neighbors Saturday, 2.1.14 PRESS DAKOTAN News...

Saturday, 2.1.14ON THE WEB: www.yankton.net

NEWSROOM: News@yankton.netPRESS DAKOTANP A G E 4

neighbors

AXA Advisors, LLC877-244-2380

DavidJanssen

You’ve left big shoes to fi ll!

Congratulations to Tom Cihak on over 50 years of

service to your clients and community.

No-Till, Cover Crops Workshop SlatedNORFOLK, Neb. — The No-Till, Cover Crops and Planned

Grazing Educational Workshop will be held Wednesday, Feb.12, from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m., at the Lifelong Learning Center lo-cated on the campus of Northeast Community College in Nor-folk, Neb. This workshop will provide the opportunity forproducers to hear and ask questions about various aspects oftheir farming and livestock operations.

The featured speaker will be Gabe Brown of Bismarck, N.D.Brown has been practicing continuous no-till crop farming,cover crops and livestock grazing on 5,000 acres near Bis-marck since 1993.

Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) no-till spe-cialist Dan Gillespie said, “Gabe Brown will be a great additionto our agenda this year. We are looking forward to the work-shop and we hope that many of our area producers can attendand learn about some of our ideas for the future.”

Workshop topics will include: Holistic Regeneration of ourLands; No-till and Diversity of Crop Types; Cover Crops: TheNext Level in Continuous No-till; Soil Biology; ProducingHuman Nutrition; and Designing a Cover Crop Mix to AddressYour Resource Concerns.

The educational workshop is free to the public. Bring otherinterested producers with you.

Attendees are asked to RSVP for the meal by Friday, Feb. 7.Lunch will be provided by the Lower Elkhorn Natural Re-source District (LENRD). To RSVP, or if you have any ques-tions, please call your local NRCS office or call the LENRD at402-371-7313.

This workshop is sponsored by the Natural Resources Con-servation Service and the Lower Elkhorn Natural ResourcesDistrict.

AgriVisiions Event Set For Feb. 10First Dakota National Bank will host AgriVisions 2014, fea-

turing Dr. Jason Henderson, at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 10, at BestWestern Kelly Inn, 1607 East Highway 50, Yankton. Farmers,Agri-Business professionals and business owners are invitedto attend.

Henderson is an Associate Dean in the College of Agricul-ture at Purdue University and Director of Purdue Extension.Prior to being named Director of Extension, Henderson servedas Vice President and Omaha Branch Executive at the FederalReserve Bank of Kansas City. He is a nationally recognized ex-pert in agricultural and rural issues. He has published morethan 60 research articles in academic and Federal Reservepublications on topics such as land values, entrepreneurship,demographics, the growth of knowledge-based activity in ruralAmerica, the use of electronic commerce in agricultural indus-tries and the growth of value-added food manufacturing activ-ity.

Nate Franzen, First Dakota’s Agri-Business Division Presi-dent, states, “Mark Feb. 10 on your calendar and plan to at-tend AgriVisions 2014. Dr. Jason Henderson knows the ins andouts of land values, demographics and growth of value-addedfood manufacturing. His extensive knowledge and understand-ing of the agriculture will enlighten and entertain. Plan to joinus at AgriVisions 2014.”

AgriVisions 2014 begins with registration from 6:30-7 p.m.and Henderson’s presentation at 7 p.m. To reserve a seat, call605-665-4904 or 800-657-5826.

Beginning Farmers Institute SlatedWASHINGTON — National Farmers Union (NFU) is now ac-

cepting applications for its 2014 Beginning Farmers Institute(BFI) program. The annual program, now accepting its fourthclass of students, is open to individuals who are new to farm-ing, are in the process of transferring an operation from a rela-tive or non-relative to themselves, or are contemplating acareer in farming or ranching.

“The Beginning Farmers Institute underscores NFU’s com-mitment to growing a new generation of family agriculture,”said NFU President Roger Johnson. “One unique feature of theInstitute is that participants direct the agenda, allowing themto gain information on topics that will be most relevant totheir particular operations. The small size and diversity of thegroup also ensures valuable interaction and learning opportu-nities among the participants.”

The BFI program helps students gain insight and practicalskills needed by beginning farmers and ranchers, includingbusiness plan writing, financial planning and researching avail-able programs to help starting up and sustaining a successfuloperation. Applicants accepted into the 2014 program will at-tend three separate education sessions. One will be in Wash-ington, D.C., one in Minneapolis and a final sessionculminating at NFU’s annual Convention in March 2015 in Wi-chita, Kan. Program topics at the education sessions will in-clude business planning, U.S. Department of Agricultureprograms, tax and record keeping, estate transfer and market-ing. The Beginning Farmers Institute is supported by the FUIFoundation, Farm Credit, CHS Foundation and the NFU Foun-dation. Interested applicants can download the 2014 applica-tion on the NFU website, as well as visit NFU’s educationFacebook page for updates and further information on NFU’syouth and young adult education programs. Applicationsmust be postmarked on or before Feb. 20, 2014.

BY RITA BRHELP&D Correspondent

Owning a successful farm businessmeans making sure the cash coming inneeds to outweigh the money going out.But expanding into new ventures in adiversified operation often means risk-ing some of the farm’s financial securityand making smart decisions about whatis worth the risk.

Erin Wilson grew up on a dairy farmin northeast Iowa before she moved toher new husband’s multi-generationaldiversified livestock and crop operationnear Paulina, Iowa. Now she’s learninghow balance the budget with not just adairy but also beef cattle, sheep, hogs,poultry, corn, soybeans, small grainsand hay sold through both direct-mar-ket avenues and conventional marketoptions.

“The record-keeping part we havedown,” Wilson said. “We have sheet andsheet and sheet of paper. It’s going backthrough and pulling out the correctnumber, looking back over the recordsand dividing it out between the sheep,dairy and pigs that’s the problem.”

With so much going on all the time,she often wonders if there’s an easierway to analyze the farm finances sothey can figure out if an enterprise isn’tworking so well for them and should becut out or if there is another enterprisethat could be improved and how. Shehas explored financial managementcourses through Holistic Management,the PFI Savings Incentive Program, theMOSES Fearless Farm Finance, AgPlan,Ag Transitions and FINPACK. While Ho-listic Management improved her overallfarm management skills, Wilson saidthe best financial management tool sheworked with was FINPACK, which is likeQuicken for diversified farm operations.

Al Brudelie, who farms corn and soy-beans near Lewisville, Minn., consultswith fellow producers in farm businessplanning and says FINPACK is probablythe best tool for diversified operations.

“It answers the questions: Where amI? Where do I want to be? How can I getthere?” he said.

The initial step in farm financialplanning is creating a balance sheet ofinputs and outputs, assets and liabili-ties, and net worth based on farmrecords.

“A balance sheet is basically a snap-shot of your financial health,” Brudeliesaid. “Basically you want to see what’sleft in your pocket.”

Wilson agreed that the balancesheet is what helped her get groundedwith what was going on on the farm: “Abalance sheet is something that is easyto work with, easy to add to and easy toread.”

From the balance sheet, the pro-ducer can create accurate crop andlivestock budgets from actual farm datafound in farm records, rather than an

estimate from farms in the area such asis often found in a university guide.Then programs like FINPACK havespreadsheet and calculators that canturn this data into long-range, monthlyand annual plans as well as alternativestrategies.

“Say you want to add 10 acres ofgrapes,” Brudelie said. “Is this changein my business going to be feasible? Is itgoing to work? That’s what it’s allabout.”

To get to this point, producers needto know their farm business inside andout, not only on what’s being spentwhere and last year’s income, but alsohistorical yields, production levels andinput levels as well as long-range plan-ning prices. The end result is a com-plete picture of the farm’s profitability,including return to labor, management

and owner equity; liquidity, meaningthe farm’s ability to meet financial obli-gations such as bank loans; and sol-vency, which is what the producerowns and owes, and total owner equity.

“If you come to the bank with this in-formation completed, they’ll give you abetter rate on your operating loan be-cause they know that you know youroperation,” Brudelie said. “You talkabout value to your banker.”

But he cautions farmers not to movetoo fast on creating their financial plan,because frankly, it is a lot of work andcomplex.

“Don’t try to do everything that firstyear,” Brudelie said. “Start with a bal-ance sheet that first year and then workforward.”

Always Shine A LightTools Available

To Help AnalyzeFarm Finances

PHOTO: RITA BRHEL

BROOKINGS — On-farmcorn stocks in South Dakota,Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraskaare up 18.6 percent from 2012.

Looking at the four states,corn grain stocks stored in allpositions on December 1, 2013totaled 4.7 billion bushels, up15.7 percent from December 1,2012. Stocks stored in all posi-tions by state are SouthDakota; 0.644 billion bushels,Nebraska; 1.25 billion bushels,Minnesota; 1.06 billionbushels, and Iowa; 1.74 billionbushels. On farm stocks are;410 million bushels SouthDakota, 760 million bushelsNebraska, 760 million bushelsalso in Minnesota, and 1.07 bil-lion bushels in Iowa. (Figure 1:Four State Grain Stocks Com-parison by Position).

Minnesota’s December 1,2013 all stocks are down 89million bushels from 2012. TheGrain Stocks report is avail-able athttp://usda01.library.cornell.edu/usda/current/GraiStoc/GraiStoc-01-10-2014.pdf/.

What does this mean toSouth Dakota crop producers?

Based on this information,Jack Davis, SDSU ExtensionCrops Business ManagementField Specialist said producersholding unpriced corn stockswill want to develop an exit

strategy for those bushels.“One example is the stor-

age hedge and taking advan-tage of improving basis,” Davissaid. He shares an example ofhow a storage hedge works. “AJuly futures contract at $4.39is offering $0.15 carry over theMarch futures contract. Cur-rently, basis in East CentralSouth Dakota is close to thefive year average (-$0.46 underthe March contract). The fiveyear average narrows to -$0.23under in mid-June; by sellingthe carry and basis improve-

ment, this storage hedge ex-ample is offering $0.38 ($0.15carry plus $0.23 basis im-provement) less storage costs.Producers will want to evalu-ate their storage costs, carryin futures market and the po-tential for basis improvementat their delivery locations.”

For more marketing infor-mation, visit iGrow.org. SouthDakota basis information isavailable athttp://igrow.org/agronomy/profit-tips/.

Retirement Reception

Tom CihakCihak Insurance

Sunday, February 91:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Hillcrest Golf & Country ClubYankton, SD

“Thank you for the support and patronage given to Cihak Insurance over the last 50 plus years. Linda Behl and David Janssen have worked with me for some time and will be taking over my business. I feel very comfortable that my clients will be well taken care of.” -Tom

The New Team

Health InsuranceLinda Behl, LBcihak insurance311 Walnut (Cihak Insurance Building)Yankton, SD 57078605-665-9393

AXA Equitable Accounts, Life Insurance, Long Term Care and InvestmentsDavid Janssen, AXA Advisors, LLC.1111 N. 102nd Court, Suite 100Omaha, NE 68114877-244-2380

On-Farm Corn Grain Stocks Up From Year Ago