaceful
[00:38:11.400]and we can kind of come up with clear plans
[00:38:13.340]on what should happen.
[00:38:14.420]Let's do it before there's a crisis.
[00:38:16.420]Sorry, I went on too long.
[00:38:17.410]No, that's okay.
[00:38:18.350]It makes me want to grab another cookie, though.
[00:38:20.780]We're all going to die.
[00:38:22.183](panelist laughing)
[00:38:24.270]I just gotta say it, Allan.
[00:38:27.749]You know, one thing, a different twist on this conversation.
[00:38:31.330]When I first got here, I was taking a state tour
[00:38:34.080]and I visited a ranch that was bequeath to the university.
[00:38:38.870]It's called the Barta Brothers Ranch,
[00:38:40.840]just a little west of Rose, Nebraska, south of Long Pine,
[00:38:45.900]two ranches about 5,200 acres.
[00:38:48.160]And they've been in our portfolio for a while
[00:38:51.490]and I was talking with the ranch advisory group.
[00:38:54.410]And I learned that we had a failed search
[00:38:59.110]for the manager of the Barta Brothers Ranch twice.
[00:39:03.140]So it got me thinking, saying, you know,
[00:39:05.180]I just come out of a Beginning Young Rancher symposium.
[00:39:09.570]And my point was that
[00:39:11.190]maybe we were going about it the wrong way.
[00:39:13.890]Maybe really what we needed to do was to build a house
[00:39:17.480]for a family of four, find a beginning rancher
[00:39:22.230]who was running her cattle
[00:39:24.160]and needed a place to go from 20 cows to 100 cows.
[00:39:27.910]So she wasn't getting penalized
[00:39:30.480]by paying higher insurance premiums and so forth.
[00:39:34.630]And I didn't even finish.
[00:39:37.140]And one of the old timers, Mike just basically said,
[00:39:41.227]"You know what, I don't have anybody.
[00:39:42.920]I'd be happy to transition my ranch in a win-win kind of way
[00:39:47.840]to that family."
[00:39:49.240]So flash forward, today sitting up
[00:39:52.510]on the Barta Brothers property,
[00:39:54.710]we have a house that we got through government surplus
[00:39:58.340]from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service three miles away
[00:40:01.110]who was looking to get rid of a house.
[00:40:03.090]We moved it, picked it up, somebody transported it over.
[00:40:06.080]We're building the foundation.
[00:40:07.830]And this spring, we're actually going to put out
[00:40:11.000]an advertisement for a manager of the facility,
[00:40:14.890]one ranch at a time.
[00:40:16.380]And so, you know, we have 40,000 acres of ground
[00:40:19.830]at the university.
[00:40:21.050]And I think in Nebraska, if you did that one time,
[00:40:24.970]you really make a difference.
[00:40:26.290]And so innovation trying to think about ways
[00:40:30.700]and I'm offline and unplugged.
[00:40:33.830]There we go.
[00:40:34.663]Innovation, well, that was a heck of a story to waste.
[00:40:38.429](panelist laughing)
[00:40:40.640]Yeah, that's good.
[00:40:41.740]So I just throw those kinds of ideas out there,
[00:40:45.029]because there is this linkage between generations
[00:40:50.190]and back to your point, it's the stuff.
[00:40:53.250]People do care about the stuff, they care about the land,
[00:40:57.390]they care about the way of life in rural Nebraska.
[00:41:00.920]And I think we need to push the envelope on those.
[00:41:03.710]So if you know of anyone,
[00:41:05.840]or if somebody in here is looking
[00:41:07.410]for that kind of opportunity, you know, please reach out.
[00:41:10.770]Other questions?
[00:41:11.960]Yes.
[00:41:13.610]So I'm looking to return
[00:41:15.120]to our family farm near Friend, Nebraska,
[00:41:18.080]and I have an older brother that's back
[00:41:20.540]and my dad's still involved in the business.
[00:41:22.730]So we have been looking at possible expansion opportunities
[00:41:25.960]outside of the family, some older farmers in the area.
[00:41:29.500]I was just curious what advice you might have
[00:41:32.630]as to approaching those conversations
[00:41:34.830]with some of those farmers
[00:41:36.390]and how you'd kinda go about that.
[00:41:39.820]Well, it's important to try and do it.
[00:41:42.590]I don't have any great advice on how to get that done
[00:41:45.040]because it kind of depends
[00:41:46.040]on what personality you working with,
[00:41:47.470]and how they tend to visit with people.
[00:41:49.880]But I wouldn't go in there and just start talking to them
[00:41:52.630]about taking over what their plans are for their operation
[00:41:57.610]or like that, I wouldn't probably start that way.
[00:41:59.290]I'd probably start talking about almost anything else.
[00:42:03.800]It used to be,
[00:42:04.633]you could always talk about Nebraska football.
[00:42:05.810]That's not such a great topic anymore necessarily
[00:42:07.900]but you know, we're gonna keep our coach for another year,
[00:42:11.770]I just read that headline.
[00:42:12.820]So, hey, it's all good.
[00:42:14.430]The point is you have to find something to talk about.
[00:42:18.120]Weather always works, their kids, their family,
[00:42:21.960]you probably grew up with them.
[00:42:22.970]You probably know some of their kids, some of their family,
[00:42:24.920]that sort of thing, the relatives,
[00:42:27.135]how's everybody, how's Joe doing, how's Sally doing,
[00:42:29.680]what's happening there?
[00:42:30.810]And don't even bring up taking over their operation
[00:42:33.430]the first time you visit with them,
[00:42:34.590]but go back a second and third and fourth time,
[00:42:36.970]and really kind of established that relationship
[00:42:39.250]and then maybe get around to finding out
[00:42:41.470]what are your plans for your operation?
[00:42:44.373]My big deal with the Land Link is to try and help families
[00:42:47.540]like what you just described out.
[00:42:50.480]I'm trying to help out.
[00:42:51.850]Right now, Jessica knows better than I maybe,
[00:42:55.560]but we have about 140 or 150 land seekers in the system
[00:42:58.900]and about a handful of land owners.
[00:43:01.160]And so I gotta get more people that are willing to say,
[00:43:04.587]"Hey, I don't have anybody coming back to my operation,
[00:43:06.860]but I would sure like to have it
[00:43:09.090]continue as its own operation
[00:43:10.750]rather than being sucked up by everybody else
[00:43:12.640]in the neighborhood.
[00:43:13.620]And so what can I do?"
[00:43:14.810]Well, let's have them get into the Land Link program
[00:43:16.830]as a land owner and we'll try and match them up
[00:43:18.980]with people like yourself
[00:43:20.880]that are trying to expand their operations.
[00:43:22.710]That's what we're trying to do with Land Link.
[00:43:24.800]But, you know, you just have to establish a conversation
[00:43:27.584]or have your dad established a conversation
[00:43:30.180]with that neighbor, somebody,
[00:43:32.010]whoever knows him the best and then kind of feel them out,
[00:43:34.730]what are they willing to do?
[00:43:36.443]I think one.
[00:43:38.050]Yeah, go ahead.
[00:43:39.250]Sorry, I think one thing that young producers don't do
[00:43:42.390]is they don't go to the coffee shop anymore.
[00:43:45.140]And you know, I laugh in my job.
[00:43:48.100]I think it's really important as an extension educator.
[00:43:50.400]And sometimes I'll just go and sit
[00:43:52.120]even at the next table over.
[00:43:54.650]My guys meet at McDonald's by the way.
[00:43:56.910]And so I go to McDonald's and I just sit there
[00:43:59.410]and I just listened to the old guys
[00:44:01.230]BS about whatever the news of the day is.
[00:44:05.120]And eventually they'll invite you over to the table
[00:44:08.040]and I think that's really important.
[00:44:10.010]And then in my mind, it's about getting them on your terms.
[00:44:14.780]You know, get them in your pickup and go for a drive.
[00:44:17.820]And then as we've talked about Land Link,
[00:44:20.560]I think one thing that I've learned is that
[00:44:22.810]the best place to start
[00:44:24.160]is with a short-term lease agreement.
[00:44:27.490]I mean, don't go whole hog, right?
[00:44:30.190]But start with the lease agreement, hey, you know,
[00:44:32.610]or start with custom farming for them
[00:44:35.220]or doing something like that.
[00:44:36.810]You know, I heard you wanted to put some cover crops in,
[00:44:39.780]you know, I've got a drill.
[00:44:41.280]You know, is that something we could do for each other?
[00:44:43.630]And that starts to forge that relationship in that respect.
[00:44:46.890]And I think it's something that we as younger farmers,
[00:44:50.260]we're caught up in the rat race to some extent, right?
[00:44:53.550]When you're in your thirties and your forties,
[00:44:55.410]you've got kids, you've got a family,
[00:44:57.040]you're trying not to miss all the soccer games
[00:45:00.870]and stuff like your dad did.
[00:45:02.530]And so you're trying to balance all this stuff.
[00:45:05.110]And sometimes it's that slow down
[00:45:07.840]and that back to the community
[00:45:10.720]that really improves those relationships.
[00:45:13.730]And all of a sudden your name starts to come up more
[00:45:16.120]when it comes time for a farm to lease
[00:45:18.620]or when something's going on.
[00:45:20.430]And so I think that's also really important
[00:45:22.500]is reconnecting with some of those like rural traditions
[00:45:27.491]that make rural community so cool and so important.
[00:45:33.280]What I would suggest to you is to be able
[00:45:36.720]to express the vision of what you want to accomplish,
[00:45:39.420]think strategically rather than tactically.
[00:45:42.470]The leasing, you know, a quarter section
[00:45:45.340]or something like that is a great tactic to accomplish,
[00:45:48.860]but that riding the pickup,
[00:45:51.370]what Jessica was saying that as I interpret it
[00:45:54.570]is that's when you get to present your vision,
[00:45:57.050]which by the way,
[00:45:57.883]you should be able to say to your lender also, right?
[00:46:00.620]You know, here's what I'd like to accomplish.
[00:46:02.810]I wanna be this kind of farmer, not acres,
[00:46:05.470]not horsepower of tractors, not number of cattle.
[00:46:08.190]I wanna be this kind of farmer.
[00:46:10.260]I wanna be this in my community.
[00:46:12.590]I wanna be a sustainable, regenerative, organic,
[00:46:17.830]whatever it is that you can type yourself as
[00:46:21.990]to be able to describe what you'd like to accomplish.
[00:46:24.760]That's what's compelling I think,
[00:46:27.560]to be able to say that,
[00:46:28.940]and then turn that into a 45 second elevator speech,
[00:46:32.030]and you got it with your lender.
[00:46:33.360]Well, this is like the voice
[00:46:34.570]because all four chairs are turning
[00:46:37.390]Larry Van Tassel would like also to comment on it.
[00:46:39.920]I would just like to add to what Jessica
[00:46:42.920]and also Gary said there.
[00:46:45.000]Take that to them and ask for advice on how to do it.
[00:46:48.920]There you go.
[00:46:50.180]That's a greatest way to get somebody
[00:46:52.860]to feel good about your conversations
[00:46:55.920]if you're asking them for advice and how they did this,
[00:46:58.700]or this is what I wanna be, how did you get to be that way?
[00:47:03.020]Those types of things.
[00:47:04.100]It appeals to their pride and they'll think,
[00:47:08.017]"Hey, this kid's pretty smart if they're asking me."
[00:47:11.990]There you go.
[00:47:12.930]Senator Clements, thanks for being here first and foremost.
[00:47:17.490]Thank you.
[00:47:18.554]I'm a small town banker.
[00:47:20.830]Rob Clements is my name from Elmwood in Cass County.
[00:47:24.630]And regarding succession, Mr. Vyhnalek,
[00:47:28.770]how do you plan to limit inheritance tax
[00:47:32.040]for landowners with no children.
[00:47:36.200]Inheritance tax for landowners with no children.
[00:47:41.240]Okay, so I happen to have children,
[00:47:44.500]so the farm that I happen to own is gonna go to my children
[00:47:47.560]and they'll pay a 1% inheritance tax.
[00:47:50.220]If I don't have children, but I have nieces and nephews,
[00:47:54.170]they exclude it's about $15,000,
[00:47:57.320]and then they have to pay a 13% inheritance tax
[00:47:59.890]to nieces and nephews, if I remember right.
[00:48:02.490]And then if I don't have your niece and nephew in Nebraska,
[00:48:06.130]nothing happen in Iowa.
[00:48:07.710]But if I don't have nieces and nephews
[00:48:09.700]and I'm just going to give it to somebody else, right?
[00:48:12.360]It's an inheritance,
[00:48:13.940]they will pay an 18% tax on inheritance tax.
[00:48:18.150]The inheritance tax as I've talked to lawyers
[00:48:20.170]is the one tax that we've not been able to avoid.
[00:48:24.000]You just get to pay it.
[00:48:25.780]I don't know how to limit inheritance tax.
[00:48:27.730]Is that what you're really asking about
[00:48:29.090]or are you asking about something else?
[00:48:31.161]Yes. Okay.
[00:48:32.860]I know how to avoid it.
[00:48:34.210]I mean, I don't live here.
[00:48:35.490]I live in one of those little states up
[00:48:37.130]in the upper right-hand corner of the country.
[00:48:39.390]We eliminated the inheritance tax.
[00:48:41.400]It makes these conversations a whole lot easier
[00:48:44.160]because you're not trying to dodge bullets
[00:48:45.860]that by the way, change every once in a while,
[00:48:48.150]and you don't know where it's coming from.
[00:48:49.500]So if you're a state Senator,
[00:48:52.270]if it's improper to lobby from the stage to you,
[00:48:57.010]get rid of the inheritance tax.
[00:48:58.790]But you gotta be careful about that
[00:49:00.360]because in Nebraska, the inheritance tax
[00:49:02.960]goes into the county where the property was owned.
[00:49:05.930]So in Cass county where the senator is from
[00:49:09.820]the inheritance tax to go to the Cass County supervisors
[00:49:12.900]or commissioners, whatever you have,
[00:49:16.010]and they put it in its own separate fund
[00:49:17.690]and they can use it as kind of a rainy day thing, okay.
[00:49:21.130]And they loved that because when you had things like 2000
[00:49:24.064]and whenever we had the flood was at 19,
[00:49:27.440]we had a whole bunch of roads and bridges wash out
[00:49:29.640]and we lost gravel and everything else.
[00:49:31.110]Where did those county commissioners and supervisors
[00:49:33.140]get money to re-gravel roads and put in new bridges?
[00:49:36.020]Quite a bit of it came from the Inheritance Fund
[00:49:38.550]and they didn't have to raise taxes.
[00:49:40.370]So it's kind of a balancing act.
[00:49:42.420]I'm not advocating or saying not to have it,
[00:49:46.430]I'm just saying you're not gonna avoid
[00:49:48.897]inheritance tax necessarily.
[00:49:50.680]The way to avoid it is not have it inherited,
[00:49:53.380]but to gift it away, to like, you know,
[00:49:56.305]through a community fund,
[00:49:57.560]through the Nebraska Community Foundation
[00:49:59.020]or something like that,
[00:49:59.960]you'd have to just not give it as an inheritance
[00:50:03.320]actually gift it to an entity, if you will,
[00:50:06.400]that's how you'd avoid it.
[00:50:07.820]I'd like to twist that conversation a little bit.
[00:50:10.330]And I think one thing that does do those
[00:50:13.300]because it is lower to direct descendants,
[00:50:17.080]we see folks wanting to pass farm ground to children,
[00:50:20.780]even if those children have no intent of ever farming
[00:50:24.160]or ranching.
[00:50:25.400]And one thing I wanna stress is that land access
[00:50:28.680]for new and beginning farmers
[00:50:30.040]does not necessarily mean ownership.
[00:50:34.040]And so I think that's really kind of an interesting thing.
[00:50:36.790]Again, as we've worked through the Land Link program is,
[00:50:40.010]you know, as we talk to some of these land owners,
[00:50:42.550]they'll say, "Well, the farm is still going to my kids."
[00:50:46.240]And I say or we've asked, "Would you be willing
[00:50:50.740]to allow for a long-term lease agreement?
[00:50:53.440]Would you be willing to allow for,
[00:50:56.000]if at some point your children want to sell that operation
[00:50:59.600]to give a first right of offer, first right of refusal?"
[00:51:02.730]So I think there are ways that
[00:51:04.170]even if it does go through a traditional succession
[00:51:08.300]into a non-farming child,
[00:51:11.410]that we can still provide opportunities
[00:51:13.630]for new and beginning farmers
[00:51:15.550]through creative legal agreements essentially
[00:51:20.030]that would still provide new and beginning farmers
[00:51:22.450]land access.
[00:51:23.910]And so I think that's one of the challenges that we face
[00:51:26.410]with Land Link is a lot of them think,
[00:51:28.160]oh, you just want me to hand it to somebody else
[00:51:30.110]and pay inheritance tax.
[00:51:32.540]Not necessarily,
[00:51:33.700]we're looking for those creative opportunities
[00:51:35.700]and to help you think through that process
[00:51:38.150]of providing new and beginning farmers a shot.
[00:51:41.870]Michael.
[00:51:45.440]Just keep talking.
[00:51:46.400]Michael Lechner from Norfolk, Nebraska.
[00:51:49.010]I've enjoyed these young men here sitting today
[00:51:51.830]and something we didn't touch base on.
[00:51:53.860]And I always say the biggest changes
[00:51:56.490]a lot of times in young people is when you get married
[00:51:59.490]and when you have kids,
[00:52:00.690]and always put a pun in there,
[00:52:01.780]one may become before the other, choose wisely.
[00:52:06.060]But the biggest thing, if you're gonna keep that farm going
[00:52:08.520]and you alluded to it a little bit is divorce.
[00:52:12.200]If you ever get a divorce, it's gone.
[00:52:14.810]And I got an odd combination degrees.
[00:52:16.570]Yes, I got this master's in ag,
[00:52:18.050]but I also got a master's in counseling.
[00:52:20.340]And that was what my master's paper was on
[00:52:22.990]in the counseling degree.
[00:52:25.360]It's been a good program, just a comment, though.
[00:52:27.410]Yeah, keep it together, kids.
[00:52:30.290]Thank you.
[00:52:33.270]Any last questions from the audience?
[00:52:36.250]We have one more question
[00:52:38.230]from our online participants.
[00:52:40.120]Can anybody speak to programs that are looking at
[00:52:44.310]or supporting indigenous land rights?
[00:52:50.340]Yes.
[00:52:51.350]Go.
[00:52:52.310]Okay, who knew, huh?
[00:52:53.880]Part of the beginning farmer universe that I deal with
[00:52:57.810]as far as remember N for new
[00:53:00.770]is to help tribal members enter into agriculture,
[00:53:05.390]the agricultural community that we've been talking about.
[00:53:08.592]And chairman Smith and the FCA staff that are here
[00:53:13.770]many of them were in a meeting a couple of years ago
[00:53:18.090]with some national leaders from tribes
[00:53:21.850]talking about an innovative way
[00:53:24.760]to get beyond the obstacle that tribal members face,
[00:53:29.760]which is securing a mortgage without owning the land
[00:53:33.260]if that land is held in trust by the tribe.
[00:53:37.850]There are ways to get to accommodate that
[00:53:42.480]through the Bureau of Indian Affairs
[00:53:43.960]and getting a release.
[00:53:45.480]It's very time consuming, it can take years.
[00:53:48.790]It's not very effective if you're looking to use that land
[00:53:51.880]to borrow money.
[00:53:53.010]So you can put cattle on the ground in the spring,
[00:53:55.530]for instance.
[00:53:57.320]The innovative approach, just to give you a detail.
[00:54:00.740]So now that you have this idea of which can be used
[00:54:02.990]in a lot of different places,
[00:54:04.820]was to obviate the need for any kind of release of trust.
[00:54:09.880]By having a private loan guarantee,
[00:54:12.700]essentially fund a third party institution
[00:54:18.640]that would put a guarantee like FSA does on a loan
[00:54:23.720]to 90% of whatever percentage of that loan might be
[00:54:27.360]that's made to a tribal member on tribal land or trust land,
[00:54:32.670]so that in the event that there's a default,
[00:54:35.750]that loan is automatically sold back to the tribe.
[00:54:38.910]The tribe administers any kind of collection
[00:54:42.840]because they're the only ones in that nation
[00:54:45.250]that have the ability to do that kind of intrusive work
[00:54:49.840]as far as reclaiming collateral
[00:54:51.870]that an outside lender cannot.
[00:54:54.960]And they are then responsible for the disposition
[00:54:58.320]of the property and the loan.
[00:55:00.160]The loan is sold so that that lender who's made the loan
[00:55:03.500]with the guarantee is no longer responsible
[00:55:06.140]either for the administration
[00:55:07.440]or the dollar amount of that loan, solved the problem.
[00:55:12.850]Almost as easy as getting rid of inheritance taxes.
[00:55:15.700]Almost.
[00:55:17.900]It didn't work, and I point that out.
[00:55:19.760]We haven't done it yet.
[00:55:21.180]This is in the world of getting many different institutions
[00:55:24.930]to collaborate, whether it's tribes
[00:55:26.910]or Farm Credit system institutions, we're working on it.
[00:55:30.810]But I just want to assure whoever is out there
[00:55:33.700]asking the question that there are people thinking
[00:55:36.130]at a systemic level of this kind of creating opportunities
[00:55:41.160]for tribal members to fully participate in agriculture.
[00:55:45.950]Thank you to the person streaming online
[00:55:49.030]for that question.
[00:55:49.940]And with that, would you join me
[00:55:52.080]in thanking our fourth group of panelists for today?
[00:55:55.132](audience applauding)

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Young, Beginning and Small Farmers Symposium innovative approaches panel

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